Stubble-faced detective Crockett lived in a sailboat guarded by his alligator Elvis. His partner Tubbs was a black New York cop looking for his brother's killer. Together they took on the Florida drug world. The show influenced men's fashions toward Italo-casual and interior decor toward the Miami look. Very trendy music and unusual guest performers.

Miami Vice is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs, two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. The series ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The USA Network began airing reruns in 1988 and broadcast an originally unaired episode during its syndication run of the series on January 25, 1990.

Unlike standard police procedurals, the show drew heavily upon 1980s New Wave culture and is noted for its integration of contemporary pop and rock music and stylish or stylized visuals. People magazine states that Miami Vice was the "first show to look really new and different since color TV was invented"