Starsky & Hutch Episode Reviewcap — Season 1, Episode 19: Omaha Tiger

Summary: A string of coincidental deaths at a wrestling arena leads Starsky and Hutch to investigate the people who work there, becoming targets themselves as they start to unravel the mystery.

My sophomore year in high school, every member of the wrestling team got ringworm. You see, my high school had hour-and-a-half-long gym classes, so every time we had gym, we had to run a mile as a warm-up to whatever else we were doing. This was as miserable as it sounds, but the real crime was that, because of the weather, most of the time we had to run indoors— over whatever else was piled up in the gym. I don’t remember a single gym class from that year in which we did not all run over the wrestling mats, which were left out daily to be trampled, muddied, and otherwise befouled. And then the wrestlers would just… wrestle. Right there on the mats that undoubtedly encrusted with fecal matter from all our horrible mucky teenager shoes. The best part: after all these itchy, sweaty boys got dewormed, they still didn’t ever bother to put the mats away. Probably the only reason ringworm isn’t still a major teen issue in my hometown is because they tore the old high school down.

Which is to say, the concept of wrestling is forever associated with filth and parasites in my mind, so the fact that I actually really like Omaha Tiger may indicate that it is, in fact, a pretty good episode. Of course, I do think Starsky and Hutch should probably book a check-up. Just in case. 

Omaha Tiger opens with a chase sequence that will be reused in its entirety in Season 2’s The Psychic, which is bizarre considering Starsky specifically mentions having wrestling tickets to the perp. I’m reasonably certain they don’t go to another wrestling match in The Psychic, so it’s an odd choice. Starsky drives like a bat out of hell after another vehicle, which they corner in front of a diner. The perp, inexplicably, is a bald man in a pale green dress. (I’m actually very curious about this choice for a couple of reasons, but the specific dress tops the list. He’s not wearing pearls, but Starsky brings pearls up— could they possibly be making a visual reference to Dr. Frank-N-Furter? Was this man caught at a midnight double-feature? …had they started doing those kind of showings of Rocky Horror yet in early ‘76?) 

He runs through the diner, slamming into patrons and cooks, and as Starsky follows, he gets a faceful of spaghetti. When they catch him scaling the fence of the diner, he insists they just shoot him, because his life is over if they bring him in— he’s violating his parole. 

Hutch insists that he won’t be shooting him because, well, he wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress like that one. Womp womp. 

Starsky’s response— “you look rather nice in basic black and pearls” just toes the line for me in terms of ‘is this just a transphobic joke?’ or not. He says it with no small amount of affection, and his particular wording is quite camp. Hutch doesn’t get defensive or react with disgust; he asks why Starsky is covered in noodles. Any kind of joke where the punchline is “ha ha man in dress” puts a bad taste in my mouth, but this feels more like a 1970’s catty gay line a la Boys in the Band than a heavy insinuation of “acceptable” masculine boundaries crossed. It’s a weird sequence. It’s even weirder that they use it twice.

Starsky and Hutch go to their wrestling match, a showdown between “The Omaha Tiger” and the disturbingly named “Jake the Ripper” (I love insinuating my Sports Guy is a serial murderer and rapist, don’t you?). After the match is over, they sit alone in the stands arguing about the relative value of wrestling and whether or not it’s “fake.” Starsky argues that it’s art, and that they’re talented actors, and Hutch, ever anxious to prove he’s Cultured, argues that there’s nothing artistic about grunting and yelling. Starsky, hilariously (and perhaps rightly), calls Hutch a dilettante. (You know Starsky has a word-a-day calendar somewhere and he’s been waiting to use that one since November.)   

Starsky suggests that he and Hutch should wrestle to prove some point (that it’s art? That it’s… a real sport? Does Starsky remember that Hutch used to wrestle for real?), and they get into the ring. Immediately, Hutch takes Starsky down, quite gleefully. 

