Paul and David on TFI Friday, 26 March 1999

Note from Solo: For those happily unacquainted with TFI Friday, let me explain that it is an incredibly stupid talkshow hosted by a facetious git on a Friday night. My life had not lacked meaning before I heard of it, and having seen it once, to catch Paul and David, is quite enough to last me a lifetime. I am immensely grateful to SHaron for writing this report which I can use to remind myself why it was worth sitting through all the idiotic drivel.

Report by SHaron

Well, friends, this has been the week to be in the UK for Starsky & Hutch fans. Our chaps were on the telly on Friday in a mad show called TFI Friday with Chris Evans, a red-headed ex-discjockey, now the show's compere. For some reason that we have no need to examine here, he chose to wear, over his evening suit, a very large, sequinned codpiece.

The show opened with a mock Oscar ceremony. Other semi-famous guests were awarded gold coloured statuettes for obscure achievements before the award for the "Oh My God Look Everyone It's Starsky & Hutch Actually On The Show Tonight" award was announced. Contenders were Dempsey & Makepeace, Cagney & Lacey and S&H. Clips from these were shown (S&H: Las Vegas Stangler, Hutch's superdive into the pool at the party), then the winners were (surprise!) P&D.

A door at the side of the stage opened, stage smoke billowed out and we could see a scuffle going on as both men tried to be the first through the door. P won, stepped forward saying "Go ahead, go ahead." (sound familiar?) D pushed at his back then held P's shoulders to propel him forwards, both grinning broadly. D began to cry, loudly. P accepted the award saying "Oh my God!" kissed the girl presenting it then kissed Mr. Chris Evans. D followed suit as P moved to the podium, a shaky affair apparently made of cardboard.

P held out the award in his left hand. As D reached for it with both hands, P moved it out of reach & they played at this game for several passes, P's eyes on D's face the whole time, wearing a very fond expression. Then he let D catch it & said "It's yours, I want you to have it. I want you to keep it." D carefully fell on the podium sobbing. P patted his back (here comes the h/c!) as he said "It's okay, it's okay. It's a very emotional occasion." D gathered himself sufficiently to cry "Wow!"

Suddenly D stood up to complain "The paint's still wet!" He looked around holding his painty hand up & almost wiped it in his own hair. "What a surprise" proclaimed D, who now had P stood slightly behind him, leaning against his shoulder. "You know," continued D "Even though this award is called the "Oh My God Look Everyone It's Starsky & Hutch Actually On The Show Tonight" award, we never expected to win up against such fantastic opposition." Both men pulled great faces at this point as they tried hard not to laugh aloud. "That's right, that's right," said P. (also familiar!)

D had been passing the award from hand to hand and now looked around for something to wipe it on, his eyes soon settling on P's black jacket. P, who had been laughing, leapt back saying "Don't do that" and he meant it! Had this not been on TV it sounded like his language might have been a lot stronger.

P changed the subject. "You know, I was talking to Cagney and Lacey backstage," "You were?" asked D, swinging the painty award perilously close to that dark, expensive jacket again. The byplay continued and they grinned warily at each other, waiting for D to remember his next line of - "Er, and what did they say?" Paul laughed and said "Badda boom, badda boom, badda boom!" Both D and the audience thought it was funny! (I didn't get it - anyone care to explain?) "And er, (an aside to D) I learned that line from my wife Tracey you know?" D said "Really? Badda boom?" P, "Badda boom, that's right. ( and then to camera - to Tracey one presumes) Hi sweetie!"

Now at this point I should explain that the next bit also meant nothing to me, not being a regular viewer of this TFIF show. It may be one of their catch phrases, but I don't know, sorry!

P continued, "They were so convinced that they had won, that they were already downing pints like ... are you ready? ... Jimmy the five bellies." P&D looked at each other both questioning "Who?" several times. Then D held up two fingers and reminded "We only got two minutes before ..." but P wasn't put off. "I wanna see what Jimmy the six bellies looks like. Or the seven bellies."

