Is nothing sacred in Hollywood?

Now, they've taken one of the great television institutions of the '70s, "Starsky & Hutch," and turned it into a movie that's silly, cartoonish and, frankly, a little gay.

What an outrage!

Psych!

		"STARSKY & HUTCH" Rating: PG-13 Drug content, sexual situations, partial nudity, language and violence. Starring: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Snoop Dogg. Director: Todd Phillips.

If any cop series called out for another wacky pairing of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, it was "Starsky & Hutch," with its flashy red Gran Torino, disco-era threads and groovy lingo.

If you grew up in the mid-'70s, Starsky and Hutch were your two-man Mod Squad, arriving in 1975, the same year that the buttoned-down "Adam-12" had run its course. Although the characters themselves were never over the top, the wardrobe, in retrospect, was a howl and that means one thing ... "Brady Bunch" treatment!

"Starsky & Hutch" purists, if such a thing exists, might object to what Wilson, Stiller and director Todd Phillips ("Road Trip," "Old School") have done with the franchise.

Paul Michael Glaser was cool (in spite of the hippie sweaters) and streetwise. Stiller's Starsky is a bit of a doofus -- an earnest one at that. Hutch, on the other hand, is not a straight shooter, which is right up Wilson's alley. His idea of police procedure is to pick through the wallet of a "floater" and send him back down the river.

In the original "S&H" pilot, the cops are already partners. Phillips creates a pre-pilot that has the two meeting and teaming up with one thing in common: Neither of them is capable of working with anyone else.

They get the case of a wealthy Jewish businessman and gangster (Vince Vaughn), who has wasted one of his henchmen in the midst of a major deal over a new strain of cocaine that eludes drug-sniffing dogs by smelling and tasting like artificial sweetener.

Starsky gets a taste of it himself -- just in time for a disco contest, where he throws down like Travolta with too much artificial sweetener. A visit to a biker bar lets S&H loose on an "Easy Rider" takeoff. And although they're swinging bachelors, that underlying sense that Starsky and Hutch really loved each other takes a ridiculous course at the bequest of Will Ferrell, as a kinky prison informant.

Of course, the best tips come from Snoop Dogg, who, really, has been playing Huggy Bear his whole career. In the role created by Antonio Fargas, Snoop Dogg gets some of the biggest laughs, such as when they ask him what the patrons do at the biker bar and he tells them, "Listen to Jim Croce, throw darts, whatever you white people do."

Like most spin-offs of '70s shows, the jokes mostly play the nostalgia card. When Starsky hands Hutch a guitar to impress his date, Wilson breaks into a cover of the David Soul hit "Don't Give Up on Us, Baby" that's funny even if you don't get the joke.

Not all of it works that well. "Starsky & Hutch" has a bit of that slapdash coming-out-in-March-instead-of-May quality that isn't helped by the disposable plot. Your enjoyment of it has a lot to do with your affection for '70s kitsch. That and your taste for Stiller and Wilson. I still get a kick of out them, but realize that they're either your Hope and Crosby or a couple of stooges who shouldn't be behind the wheel of the "red tomato."