Today is Tom Selleck's 59th birthday, and "Magnum, P.I." remains a favorite of mine if only for its knockout Mike Post/Pete Carpenter theme song. Of course, if you've seen the series from the beginning, you know the pilot episode had a looser jazz track. This is similar to knowing the first episodes of "Happy Days" used "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Hailey and His Comets.
"Magnum," which I remember watching on Tuesdays at 10pm, was the first time I heard first-person voice-over narration. Watching reruns, I think Magnum's asides are a bit intrusive. That was one of the show's goals, to go against stereotype. Make Magnum a P.I. but have him drive an ultra-conspicuous car. Make him a Vietnam vet, but also give him a Peter Pan, don't-wanna-grow-up attitude (borrowed by author Robert Crais for Elvis Cole?)
Magnum also might have been the first show to feature a Navy SEAL. SEALs were probably more classified at the time. Note Magnum's camouflage cap with the blacked-out SEAL insignia. I became interested in the SEALs at age fourteen, when I wrote my first hero: a lone SEAL who assumed a new identity to work as a secret agent. I didn't yet know that being a SEAL first and foremost meant being part of a team, or that Tom Clancy was already writing about John Kelly/Mr. Clark.
Today the SEALs remain an example of what we can accomplish if we push through conceived breaking points, physical and mental, to our true best effort.
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