Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

Rate, review & discuss the episodes from the first season

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How Would You Rate This Episode?

10 (Perfect!)
23
19%
9.5 (One of the Best)
25
21%
9.0 (Excellent)
38
31%
8.5 (Very Good)
23
19%
8.0 (Pretty Good)
6
5%
7.5 (Decent)
4
3%
7.0 (Average at Best)
1
1%
6.5 (Not So Good)
0
No votes
6.0 (Pretty Bad)
0
No votes
5.0 (Just Awful)
1
1%
 
Total votes: 121

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marlboro
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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#61 Post by marlboro »

I wish they had kept the snow palace. I like the rough around the edges version of Rick. Loved how he just ran into the street with an uzi blazing at the end. He turned into comic relief by the end of the series.

I'm also not a fan of the Goody Two-Shoes version of T.C.

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#62 Post by Little Garwood »

I rated Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii a 10 [Perfect!]

Long-winded and random-observations post alert. :twisted:

The series debut is a ninety-minute movie and is the only long-running tv series which captured its essence from the very start: TM's narration, his character background with the US Navy, his Vietnam experience, his "beach bum" persona and nearly every other identifying concept that made Magnum, P.I. what it is are all present in Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii.

Higgins is immediately said NOT to be Robin Masters 8) but rather "the majordomo who sort of runs the place." Of the four principal characters, Higgins would take the longest to "find himself" though even those tweaks are minor. Higgins smirks and laughs more than usual and some of his dialogue is un-Higgins like (smacking the riding crop on the second-story metal railing for example) but they're not dramatically different from the Jonathan Quail Higgins we will come to know and love.

I liked Thomas' scenes with T.C. Their helicopter banter while searching for the wreck is one I'd previously taken for granted. Selleck and Mosley are tremendous fun to watch. T.C. ribbing Magnum about their being on a "mission" instead of a case is pretty funny stuff. I loved it.

Rick and T.C., like Higgins, remain in their basic role playing here which establishes who they are and what they do. Rick runs a sleazy disco but dresses and acts like Casablanca-era Humphrey Bogart--except he is the first member of the MPI main cast to take a life. He does so with what I believe is an Ingram MAC-10 which Rick uses to waste the thug played Peter Kalua.

"Snow" must have been filmed in early 1980 but disco was already dead, at least on the pop music charts, since mid 1979. They wisely chose to jettison the "Snow Palace" disco angle and move to the friendlier and more upscale King Kamehameha Club. It's the death of the Seventies and the birth of the Eighties, for better or worse. Whatever the case, it's strange seeing disco being popular in 1980. It must have been an in-between time, pop culturally speaking.

Pamela Susan Shoop does a fine job playing the slain Dan Cook's sister, particularly in her many scenes with Selleck. She's an engaging performer who should have had return appearances on Magnum.

Other notable supporting actors include Fritz Weaver (Captain Cooly). Weaver has a small but important role. Actingwise, Weaver mops the floor with Selleck in their one big scene together. Baa Baa Black Sheep member and Bellisario stock actor W.K. Stratton plays a rare good guy in his Ensign Healy role. He shares a nice scene with Pamela Susan Shoop out in the rain.

While it's amusing to see that 1970s Robin's Nest decor, the way the camera was set up in Higgins' study--I guess this was the actual home's study--gave me the impression that the study was too small to accommodate a TV film crew. Plus it looked to have been shot from floor level. The whole scene is just awkwardly yet interestingly filmed.

Of course, "Snow" boasts numerous iconic opening-credit images that are forever burned into every Magnum fan's brain. It's actually a treat to see those scenes in their original context. I still laugh every time Thomas dumps the Ferrari's top on the ground and proceeds to drive off!
"Popularity is the pocket change of history."

~Tom Selleck

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#63 Post by jno »

Just thought you might like this photo included here perhaps.

Image

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#64 Post by KingKC »

Little Garwood wrote:

"Snow" must have been filmed in early 1980 but disco was already dead, at least on the pop music charts, since mid 1979. They wisely chose to jettison the "Snow Palace" disco angle and move to the friendlier and more upscale King Kamehameha Club. It's the death of the Seventies and the birth of the Eighties, for better or worse. Whatever the case, it's strange seeing disco being popular in 1980. It must have been an in-between time, pop culturally speaking.
Having lived through the Seventies and Eighties I can assure you the Eighties were definitely a time for change. You are correct that disco died in 1979 but just like it peaked with John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever, country western music became oh so popular in the south, southwest and midwest in 1980 with John Travolta and Urban Cowboy. MPI did not even recognize the country western fad until much later with the Episode Let Me Hear The Music with Dennis Weaver. That was in spring of 1985 when the country western fad had pretty much died out. Maybe music fads took a little longer to get to Hawaii??? Moreso than enjoying the demise of disco was the end of the god-awful clothes we wore in the Seventies. Double knit polyester, large collars, wide lapels, silk shirts, flared pants, platform shoes and gold medallions (except by Mr. T!) were gleefully discarded and I hope they never return. I think some of that dress wear was even present in the first few episodes of MPI.

