Maybe it's a You-Had-To-Be-There thing, but television in the 1970's and early 1980's was not quite the same as today. It wasn't quite "Ozzie and Harriet" but nor was it "Married With Children" either. Fashion and technology were a bit different. But maybe the biggest difference was that plotting was generally a bit tighter, as well as that the background music tended toward more complex and traditional big-band arrangements rather than single-note sustains from one guy with a cello - or with a Casio pretending to be a cello. Openings had more visual explanatory introduction information to set up the conceit even if there wasn't a sixties-type theme song that overtly TOLD you what the predicament was.

The film STARSKY AND HUTCH is played almost perfectly straight. It's like television in 1975 - almost invariably an improvement over today even at worst, I say. Not only are the main methods of the source show reproduced, but the nuances of its trademark absurdly-detailed argument peek out now and again, in parody of the true-life fact that even the most mundane of us seem to have extensive knowledge of SOMETHING. Set dressing is quite fun, down to Starsky's pad with the all-in-one stereo with 8-track slot.

So take this one in and experience a refreshing lack of pretension. Many period songs emerge from the past (as in the other great period-music-use example film that comes to my mind, SCANDAL, about the British spy fracas of 1963 called the Keeler Affair, which used great original performances by Matt Monroe and Duane Eddy). One selection that snuck up on me was AWB's "Cut The Cake".

Pure Funk.

And this from a classical fan!