In case you’re a Gen Z or Millennial, I’m talking about the original Thomas Magnum. Yes there was one from the 1980s. In fact, the only one. The one in the recent series reboot is but a pale shadow of the real Thomas Sullivan Magnum, IV.¹
Magnum is an iconic fictional literary character of a stature equivalent to James Bond, but with a decidedly American bent. When a chance Facebook advertisement flogging a tribute watch to the one he wore in the first three seasons of his show appeared, I was instantly hooked.
With the advent of quartz movements in 1969, there was a subsequent race to develop a diving quartz watch resistant to 300m depths to match that of the Rolex Submariner, which was costing the NATO navies $1000 apiece to equip their personnel. Breitling managed to even undercut Seiko and Citizen with their Chronosport Sea Quartz 30 by pricing it under $200 and won multiple contracts.
The Chronosport brand featured on Magnum’s watch was originally registered by a UK based company in the mid 1960s but this trademark was bought by a US subsidiary (of the St. Moritz Watch Company) based in Norwalk, CT with the spinnaker logo being used in 1973 and the Sea Quartz model name in 1977.
The company pioneered product placement in film and TV allowing their products to be featured in the first three seasons of Magnum and the Rambo movies but disappeared in the 1990s.
Simon Pennell, son of the founder of the still viable St. Moritz Watch company has produced an accurate tribute to this watch under the Momentum brand based in Vancouver, BC in 2023.
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As old as I am, I did not experience Magnum, PI in real time as it appeared for 8 seasons on CBS TV starting in 1980 since I was preoccupied with high school and then university. I likely started watching it sporadically during its initial rerun cycle starting after 1986 when I found myself in dental school and decided it was time to throttle down and start living and enjoying life. Unfortunately, this was and continues to be an unusual philosophy viewed with perplexed suspicion. But this is why I enjoy and hold Magnum in such high esteem as a TV production. Even then I recognized it for the excellent writing and palpable cast chemistry of actors who had been superbly cast for their roles, namely Tom Selleck and John Hillerman (Higgins). Reviewing the two hour pilot recently, I was even more struck with the quality of the show as much more of Magnum’s identity resonated as can only occur after one has lived a full and adult life. Resigning from the US Navy, the only life he had known, Magnum explains, “One day I woke up age 33 and realized I had never been 23.”
Like Star Trek, that other famous TV Series from a decade earlier, Magnum also owed its success to serendipity and the bravery of its writing staff. CBS jumped at the proposal of an every man private eye living in the luxury of a mysterious benefactor but insisted production happen in Hawaii to take advantage of the studio infrastructure it had built for Hawaii Five O. Universal Studios wanted CBS to hire Tom Selleck, a struggling actor who had just completed a sixth failed series pilot. Selleck himself expressed doubt at playing the type cast handsome and womanizing action star and wanted a role involving humour and gravitas. And where he wouldn’t always be heroic or even get the girl.
The network executives made clear that they did not wish to see any references to the Vietnam war or flashbacks of combat that the characters in the pilot underwent because they felt the viewing American public still carried an aversion to that unpopular conflict. Magnum was the first TV series to portray those veterans as noble warriors who quietly coped with their PTSD and the betrayal by their own government while leading active and productive lives. The writers ignored the studio executives and proceeded with the pilot which was extensively tied in with the Vietnam war experience of the characters. Magnum was a Navy Seal and later worked in Naval Intelligence and this theme was regularly revisited during the entire series run. Despite it all, CBS instantly signed up for an entire first season worth of new episodes.
Tom Selleck’s performance in the pilot was so good that Steven Spielberg offered the Indiana Jones role to him. But CBS would not allow him to take it, they needed production to begin immediately in order for the new series to fill an important and empty time slot. Selleck, likely being an honorable man, felt compelled to abide with his CBS contract and had to turn down the role of a lifetime. But serendipity raises its head again. Harrison Ford turned in a much more credible interpretation of the Indiana Jones character and Selleck likely rose to even higher fame from the long lived Magnum series. The series finale was watched by more than 50 million in America and is the fifth most popular finale after Cheers, MASH, Friends and Seinfeld. That feat can never be repeated is today’s fractured viewership dominated by streaming services and hundreds of TV channels.
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¹ Coincidently, the other contemporary and also terrible TV series reboot happens to also take place in the Hawaiian islands. Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park left the cast of Hawaii Five O after the studio refused to pay them the same as the two other white leads despite Kim and Park having much more successful careers and similar screen time. As the series careened onwards to its slow death, a specialized police task force had no Asian members despite being set in a region of the US population where only 20% are white. Simply ridiculous.
Jim Chung's Ramblings 