Jack Cates and Reggie Hammond, 48 Hrs.

It all began here. And by “it” I mean “the buddy cop genre,” not “Nick Nolte‘s gradual slide into insanity.” The basic premise here is that grizzled police detective Cates (Nick Nolte) has to team up with wisecracking small-time criminal Hammond (Eddie Murphy) to catch The Bad Guy. The crazy part of this duo comes from the fact that not only is Nick Nolte a really obvious racist, but he seems to hate most white people too. The perpetually apoplectic Nolte and the laid-back wise-ass Murphy are a match made in crazy cop heaven, if such a place exists.

Joe Friday and Pep Streebek, Dragnet

Dan Aykroyd is the fast-talking by-the-books police officer Joe Friday. Tom Hanks is the hilariously-named Pep Streebek, one of these new kind of cops who doesn’t keep his car clean. Together they fight over things like hair, wardrobe, and chilli dogs. But eventually they end up forming a friendship, and taking down the evil Christopher Plummer in the process. Hooray for crazy cop duos who eventually learn to respect each other and save the day!