"Anyway" said D, "It's ours, and let me assure you that when we come back at the end of the show, we're going to tear the roof off this dump." "Absolutely" agreed P, continuing, "And we just want to thank Chris and his ... colourful ... grand ... elephantine," "Get to it" interjected a giggling D. "Codpiece" announced P over the audience's cheering, rolling his eyes.

P poked his finger into D's chest. "You know, did you get a codpiece?" D was still giggling, "No but I'm looking forward to it." P rolled his eyes some more, "Well, I've spoken to them about that and *I'm* looking forward to that too!" "We'll be right back" D waved to the audience "Bye bye," called P, and with a little more byplay about the codpiece they left the stage.

Much later, after several boring guests: the interview proper!

Chris, now codpieceless, announced them again. There was another scuffle in a different doorway, D emerged to be yanked back by P who then skipped forward to avoid D's grab at him. They walked, waving and smiling, through a big crowd of cheering youngsters, stopping to shake hands with some. To a girl in a short tight top which was unbuttoned at the waist, P said "Hey, your belly button's showing!" And then they reached the little scruffy stage and sat at a small desk opposite C. P immediately moved his chair nearer to D's.

D rolled a model Torino from the far end of the table towards P, who neatly caught it just as it was about to fall off the edge. D made engine and screeching brake noises. C produced the two toy figures (these seemed all to be from the new Corgi set which is still not available in the shops to us mere mortals!) C: "Here you are too, look." He demonstrated the figures running round the car. P: "Let's see that one where you hurt your back." D: "Oh yeah; chick ... ahh ... booom." These sounds illustrated the action as he rolled the Hutch figure over on the bonnet and threw it on the other side of the car. "We just never grow up do we?" P sat back and watched D with that slightly sappy expression again. C: "You know when you jumped onto that car and you landed on your back, is it true that you split your bum?" D: "I landed on my brains." P really laughed & leant forward closer to D, touching his arm with the back of his hand. C: "You did a lot of your own stunts didn't you?" (I paraphrased this, as who cares what this guy said anyway!) "You were telling me you got injured heavily." P: "We both got injured." D: "We had some real good teachers, probably the best in the business. They went on to become ... I mean Picerni and company were the best in Hollywood." P: "That's right they shot a lot of films." D: "And what we were fortunate enough to have, is great teachers. And any stunt gaffer will tell you that the further you can take the actor into the action, the better. And what he had here was two guys who were stupid enough to go as far in as they could, so they taught us a lot of stuff." P: "We had a good time though, doing it. C produced an old David Soul Annual from a drawer. "We've got your book here, David." D: "Oh shoot, it's not my book." embarrased, head in hands. P to C: "You brought that from home though didn't you?" C: "Actually it's Will's, (apparently one of the crew - they turn round to look at him.) He wants you to sign it later. Now it says here 'The days when S&H went on strike'. Did you ever go on strike?" D turns deliberately to P who now looks embarrassed. P blowing out a breath and shaking his hand sideways then laughing: "Well, there was a *small* little incident." C lets the subject drop. "It says here also that you had no power to change things on the show." D peering at the cover: "Who wrote that book?" P laughing: "Yeah, I want to meet this guy." C: "So is it rubbish, this book?" D: "Well... I ... er ... it's a nice little gift book." P: "It's an interpretation." C: "So is it true that you were powerless. I would have thought the opposite." D: "When you're right, you're powerful.Because, I mean, we fought for the show." P leaning well over towards D: "I'll tell you how powerful we were. One day, we looked at each other and said, You know something? If we took all the choice scenes from a bunch of the shows" (aside to D) 'see if you remember this' "and Hutch got amnesia and Starsky spent the whole show saying 'Don't you remember? Don't you remember? Don't you remember?'"

D has been looking on somewhat bemused as though he personally doesn't remember until now, when he smiles broadly.

