The Starsky & Hutch Hen Party

AKA Rebelcat and Elizabeth Helena

Present:

The Bay City Fashion Show

AKA "The Bait"

According to the DVD Episode Guide: “Dressed as flashy hustlers and using a beautiful blonde as bait, Starsky and Hutch pose as a pair of high-rolling heroin dealers climbing up the underworld ladder to nail the city’s top dope distributor.”

Now maybe it’s just EH’s flu and Rebel’s stress levels talking, but we’re convinced that more than any other in season one, this episode is all about the clothes.

Bay City’s Fall Kinky Collection

We also discover that Starsky stuffs his trousers, but hey girls and boys, it’s with envelopes filled with cash not tube socks, so we’re still turned on.

Starsky whines that, “It’s these kinky clothes that make me nervous.” Before you get excited by visions of them in black leather and studs,  Hutch argues that he only bought the very best in polyester pimp wear. This despite the fact they’re supposed to be drug dealers, but details, details.

Starsky is resplendent in a blindingly white two-piece wing-collared suit, a black shirt with embroidered rainbow rosettes on the collar, a matching black handkerchief in his breast pocket, and capped off with gold medallion accessories. We were on the edge of our seats during this episode, fearful that they’d get tangled in his chest hair.

Hutch’s ensemble created a bit of controversy as Rebel says his suit is burgundy, while EH says its dried blood, but we both agree on the essentials -- it’s hideous. However, the pink ruffled shirt brings out the blush in his Midwestern Mom-and-apple-pie cheeks, the matching silk scarf around his neck could be fetching(especially with its funky 70s pink and dried blood geometric designs), and finally there’s the hat.

He’s playing one of the black hats today (mmmm Dark Hutch), and you can tell how much he loves his horse by the silver bridle and bit hatband. The furry kind of horse, not the injectable variety, although whether you believe that’s four-legged or two-legged is up to you. Lest you think we’re focusing on incidentals here, Hutch demonstrates a few scenes later the important undercover cop skill of hiding from the bad guys by slouching behind a cowboy hat. Hey, in Bay City it works.

Oh yeah, the boys get arrested, so the handcuffs could be considered an especially kinky fashion accessory. Shame that during the 1970s kinky primarily meant eccentric not the bondage fun of Dawnwind’s S & H universe (which EH feels is a real shame), but we digress. The pre-booking scene does provide the lovely eye candy moment of Starsky flaunting his crotch for all to admire. Hutch is especially giddy in this scene, but remember children, correlation does not prove causation.

I’m a Rhinestone Cowboy!

Yep pardners, it’s the next day, and we discover the important canon point that Hutch has a thing for rhinestones. Apparently, he believes that black is only slimming when you outline all the seams with shiny “Glen Campbell has nothin’ on me” Rhinestone Cowboy pre-zirconium. For contrast, he wears an all American red-white-and-blue rayon t-shirt and kerchief, a look which comes in particularly handy when trying to convince the Federales that he’s just a good ol’ sincere American boy who should be trusted with enough of the taxpayers’ money to impress Danner’s boys. Now, we know better than to trust that “ah shucks, sure Starsk and I’ll let you in on our little ol’ drug bust” line, but apparently a Federal employee who doesn’t know better than to wear a plaid shirt with a dark charcoal suit is completely bamboozled by Hutch’s All American charms.

Our New York fashion plate, on the other hand, has gone for an understated powder blue polyester "zoot" suit, but reveals his sensual nature with an unbuttoned dark red shirt that looks slippery to the touch and that would slide right off . . . oh damn, in the interests of EH’s feverish condition, we’ll return to Starsky in a bit.

Connie now reveals why, much to Huggy Bear’s chagrin, he was the winner of Bay City’s “Best Dressed Brother” of 1975. Connie manages to pull off the Vegas Elvis look with panache, in his white high collar jumpsuit with gold trim. This outfit looks especially fetching when he threatens our undercover dudes with a straight razor. Unfortunately for Connie and his drycleaner, Starsky is armed with a gun, and later a grocery cart.  Strangely, Hutch is curiously under-armed throughout this episode.  The one time he pulls his gun, it’s clear he left his Magnum in the dryer too long because the barrel is no longer six inches.

We are at a loss to explain Huggy Bear’s stunning defeat in the “Best Dressed Brother” category in this episode, for during his one cameo, he’s sporting an extremely tame denim trouser and shirt number with matching cap. Maybe, by focusing all of his energies on the restaurant business, promising Captain Dobey “everything from chitlins to Chinese,” he neglected to do his laundry.

And speaking of fashion disappointments, Pretty Billy’s black leather jacket would have radiated a lot more menace had it not been coupled with brown polyester trousers and a blue, white and brown man-blouse. Nonetheless, he proves that accessories make the villain because he kept the key to Cheryl’s apartment, and in her helpless-white-woman outfit, she gets the crap beat out of her.

Unfortunately for Pretty Billy, he doesn’t wear his tough guy leather jacket to bed, so when Starsky gets into bed with him in the middle of the night, he’s all naked and vulnerable. And no, this is not one of EH’s sinus medication induced hallucinations, Starsky once again proves that “personal boundaries are just something other people have” by climbing into the bed with the bad guy. Meanwhile, Hutch sits on the opposite side of the room and glowers. It’s up to you if you want to believe that Hutch bitch slaps Billy for roughing up Cheryl or getting fresh with his Brooklyn boy toy.

Take it or Shake it, my Caucasian Cousins

While Connie was not the most important bad guy in this episode, he was by far the most fashionable. Apparently, Bay City’s well-dressed, mid-level drug dealers and pimps opt for Emerald Green velvet high-waisted pants with matching vest, and wear-your-sunglasses shiny rayon shirt -- coyly unbuttoned to just above his belly button. His neatly trimmed afro underscores the banality of Connie’s evil which is all about ripping off Whitey and hocking jail bait prostitutes.

We also see Cheryl here, one of the many baits of this episode (beyond the boys, that is).  She spends the episode draped in highly fashionable but not terribly practical or defensive outfits.  Rebelcat kept pausing and admiring her tie-dyed moon t-shirt, with that fringed Made-in-India shawl tied around her waist.  Rebel covets that outfit!  And hey, Starsky and Hutch will protect her. . . eventually.

The main baddy is Danner, Drug Lord and Hawaiian Missionary fetishist. Unfortunately, the latter is a stamp not an exotic Kama Sutra position, although considering he doesn’t look anywhere as nice in turtlenecks and suede jackets as Hutch does, it’s probably for the best.

His chief lackey and prostitute-beater-upper is Pretty Billy Harkness, who despite his nickname, isn’t anywhere near as pretty as Connie. Whether it’s his immorality or his fondness for indigo swirl polyester shirts that prove his ultimate downfall is a debatable point.