They seem to be having good fun, and there’s at least a minor implication that, given the opportunity, they might spend the next long while rolling around like puppies together. (And giving some wrestler ringworm, since they both have their sneakers on.) However, they’re interrupted by a wrestling promoter and old friend of Dobey’s, Mac Johnson. Then, as he’s talking to Starsky and Hutch (and as they’re playing around on the ropes), the Omaha Tiger himself, Eddie Bell comes in with his manager, Al Taft. (I heard his name as “Hal Path” literally the entire episode, and only figured out I had heard it wrong when I couldn’t figure out what actor had played him. He will always be “Hal” in my mind.) 

Al (Hal) and Mac Johnson seem to be on poor terms, although the reason why is left unclear until he leaves. Everyone makes their introductions, and after Eddie and Al leave, Johnson tells Starsky and Hutch that people like Al are parasites who use up people like Eddie, and that they should come back tomorrow morning for a tip related to the accidental death of a man named Connierry. 

Despite having been thoroughly pinned (or… maybe because of getting thoroughly pinned), Starsky suggests he and Hutch have another go on the mat.

This exchange is almost painfully cute. Hutch rarely backs off a challenge, even from Starsky, and the way he does it here— playfully admitting he’s “chicken,” is just so wonderfully intimate. He knows he’d win, easily, so he lets Starsky have this one, and he does it with a gentleness and downright cuteness that he doesn’t usually go for. It’s very flirty, which is in delicious tension with the physicality of wrestling— pinning Starsky and then walking away seems like a majorly purposeful tease. 

The next morning, when they return to meet with Johnson, they’re informed that he died in what appears to be an accident. While the wrestler (a tall, extremely excited woman who will show up many more times during the episode) is sure that Mac simply hurt himself and died, upon examination of the body, Starsky and Hutch become concerned that it doesn’t really look like an accident. They meet with Helen Forbes, who’s the person Mac wanted them to meet with when he asked them to come by; she’s with Carl Boyce, the business manager for the arena. They try to question her, but she seems very lost, and Boyce seems very cagey. No one seems particularly concerned about Johnson’s death; Hutch asks Starsky, with genuine hurt, “Starsk, how can people be so insensitive?” Softly, Starsky just mutters, “Really.” They’re consistently on the same page in this episode in a way that almost makes it feel like we’re intruding into a private moment— the idea of me and thee is never so apparent as it is when they’re in perfect sync like they are here.

They go to talk to The Omaha Tiger to ask if he knows anything about Johnson’s death; he says he liked Mac, but has no time to help them figure out a case. His manager pushes him to leave, and is generally deeply unpleasant about the whole situation. Hutch blows up— he hates how everyone in this place is treating what may very well be a murder like it’s nothing, and he takes it out on Eddie. Starsky asks if he’s okay, and Eddie, who’s really a pretty good guy, relents and says that he and Hutch should talk one-on-one at some point. Hutch softens and jokes about going a few rounds, and Starsky tells on him for his ‘wrestling’s not a real sport’ comment, which Eddie thankfully takes in stride. 

When Eddie and his manager leave, Starsky and Hutch have a moment alone.

Hutch thanks Starsky for helping to bring him down off a ledge, and there’s a grounding touch that feels very genuine and very needed. Starsky is demonstrative and handsy; Hutch tends to initiate touch when he requires an emotional recharge. Overall, it’s another great Partners-with-a-Capital-P moment. However, just before this exchange, both of them stare out into space for a while— not for the first time in the episode. There will be more staring into space to come. Once or twice, having a character look off into the middle distance in a haunted, hollow way can be very poignant; having it happen repeatedly just makes them look like they’ve recently suffered a concussion. It’s a weird choice.

They return to the precinct to discuss the details of not only Mac’s death, but the death of another man who had worked at the arena. As it turns out, Mac had wanted to talk to them about his suspicions about the “accident” Connierry had; now that it seems that Mac has had a similar “accident,” things are looking mighty suspicious.

Tessie, the lady wrestler they met earlier, is being fitted for a cape as they walk back into the practice room; she’s excited and squirmy and failing miserably to stay still as her costumer tries to finish sewing something. The wardrobe man is absolutely a gay stereotype, but no one has anything uncomfortable to say about him, and also, his annoyance at Tessie is quite valid. Much like the basic-black-and-pearls joke, it’s a little hard to say how offensive the sequence is— on the one hand, his distress is kind of played for laughs, but on the other hand, it feels more like we’re supposed to be laughing at Tessie than at him? Which is to say— he might be played gay for laughs, but he might also just… be a gay dude. 