What is more astonishing is the change and increases in technology in the Eighties. CNN is still re-running a show on that. Things like cable television, microwaves, VCRs, cordless phones and answering machines all seemed to evolve and expand dramatically during the eight years MPI was on. Personal/home computers were still rare even in the late 1980s.

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#65 Post by jno »

A few scans from the British TV TIMES magazine from when this episode first aired on British TV on 27th February 1981:

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Image

Image

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#66 Post by MaximRecoil »

KingKC wrote:Personal/home computers were still rare even in the late 1980s.
There were millions of e.g., Commodore 64s, Vic 20s, Atari 400/800s, Apple ][s, TI-99/4As, TRS-80s, and so on, out there throughout the '80s. To this day, the Commodore 64 is still the best selling computer of all time. At one point during the '80s they were making ~400,000 of them a month. The thing is: they weren't an important part of most people's lives back then. Of the ones that weren't collecting dust in the closet, most were used for playing video games, i.e., as a glorified video game console. Relatively few of them were used for anything serious. Home computers didn't become an important part of people's lives until the internet/WWW became mainstream in the late '90s and early '00s. At the same time, cheap x86 PCs became available, such as from eMachines.

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#67 Post by KingKC »

MaximRecoil wrote:
KingKC wrote:Personal/home computers were still rare even in the late 1980s.
There were millions of e.g., Commodore 64s, Vic 20s, Atari 400/800s, Apple ][s, TI-99/4As, TRS-80s, and so on, out there throughout the '80s. To this day, the Commodore 64 is still the best selling computer of all time. At one point during the '80s they were making ~400,000 of them a month. The thing is: they weren't an important part of most people's lives back then. Of the ones that weren't collecting dust in the closet, most were used for playing video games, i.e., as a glorified video game console. Relatively few of them were used for anything serious. Home computers didn't become an important part of people's lives until the internet/WWW became mainstream in the late '90s and early '00s. At the same time, cheap x86 PCs became available, such as from eMachines.
I remember buying my first home computer, an Acer, in 1995, for document processing. Actually it was to prepare resumes since a merger had put me out of work. It also had a very user friendly spreadsheet program. In just a couple of years, though, dial up AOL and chat rooms were the rage. The more serious use of computers in the Eighties was pretty much like it was on MPI and the Naval Intelligence location where Mac worked. We had CRTs where you could access a very limited amount of information but input terminals were very restricted areas.

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#68 Post by 308GUY »

Took some computer classes in 1990, after coming to the realization that eventually, they were going to be like tv's.....i.e., one in every home...AT LEAST one!LOL

One of the classes was "BASIC" programming, which did cover the basics OF programming, but it also was the "language" used for programming.

Long story short, I didn't have a computer at home...so I borrowed a Commodore 64 from a friend who had it left over from her kids who used it for playing games.

Came to find out, the Basic that Commodore used was slightly "different" than what the PC's at the college used.

So ended up having to write every program twice. Did the flow charts, and initial coding at home on the 64, then went in to class early to transpose the 64 program into the Basic that the school's PC's used.

Thought about dropping out after the second week, but stuck with it, and eventually ended up getting the only "A" in the class. I particularly remember one program I wrote that when the instructor looked at the printout, he came to one of the subroutine's and said, "You can't do that"....I told him to run the program, which he did, when he found out....you CAN do that!LOL :lol:

Anyway, just about everything I learned back then, other than how to turn one on, has been obsolete for about 20 years! I almost got on board with Pascal, but then they started all the "C" and "C+" stuff, and I got left in the dust.

But the 64 sure came in handy for me when I needed it. I remember a game that was with the one I used, I think it was called "Deadline" no graffix of any kind, all text. Kind of a "Clue" deal, where you had to deal with certain scenario's surrounding a murder, and you input your responses to the keyboard, then the game would "react" in accordance with your response. Ah.....the "Good Ole' Days"! HA! :higgins:
"C'mon TC...nothing can go wrong!"

