Another Quinn Mart’n Production
Lights up on a stage empty but for a dead BODY, centre. Give it a second for the scene to establish itself. [In the event we found it was much more dynamic to have someone dramatically shot onstage and then have the Starsky and Hutch theme music come in, very loud, for a few bars. At least it woke everyone up.]
STARSKY – or someone wearing his chunky cardigan and acting just like him – bursts in violently from left, goes into typical legs-spread stance, aiming gun at audience.
STARSKY: OK, freeze! This is the heat! (sees the BODY. Spins round to cover it) Come on buddy, freeze! You hear me, buster? Move it! (the BODY doesn’t move. STARSKY kicks it, and hops about with a sore toe) OK, buddy, you’re on a rap. Get in the car! (eventually he bends down to examine the BODY) Jesus, he was froze all the time.
(HUTCH bursts in from the right, same deal)
HUTCH: OK, everybody back against the wall, move!
STARSKY: Cool it, Hutch.
HUTCH: What you got, Starsk?
STARSKY: We’re too late.
HUTCH: Should I send for the meat wagon?
STARSKY: No, man, I just ate.
HUTCH: We got anything on him?
STARSKY: Just some greenhorn pinko from the boondocks trying to muscle in on the action.
HUTCH: Dope?
STSARSKY: Stupid as they come.
HUTCH: I’ll get on to headquarters, tell ’em we got a P12.
STARSKY: Oh come on man, this ain’t a P12. It’s a Q98.
HUTCH: A Q98?
STARSKY: Yap.
HUTCH: You crazy? A Q98 is dogs fouling the sidewalk.
STARSKY: That’s a B52, Hutch!
HUTCH: Oh yeah.
STARSKY: You bet. And you know somethin’ else?
HUTCH: What?
STARSKY: This dude’s been iced.
HUTCH: You bet.
STARSKY: And you know somethin’ else?
HUTCH: Hit me.
STARSKY: Somebody did it.
HUTCH: No question.
STARSKY: And the cat who did it?
HUTCH: Spill.
STARSKY: He’s out there somewhere.
HUTCH: You sure?
STARSKY: Sure I’m sure.
HUTCH: We better split up.
STARSKY: Is this because I spilt Night in Mustique all over the squad car? I said I was sorry -
HUTCH: No, man. I mean separate. Surround the perp.
STARSKY: Oh, right. Okay. You go left, I’ll go right.
HUTCH: Right. (pause) Is that my left or your left?
STARSKY: (thinks) Both.
HUTCH: OK. After three. Go.
(They leap violently sideways – and bash into each other. Sort themselves out and cover a section of the audience)
BOTH: (ad lib) OK, freeze. Everybody back against the wall, come on, move! Get the lead out, lady. Up against the car. Hey, you in the third row, get your hand away from your pocket. Come on, let’s see all your hands. All of ’em, two at a time. That’s better. OK, everybody face the car and lean on the hood. Spread those legs, lady. Eugh, OK, as you were. Relax, fellah. I said, relax!
HUTCH: Get their guns, Starsk.
STARSKY: Er, Hutch? I just thought. This is Oxenford, England, right?
HUTCH: So?
STARSKY: They don’t carry guns in England, right?
(pause)
BOTH: OK, everybody back in their seats, come on, move it! Hold it right there. You in the right seat, fellah? OK. Now relax. I said everybody relax right where they are! That means you, lady!
(STARSKY shoots someone in the audience)
STARSKY: Ah… Hutch, you’d better call the police.
HUTCH: It’s OK man, we are the police.
(pause)
STARSKY: You wanna beer?
HUTCH: Sure. (they start to go) There’s just one thing bothering me.
STARSKY: What’s that?
HUTCH: B52. Ain’t that some kind of fancy airplane?
(They roar with laughter, then freeze, looking ridiculous. Cheesy, twangy guitar riff)
PS
What was that we said elsewhere about revues feeding off TV shows the way carrion crows pick over roadkill? The seventies were wall-to-wall American cop series, just as the sixties had been wall-to-wall Westerns, and most of them were produced by this guy Quinn Martin who “At one time,” according to IMDb, “produced more hours of network television programs per week than any other production company.” But this isn’t called Another Quinn Martin Production, it’s called Another Quinn Mart’n Production because that’s how the big butch voiceover at the end (or was it the start?) of his shows always pronounced it.
Starsky and Hutch was the Miami Vice of its day – you know, the kind of trailblazer which other more cynical and more monied talents later copied and made cooler and sexier and even more successful. This mild parody was the opening sketch of our second Edinburgh revue, Knockers 2 (1979). Rob O got shot onstage, the familiar theme music blared out, and Dave E and I were on. He wore the blond wig and, if that picture is anything to go by, I had on some kind of patterned donkey jacket hacked from someone’s stinky old hall carpet.
I never enjoyed it much, to be honest. I didn’t like harassing the audience, we were only inches away from them as it was, and if someone had taken it into their heads to get the hump and shout back, it would have killed the show stone dead before it even got going. Luckily nobody ever did – and why should they? They’d paid good money to sit there and be entertained, and by God they were going to sit there until they’d got their money’s worth. At least I’d like to think there were a few better things for them to look forward to later in the show.
(I wish I’d called this Rabbit and Hutch now. Doesn’t matter. Nobody said the title at any point. Nor will anybody say any of this ever again, I shouldn’t think. Most things eventually run out of relevance, some much more quickly than others…)
Donkey and Thatch