Meanwhile, in the background, an EXTREMELY TALL MAN DRESSED LIKE AN ACTUAL HAMMER-HORROR MUMMY lifts weights, and a pair of wrestlers with dwarfism practice. There’s a general sense that this gym is, perhaps, more invested in the spectacle of wrestling than the traditional sport of the ancient Greeks. Just possibly.  

The Giant Mummy Man gives Starsky some very dirty looks as he and Hutch talk to Tessie; Tessie explains that he’s her boyfriend, but that she wouldn’t let him hurt Starsky. Of course, she also mentions that he has hurt other men before for less, but, y’know, no reason to be worried or anything.

In a move that was presumably scripted to indicate that he wants Starsky away from the woman whose boyfriend is going to rearrange his skeleton, Hutch pulls Starsky away from Tessie by the arm. However, as acted, it absolutely looks more like Hutch is pulling Starsky away because Tessie is flirting with him and he’s jealous. David Soul, thank you for being a friend. 

Starsky, led by the arm, and Hutch go to talk to Helen Forbes again, and are intercepted by George Felton, who is the new Mac Johnson. After they converse, Felton leaves to tell a security guard to murder Starsky and Hutch, but to do it with a bit more subtlety than either Connierry or Johnson. 

In another attempt to talk to Eddie, Hutch takes him up on his wrestling proposition; before they get in the ring, sleazy manager Taft whispers a bunch of incendiary things to him to get him riled up. 

Can I just say how cute Hutch is, here? 

His hair is perfect, and check out the color match on the blue in his shirt and his eyes. Lookin’ dreamy as fuck, Hutchinson. 

Hutch manages to hold his own surprisingly well with a man a foot taller and probably twice his muscle mass, but because Taft got him seeing red before they even started, Eddie flips out and genuinely starts to hurt Hutch part of the way through the match. He screams about how there’s no reason they need to talk about anything that happened, and pins Hutch to the mat by the throat. Both Hutch and Starsky try to get Eddie to see reason; in the end he leaves, angry and embarrassed, and Hutch manages to survive another day. As he leaves the ring, he and Starsky discuss how mixed-up inside Eddie is and how difficult he can be to read.

After learning that Connierry had the same weird neck bruise that Mac had, Starsky and Hutch go to… the meatpacking plant. I have to assume there’s a reason for this, but frankly, I must have missed it in some incidental dialogue, because it seemed like a rather out-of-the–blue suggestion. On top of that, they’re going to the meatpacking plant… to talk to Huggy? Because of course they are. 

At the meatpacking plant (which truly, deeply does not seem to be a meatpacking plant at all— abandoned factory, maybe?), Starsky and Hutch are followed by some suspicious men who just… lock the door behind them. With a random pin that’s hanging from the door. On a door that’s labeled ‘airtight.’ WHY CAN YOU LOCK THE AIRTIGHT DOOR FROM THE OUTSIDE!? There is no way this building is OSHA compliant! Where is the fire department? Why is the meatpacking plant just an enormous deathtrap?

Inside the Municipal Deathtrap Center, Huggy is… he’s running mouse races. Taking bets on cute li’l rodents to see which ones will run the fastest. 

Why not, Hug, why not.

Huggy, who is decked out in cowboy gear, describes his operation as “Rodent Downs.” Hutch gives him a look that hovers between judgemental and ‘I hate that you’re hot dressed like this.’

They ask him to check in on Connierry, and Starsky decides to play a bet. He loses (apparently his mouse always chokes near the end); he and Hutch leave and Hutch makes a long, long string of jokes about mice and horses and tiny jockeys. As he does this, Starsky stupidly closes all the doors behind them. I would say this is out of character considering Starsky isn’t usually the kind of guy who keeps things neat and tidy, but honestly, as an ADHD person, I also almost always do helpful tasks only when they cease to be helpful. 

Quickly, they discover they’re locked in; in case you missed it the first time, we get to see another big AIRTIGHT sign.