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#69 Post by marlboro »

Thanks for the scans, jno. Very interesting. I don't know which I find more amusing about the cover - "Poor Man's James Bond" or "Glamorous Renault Fuego."

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#70 Post by Danny Lin »

KingKC wrote:
Little Garwood wrote:

"Snow" must have been filmed in early 1980 but disco was already dead, at least on the pop music charts, since mid 1979.

...

It's the death of the Seventies and the birth of the Eighties, for better or worse. Whatever the case, it's strange seeing disco being popular in 1980. It must have been an in-between time, pop culturally speaking.
...

Moreso than enjoying the demise of disco was the end of the god-awful clothes we wore in the Seventies. Double knit polyester, large collars, wide lapels, silk shirts, flared pants, platform shoes and gold medallions (except by Mr. T!) were gleefully discarded and I hope they never return. I think some of that dress wear was even present in the first few episodes of MPI.

...
Some of that dress wear was even present as late as in the fourth season (shot 83/84): In the episode "Jororo farewell" the coach of the baseball team from Jororo is played by Robert Ito. When he gets off the school bus right before the practise game against T.C.´s team, his pants have a heavy 70ies boot cut :D

Interesting enough even the more stylish dressed Ricks pants seem to have a boot cut. There are several scenes showing him sitting besides the field in a very low chair. Especially in the last two scenes showing him before the game ends and he gets up it looks like his pants in fact have a boot cut. I´m not totally sure on this but I can´t help, it looks like it. This would be especially weird because in the waist the pants look like typical 80ies pants with a high waist.
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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#71 Post by Danny Lin »

Danny Lin wrote:If someone knows which beer Thomas drank in the first and second episode it would be nice if you would post an answer to my post on the beer thread (page 4, post 8):

http://magnum-mania.com/Forum/viewtopic ... 6&start=30
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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#72 Post by ENSHealy »

Danny Lin wrote:
Danny Lin wrote:If someone knows which beer Thomas drank in the first and second episode it would be nice if you would post an answer to my post on the beer thread (page 4, post 8):

http://magnum-mania.com/Forum/viewtopic ... 6&start=30
Check out the pic below. Although you can only see the final two letters, I think they are "ER" so the label probably just says "BEER". I got other screen caps of the label, but this is the only one clear enough that you can read anything on it. And I think they only drink this "BEER" in the pilot. Once the regular episodes start, they move on to Coops.

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#73 Post by ENSHealy »

1.2 DON’T EAT THE SNOW IN HAWAII
Hawaiian shirts: 1
Island Hopper shirts: 1 white on dark green
Body Count: 4 Pepe, La Bull, Captain Cooly, Hawaiian King Kong
Magnum gunshot wounds: 1 to the left shoulder in the bathroom at the airport, by La Bull.
Shirtless: 1.5 – swimming in the tidal pool/loading the gun; having a beer with his arm in the sling at the end, mostly covered by sling.
Little Voice: 0
I know what you’re thinking: 0
When I write HTBAWCPI: 0
Investigator corrections: 0
Higgins musings: .5 "I was a commando instructor during the war."
4th wall breaks: 0
Negotiations: 1 – Higgins wants the Ferrari back in exchange for delivering the picture of La Bull to the Snow Palace.
Famous guest stars: 2 Judge Reinhold, Robert Loggia
Magnumometer: 12

When the lads chase after Hawaiian King Kong as he is spying on the estate, he just drops the binoculars he had with him before climbing over the wall to escape. Must have been cheap binoculars!

When Magnum disabled the alarm in the Ferrari, we saw him enter 5777. When Higgins disables the alarm, we see him enter 5777 or 55777.

How did the WWII pilot's mother find out about the "secret" gold?

If Cooly knew the Zero cover story wouldn't hold, why would he send Dan to Tokyo? Did Dan go to Tokyo on his own initiative? Because he suspected Cooly?

Although he has yet to make reference to his little voice, it's clearly already at work:
Magnum: Healy was right. Captain Cooly had assigned Dan the dregs. Everything from petty vandalism in base housing to finding Admiral Matheson's missing dog. Putting Dan on this stuff was like making McGarrett the meter maid on Waikiki. But one of these routine cases had somehow gotten Dan killed. I'd know which one when I saw it. Don't ask me how. I just knew I would. [emphasis added]

Magnum: I'd missed the first flight to Hong Kong that morning, but I knew La Bull wasn't on it. Don't ask me how. I just knew it. He was here. Close. I could feel him. [emphasis added]

CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS (so many in just this one hour!!)

