Huggy Bear

Huggy Bear, last name Brown, is a character in Starsky & Hutch. He is Starsky and Hutch's bartender, snitch and, importantly, close friend.
The Huggy Awards are named after Huggy.
==Impact==
In an interview transcribed in a 1998 Black Bean Soup, Antonio Fargas, the actor who portrayed Huggy Bear, says: "At the time, it was considered hip to have one or two black actors on your series, and I was lucky enough to be one of those."
Huggy's notorious "hip" and "urban" way of speaking has made him a symbol of badly-written black characters of the time. He is frequently referenced in humorous contexts like the TV Tropes article on "Jive Turkeys"Jive Turkey on TV Tropes (Accessed August 26, 2010) but also in impassioned rants about African American media stereotypes. Captain Dobey, another African-American character on the show, didn't draw the same fire. At the same time, many people appreciate Huggy for being a sympathetic and fairly major black character at a time when these were few and far between on television.Unfortunately, one might argue that that time hasn't really ended...
==A Pimp? A Thief?==
Many mainstream articles and comments by mundanes refer to Huggy as a pimp and/or thief. While the canon Huggy is shown as having a variety of dubious (often foolish) means of employment, there is no proof he dabbled in anything more than passing on information and turning a blind eye to others' petty crimes. Huggy, in fact, was shown to have a fairly robust sense of right and wrong, something that was illustrated in canon a number of times. 
From the Ollie Report's page on Huggy: 
There aren't any scene in the series in which Huggy is anything less than a gentleman to a woman. Huggy is always working, on top of owning and running The Pits. He employs waitresses without demeaning them, and he bartends and waiters himself when he's in the Pits. It's a stretch to believe that he would truly be a pimp ("a person and especially a man who controls one or more sex workers, arranges clients for them, and takes a cut of their earnings" - Merriam Webster) and the series doesn't support that theory. Hutch asks Huggy, “Who’d ever think of looking for a pimp on a motor scooter?” in episode Iron Mike. This is the only mention of that word in Huggy's presence in the series. 
Huggy has many side hustles, some of which aren't legal, such as a bookie (episodes Texas Longhorn, Omaha Tiger), selling Starsky a hot watch (episode The Trap) but most of Huggy's hustles involve lots of sweat equity to sell trinkets on the street himself, learning how to be a better fast order chef (The Psychic) and dabbling in the music industry (Quadromania). In Death in a Different Place, we see Huggy signing people up to vote, implying that he's socially active and he's donating his time for causes he believes in. For this, he wore a three piece suit. 
From the Ollie Report's page on Huggy:
The fanon Huggy Bear plays out much like the canon Huggy Bear. He is often portrayed as a good friend willing to assist Starsky and Hutch while balancing his need to survive in his world on the street. 
From Anna (2014) in the comments section on the Ollie Report's page on Huggy: 
==Example Fanworks==
* The Waiting Room by K. Hanna Korossy, Starsky and Hutch stand vigil
* Huggy Under Fire by Hutchlover (What happened to Huggy Bear's Bar & Grill? Why was there a break between Huggy's two bars?)
* Superfly, a Huggy-focused vid by T.M.
* Any Major Dude by Melanie R The Pits #2 (Huggy's first meeting with the dynamic duo and how The Pits got its name. Huggy's first thought on seeing Starsky and Hutch together was that somehow they seemed like a matched pair, end he couldn't figure out why.)
== Example Huggy vids ==
* Hello by Amber Raine. A homage to Huggy.
* Stayin' Alive by Hardboiledbaby. A Huggy Bear vidlet for Vexercise 04, "Produce a 1 minute video edit from your selected source focusing on a side character, making them the central character of your vid. Audio can be of your choosing."
* Huggy - California Soul by Elizabeth Lowry for the Advent Calendar 2020 (dec 18). Also on AO3 and YouTube.
* A Huggy focused section from 0:55-1:30 in Find Your People, a SH vid by Garrideb, a prolific S/H vidder from 2018 onward. 
==Fanfic Pairings==
Huggy Bear doesn't get a lot of action in fanon. He is sometimes paired with Mardean Rigger, sometimes with Turquet, and a few times with Starsky and with Hutch. The latter is usually a secondary pairing in a primarily Starsky/Hutch story. 
* Take It Out in Trade by Paula Smith in the zine, Code 7 #4 (paired with Hutch)
* Liaisons by Cyn (paired with Hutch)
* An Even Tighter Closet by Rosemary C. (paired with Turquet)
* A Beautiful Mess by Kaye (Starsky)
* Huggy's Dark Secret by Alleycat (paired with Starsky)
* Possession's End by Debs (paired with Hutch)
==Some Huggy Meta==
* Why Does Huggy Do What He Does? at The Ollie Report
* The Supporters at The Ollie Report
==Fanart==
Image:Pushingtheoddsfreda2.jpg|interior art for Pushin' the Odds by T.J. Burnside
Image:pits2insidehuggy.jpg|inside art from The Pits #2. Art by Signe Landon.
File:311art2.jpg|inside art by Ruth Kurz from Three Eleven
Image:codehuggy.jpg|inside art from Code 7, Take It Out in Trade, art by Maureen B., story by Paula Smith
Image:Sandh3334.jpg|cover of S and H
Image:Oneshot.jpg|on the cover of One Shot: Captain Dobey, Starsky, Hutch, and Huggy. 
Image:Sandh5inside.png|inside art from an S and H in 1979, by Connie Faddis
Image:Sh oneshot int by ruth kurz.jpg|Huggy tending his bar from One Shot, art by Ruth Kurz
File:Fix4art2.jpg|from The Fix #4, art by SVE
File:Distantart4.jpg|art from Distant Shores showing both Captain Dobey and Huggy. J. Jones was one of the few fanartists to draw Huggy and Captain Dobey.
==Fannish Resources==
*Huggy Bear's Hangout
==References==
 
Category:Starsky & Hutch Characters