Thus follows one of my all-time favorite Starsky & Hutch scenes— Hutch borrows a pencil (he never has one of his own, does he?) and paces the space, writing down the area and doing calculations both out loud and on paper. Starsky keeps bumping into him and attempting to ascertain what’s going on; Hutch won’t say other than to insist he’s “working.” Sitting down on a discarded piece of piping, he starts babbling about cubic lung size and how many breaths a normal person takes in a minute. Eventually, Starsky gets tired of whatever bullshit this is and starts piling heavy detritus— including Hutch’s pipe “seat,” and then a second “seat” he moves to after the first one is taken from him— onto a large cart. 

At one point he moves Hutch like he, too, is a random object.

It’s a very oddly shot scene, between two pipes, all frantic movement in the background and a ponderous camera poised with a monolith on either side in the foreground. Starsky gets behind his cart-o-crap and runs, screaming, into the door, shattering the lock off its hinge. Just as this happens, Hutch comes to his final calculation for how long they could have safely stayed in the airtight room— except that he can’t figure out the decimal place, which is to say, they might have had hours, or they might have had days. Rightly, Starsky is fed up with this. The whole scene is just such a wonderful bit of character work on top of being a beautiful run of physical comedy: in an emergency with no immediately tangible external threat, Hutch goes fully cerebral, unable to do much more than determine the approximate date of their imminent death. Starsky initially does nothing, until his irritation spurs him to direct, effective action. Both of them are better when they’re faced with an enemy they can fight, but ultimately, when push comes to shove, it’s Starsky who finds a workable solution to their problem, in part due to practicality, and in part due to being easily bored and frustrated. Hutch may be the “smart” one (and let’s put it out there: that’s actually debatable), but he’s too caught up in his own head to apply that intelligence kinetically. 

As they debate the merits of Hutch’s utterly useless math interlude, the room they were just in explodes, for some reason. I don’t recall seeing the Evil Wrestling Arena men setting a bomb, but whatever, because it leads to Starsky falling on Hutch in what can only be described as “a deliberately sexy way.”

“Oh nooo, lol, sorry, didn’t mean to drape my body all over your body like that and bring our faces real close together or anything jk jk……. unless…”

Just, y’know, a very normal way to fall on your friend. 

They return to the arena looking for Al Taft; Starsky gets distracted on the way in by a wrestling match between two women, and it’s not 100% clear whether he just really loves wrestling or whether he’s titillated by this, or both. 

Alas, Al is dead in the shower. It’s absolutely the scariest looking shower I have ever seen— just a concrete box with a handful of showerheads at random intervals. This is not a shower where you get clean, this is a shower where you get murdered. Entertainingly, Al is wearing a towel; this is obviously due to broadcast standards, but I love the idea that he just was showering with a towel on like a huge weirdo when, oops, murder time, OR, OR, EVEN BETTER, that the murderer was like “eww, naked dead guy” and wrapped a towel around his corpse’s waist for ~propriety.~ 

Starsky and Hutch bring Eddie, Helen, and Carl Boyce together to confront all of them. Hutch asks Eddie about the fight he had earlier with Taft, and Eddie admits that Taft wanted him to leave Bay City, but he wanted to stay in order to be near Helen. 

Shortly thereafter, Helen gets a call from Huggy, who’s looking for Starsky and Hutch. Boyce, who is in his private office, overhears enough of this to be suspicious, and listens in on the call. He hears that Huggy is going to be meeting with Starsky and Hutch and that they’ll be back to the arena later to finish talking with Helen. He hangs up the phone and makes another call for the assassination of Starsky and Hutch. 

Also hey WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT STATUE IN BOYCE’S OFFICE

Helen hears Boyce call for a murder and confronts him. Part of her confrontation involves asking him about the “loan money” he used to finance Eddie; Taft doesn’t come right out and admit it, but it’s clear he got this money from a shady source, and has apparently been participating in all sorts of illegal dealings. As it so frequently does— all the murder comes down to money. He tells her that he’ll take care of all the things that are going on, and that she should go home. Helen is concerned that this is code for “let me murder with impunity and stop asking questions,” and she is right.