Magnum: You and your people are the only ones on the Islands with enough coke to burn 10 ounces on a murder.
Arab: Just because one has an oasis in the desert, doesn't mean one drowns people.
Magnum: Why don't you write that in the john?

TC: [ Yells ] I think I'm in love. Did you see the bazooms on that woman?
Magnum: It's Sunday.
TC: It's a sin to look at bazooms on Sunday?
Magnum: The Navy doesn't hold gunnery practice on Sunday--not in peacetime.
TC: Oh, Andy. Well, maybe they done declared war and done forgot to tell you and me.*
Magnum: And maybe that's not a Navy patrol boat--
[ Together] Off Kahoolawe.

*Presumably an Amos and Andy reference/impression.

TC: You know, Thomas, if that is Navy, they ain't gonna like this. I mean, they gonna take my number and fine my behind.
Magnum: If that's a navy patrol boat, I'll pay the fine.
TC: What? You pay the fine?
Magnum: Just sneak around the island, will ya, T.C.?
TC: Sneak?
Magnum: Sneak.
TC: Okay, we're officially sneaking.

TC: Gas money, baby, just gas money.

Magnum: I will have Higgins take a copy of this over to Rick's. Why don't you stop by, take a look, see if you know him, okay?
TC: Yeah, yeah. Sure. I ain't seen Orville in a couple of weeks anyway. Hey, Thomas, you sure you don't want to let the Coast Guard in on this?
Magnum: No, I gotta do it my way.
TC: Mm-hmm.
Higgins: No.
Magnum: Aw, Higgins. I just want you to run a copy of this photo over to Rick's.
[Barks, Growls. Dogs hold Magnum in the study as Higgins and Alice walk out]
Higgins: Out of the question. I've got my lads to feed. Poor things are probably starved.
Magnum: Higgins. [pause] Higgins! [Barking, Growling Continues] Higgins.! [ Barking ] Higgins!
Alice: [disappointedly] Thomas. [addressing the dogs] Zeus. Apollo. Come on. Come here this instant. [Whimpering heard as the dogs comply]
Magnum: Higgins, I'd take the photo to Rick's, but Alice and I--
Higgins: The car.
Magnum: The car?
Higgins: I want it back. I don't want you driving it.
Magnum: Now, wait a minute. I--
Alice: It's a deal. It's a deal.
Magnum: No.
Alice: Look, you said we needed my brother's car to get into Pearl anyway.
Higgins: Your brother?
Alice: Oh, it's my mother's third husband. No relation to Tom.
Higgins: Fascinating. Well, Magnum? Is it a deal?
Magnum: It's a deal.

[ Elevator Dings ]
Magnum: Don't look at the elevator. Work the lock. Work the lock. Don't look at the elevator.
[ Dings – Thomas looks]
Magnum: You looked at the elevator!

Higgins: Now, if you, uh, gentlemen will excuse me, I'll be returning to Robin's Nest.
Rick: Hey, Higgins, here's a little something for your trouble.
Higgins: I don't accept tips.
TC: Yeah, I bet you don't give 'em either.

Higgins: I, uh, don’t know what to say.
Magnum: So you owe me one.
Higgins: I’d really rather not.

Finally, call me crazy...but did the producers sneak a little clandestine nudity into the episode? You have to go frame-by-frame, but if you do.... Or to put it another way, it's not too obvious, but I think I may see some fur and early morning dew. (I hope I'm not violating any family-friendly standards there. But it is a quote, after all.)
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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#74 Post by karolis »

ENSHealy wrote: Finally, call me crazy...but did the producers sneak a little clandestine nudity into the episode? You have to go frame-by-frame, but if you do.... Or to put it another way, it's not too obvious, but I think I may see some fur and early morning dew. (I hope I'm not violating any family-friendly standards there. But it is a quote, after all.)
Image
Here's a better look (from BluRay disk, click for full size)
And i believe you're right :)

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P.S.: If i violate any forum rules - you're welcome to remove my post.

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Re: Don't Eat the Snow in Hawaii (2) (1.2)

#75 Post by K Hale »

ENSHealy wrote: Higgins: I, uh, don’t know what to say.
Magnum: So you owe me one.
Higgins: I’d really rather not.
I always felt Rick was the one Higgins really owed here. Rick spotted the tail, Rick set out in pursuit, and Rick shot the king kong guy. Magnum pushed Higgins down behind the cars but Rick really did the lion's share here.
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