Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2022: Week 24

The Purple Pages is a collection of over 20 Starsky & Hutch RPS stories written in the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s and privately circulated amongst fans. Their name is a reference to the fact that the stories were printed on purple paper (for context, see The Purple Paper Element).

They are one of the first known, confirmed examples of RPS fan fiction in media fandom.

For decades, recipients of "The Purple Pages" were told to never discuss them or to acknowledge that Starsky & Hutch RPS existed. The secrecy was necessary as many fans of the time were very much opposed to RPS. Feelings about it often ran high; some fans were violently against the concept and other fans supported it by writing and reading it. While this anonymity and discourse likely made it more exciting and interesting to the participants, it also meant that the Starsky & Hutch contribution to the RPS genre went unrecognized for decades.

For more examples, see Starsky & Hutch RPF.