Starsky and Hutch check in with Huggy, who has brought along an old friend of the first murder victim, Tommy Connierry. Connierry’s buddy tells Starsky and Hutch they don’t look like cops (to which they respond they “believe in understatement—” sassy, boys); he explains to them that Tommy was supposed to get the linens contract for the arena, but was bought out at the last minute. The deal was so shady that Tommy was threatening to go to court, and it seems like that might be why he was killed. (Tommy’s friend here is so, so sad. I feel like you learn more about Tommy Connierry from one little quiver of this gentle crook’s lip than we even know about half the named characters in the episode.)  

Also, Hutch/Huggy is real, yo.

The combination of Huggy’s little belly tap on Hutch, plus Hutch’s cute, flirty posture and little smile, followed up by Starsky looking like ‘hey, only I’m supposed to be handsy with Hutch,’ is just really delightful. I will die on the hill of Hutch and Huggy being a casual on-and-off thing, because they are cute as a pair of buttons. 

At this point, Starsky and Hutch put together everything that’s happening, and head back to the arena. Boyce is there with the intention to murder them; as they enter the wrestling stage area, the lights go on, both blinding them to anything that’s going on in the audience and alerting them to the fact that something isn’t right. There’s a shootout in the ring; Starsky and Hutch fire into the empty audience as Boyce and his cronies try to pick them off. They spend a lot of time scrambling around on the ground, which is both delightful (Starsky has a wrestling magazine in his back pocket and it’s adorable) and horrifying, because THIS IS THE SECOND EPISODE IN A ROW WHERE THEY ROLL AROUND BETWEEN THE ROWS OF THE AUDIENCE SEATING OF A HORRIBLE STICKY PLACE. 

Eddie, swinging down out of the darkness, takes out Boyce; Starsky catches his criminal in the ropes of the ring; Hutch literally just brawls with his guy. Starsky teases Hutch as they finish up— “it was a great effort, but it wasn’t art.” 

In the episode’s tag, they reconcile with and say goodbye to Eddie, who’s leaving town. Fascinatingly, Helen asks Hutch out for dinner, and Hutch, who usually jumps at the chance to take random blondes out, flakes. He claims he has no money, and only briefly contemplates saying yes when it seems like doing so might inconvenience Starsky. (“I only want to go out with a woman if it causes distress to a man I really like” is a really super normal and also staunchly heterosexual choice, right?) 

Tessie, who comes in part of the way through this conversation, says she can’t join anyone for dinner, either, because Iggy (the giant mummy man from earlier) is taking her out instead. She explains that she gave him an ultimatum— kill Starsky or marry her. Starsky prepares for his imminent demise as Iggy rushes in, directly at him, but it turns out he just wants to give him a BIG OL’ HUG because he’s glad Starsky pushed him to finally commit. He kisses Starsky on the cheeks and suspends him in the air. Starsky, very much unclear on how to get down, pleads to Hutch for help; Hutch very sweetly smiles and touches his fingertip to each of his cheeks, indicating that Starsky needs to kiss him back. 

Thus, Starsky ends the episode probably accidentally engaged to a giant mummy man and infected with ringworm. Wrestling, am I right?

Overall Entertainment Value: This is one of those “Weird and Slightly Stupid” episodes I have such fondness for. All the minor characters are sketched larger than life, the plot is fairly bare, and the final showdown literally takes place in a wrestling ring. It’s a cartoon in live action. However, the excellent banter and genuine warmth in this one elevates it above similar fair. Good, clean, dumb fun. 4/5 Striped Tomatoes.

Very Special Episode Factor: Kids, if someone offers you wrestling, just say no. Don’t give in to peer pressure. Wrestling is a gateway drug to other, harder sports like MMA, Muay Thai, and even Jai Alai. Real friends won’t try to pressure you into wrestling. 0/5 Illegal Mouse Races.

Okay, But How Gay Was It: Starsky and Hutch are super affectionate with one another in this one, in a very comfortable, familiar way. We’re at like, married couple body language level here. On top of that, Hutch seems very disinterested in women this episode, and surprisingly jealous of Tess. Minor dings for the stereotyping of Tess’ wardrobe man and uncomfortable Russian man kisses at the end, but a solid 4/5 Manly Embraces.