P: "You know, and by the way, the gag one when they did the show was that Hutch was making time with all the nurses and Starsky would come in saying 'Don't you remember? Oh my God he's hurting.' you know like that. And we figured that if we did that we could get a vacation. We'd only shoot it in about a day, two days and we'd make ourselves a vacation. So we were feeling very smart and very bright and we went to the producers (to D: Remember?) D: "Yeah" fondly. They're now sitting pretty close, arms touching frequently almost accidentally. P: "And we said this is what we want to do. And they said 'Absolutely'. So on the Monday and Tuesday we shot it and on the Wednesday they said 'Here's your next script.'" C: "Why did they take the show off? It wasn't down in the ratings was it?" P: "No we went off at very high ratings." D: "And basically I think it was enough" C: "How many years did it run?" P: "4 years" C: "How many hours?" D: "About 90 I think." P: "93 hours." C: "That's part of it's success then, I though it went on much longer than that." D: "You get in, you get out." C: "Like the SAS. What did they replace you with, do you remember?" P: "Hart to Hart." D: "Was it really?" P nods sagely: "Uh huh." C: "She's gorgeous." (in funny accent, presumably HtoH catchphrase?) P pauses while it sinks in then pleased and surprised points finger at C: "Very good, that's very good!" D: "I remember going to the network at the end of four years with Paulie (ahhh!) and basically saying, look if you can find something to replace us we'd like to call it now." C: "So you guys voluntarily called it quits." P: "We'd been doing battle for a long time. You know the thing that suffers most in television series is the writing. It just happens, you know, because there's such a big demand for scripts. So eventually the writing level went futher down and I think everybody was just ready to call it a day." C: "How important was the car?" P: "The striped tamato?" C: "Was the car the star?" At the same time, D: "Well," and P: "No!" Big grins at each other. C: "Who go the most fan mail, out of you two?" D: "The car." C: "It did off me anyhow." P to D joking: "You ready to *leave*?" D to C, apparently ignoring P: "You know we never ..." C: "You must know who got the most fan mail." D: "No" P: "No." D: "No, it wasn't really at the top of our list of concerns. How many girls I got in my trailler was ..." laughing and covering face with hand. P also laughing: "Wait a minute, let's *open* that can of peas." D: "They were wonderful crazy days, you know, wonderful crazy days."

C (abridged): "There were lots of boxes in your show - car drove into them, you jumped on them ..." P: "Boxes and barrels." C: "Without boxes and barrels, Starsky & Hutch wouldn't have happened." P: "Well that was the original name of the show - Boxes & Barrels." C: "It was not." D: "Yeah, Boxes & Barrels. He's Boxes and I'm Barrels."

They showed a clip from Gillian, the alley shootout when H freezes up on S. In the corner of the screen a little counter kept count of all the boxes. P&D could be heard counting along and murmering to each other in the background.

C to P: "So why did you come over here? Was it the videos?" P: "I came over here for the videos and I also came over to support Davey (ahhh!) in his play. He's doing a play."

D did a little sales pitch about The Dead Monkey, while P picked up one of the action figures and placed it directly behind the other. Then he took the other and moved that behind the first. And again, and again so that the figures are gradually moved much closer to D. P is nodding and looking up at C now and again in the right manner but isn't hearing a word they're saying. The spiel concludes with D patting P's hand on the table, saying; D: "And Paul came over to support me." C: "Have you written him in a little part in the play." D: "Oh yeah, little walk on." C: "What were your lines Paul?" P pauses to try to catch up, gives up trying to figure out what they're talking about, grins disarmingly and offers "Mmmmmm?"

C: :"Do you miss the days of S&H? Were they the best days of your lives?" P: "Well, you know, it was a wonderful time and we really had a great dance together. And we'll always miss that because ..." C: "And you're still willing to dance with each other?" Both together P&D: "Oh yes." C: "You good pals?" Both together P&D: "Absolutely."

Then they were thanked, Chris gave a really good plug for the videos, he's obviously enjoyed the show in the past, and it was over. A great little piece of S&H history! :-)