Starsky & Hutch - Fanlore

Starsky & Hutch

Name: Starsky & Hutch
Abbreviation(s): SH
Creator: William Blinn
Date(s): 1975-1979
Medium: television series
Country of Origin: US
External Links: IMDB
Subpages for Starsky & Hutch:

Fanzines · Starsky/Hutch


Click here for other articles related to this fandom on Fanlore.

Starsky and Hutch is a crime drama about two police detectives and partners, classic buddy cops. The show had themes of partnership, hurt/comfort, and homoerotic undertones strong enough that even mainstream critics noticed; the fandom takes these elements and runs with them.

Show synopsis

Detective Sergeant David Michael Starsky (played by Paul Michael Glaser) and Kenneth Richard "Hutch" Hutchinson (played by David Soul) are cops in Bay City, working Homicide, often doing undercover work. Rounding out the main cast were Captain Harold Dobey (played by Bernie Hamilton) and their informant and friend Huggy Bear (played by Antonio Fargas).

Riding around in Starsky's red Torino, Starsky and Hutch are the most conspicuous undercover cops you’ll ever meet. Many episodes had darker elements amid the comedic tones, and it was often said to be the most graphic and realistic show of its time due to the issues it dealt with--racism, rape, and drug abuse (Hutch even got hooked on heroin in one episode). The women of the show didn't last long, almost always ending up raped, killed, or scared away by the gritty reality of the job; sometimes all three.

Contents

The main emotional focus of the show was the relationship of the two leads, with many of the stories centering around the love, the devotion, the caring between these two partners and best friends (and possibly more). According to fans, Merv Griffin said something to David Soul about Starsky & Hutch being a cop show, and it is said that Soul replied, it's not a cop show, "a love story about two men who happen to be cops."

In 2004 the show was remade as a movie starring the comedy duo of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, a pastiche playing mostly on the camp '70s aspects of the TV show. The TV show was released on DVD along with the movie's release, helping it gain exposure among a new generation of fans.

Starsky and Hutch Fandom

The Starsky and Hutch fandom is ongoing and has managed to sustain itself for more than thirty years. In the '80s and '90s, SH fandom never got as big as Trek (and S/H never got as big as K/S), but it was a major fandom with an extensive zine culture. (The SH zine tagging project lists over 500 zines.) Most stories in the fandom are slash or else gen smarm; 99% of them are firmly focused on the relationship between Starsky and Hutch.

Fanfiction Archives/Lists

Conventions/Awards

Staring in 1979, Zebracon was for years the main Starsky & Hutch fan run convention. As more and more fans migrated to other fandoms, Zebracon branched out into other 'partnership' cop/spy/science fiction showslost, but Starsky & Hutch remained an important focus.

Other Starsky & Hutch conventions:

Awards:

Fanart

Like other early fandoms, most S&H fanartists did illustrations and covers for zines, as well as some standalone art destined for art shows at conventions. Early(-ish) artists included Suzan Lovett, Warren Oddsson, Jean Kluge... [needs more!]

In 2009, a new online fanart archive opened: Still Life, to gather online S&H gen and slash art in one place.

Vids

[vid stuff here -- The Rose, other early vids, notable vids, current vidding trends]

Zines

Fiction zines

The SH zine tagging project lists over 500 zines for this fandom. Many zine stories are now available online. A complete of fanzines on Fanlore is here Starsky & Hutch/Fanzines.

The S&H Lending Library, started around 1990 by Linda L Cabrillo, was a collection of out-of-print zines assembled by Linda and many other SH fans to make these zines available to those who had never had an opportunity to see them. Their intention was to ensure that this classic fiction would not be lost to the fandom. The library was run by different SH fans over the years. The library hosted both gen and slash fan fiction. Zines were always presented uncut, uncensored, and unedited.[1] As fans migrated to the Internet, many zine stories (slash and gen) became available online at the S & H Archive and the S&H Lending Library went on hiatus.

Notable Zines

Non-fiction zines

Resources

References

  1. ↑ The Starsky & Hutch Lending Library, last updated January 16, 2007
Retrieved from "http://fanlore.org/wiki/Starsky_%26_Hutch"