I am a 40yo man and fantasize about being like Magnum

[bobrobertsxxx]

I love the idea of life like it was back in the mid-80s being like Magnum. I have had Magnum fantasies for at least 20 years!!! I am not even kidding. I remember getting flashbacks of episodes watched back in 1995...

- The friendships seem stronger in the past where at best you had an answering machine and there was no Facebook or internet.

- Hawaii looks incredible without crazy overbuilding and high prices and population

- I've been coming to terms with the ONLY thing that matters in life is being happy. Not your dumb job that will probably get outsourced, not your stupid depreciating car or your cookie-cutter house...just relationships and good times with your friend and family in a healthy environment

SO AM I CRAZY????

[308GUY]

SO AM I CRAZY????

Not "crazy", I would actually tend to agree with the assessment of friends, family and time being the most valuable assets in this world, but...........somebody's got to pay the mortgage and utilities.....not that easy living under a bridge for very long. In "earth terms"....somebody has to chop wood and carry water, making it "sacred".

Time is indeed our most precious commodity, though I'm sure, that point could be, and would be argued by many, especially those who have accumulated "wealth" and property through diligence and hard work. None of it would be possible without adequate time.

Remember, even Magnum had to "grow up" as he grew older. Maybe that's what we are to take away from the last episode....he re-upped to assume and accept a responsible position in a recognized establishment, taking his place and making his own way rather than living off the good graces of those around him. Up to the individual viewer to place their own meaning I guess.

At any rate, I for one, don't think you are crazy for entertaining such thoughts, I think we all do at one time or another. It's a matter of at what point in our lives we dwell on them and for how long. Then whether or not we act on them, or file them in the "things I've thought about from time to time" folder.

Should you decide to act on them, there are proper channels to go through to accomplish the desired end, just like any goal that can be set in the physical world. Then it becomes a matter of whether we are willing to take the necessary steps to make it happen.

Just some thoughts on the question you posed.

Welcome to Magnum Mania! Great site, good people and everything you could imagine wanting to know about the show.

[bobrobertsxxx]

I mostly agree about what you said but I think what made Magnum really great to me is the perfect balance he seems to have in his life: adventure, friendship, relaxation & lack of technology. By adventure I don't mean getting shot at but the "newness" that was always around the corner.

However, i do think that the show did embody the perfect amount of technology. Computers were used but not overreaching into ones lives (such as phones do). Also it seemed that they all kind of lived in the moment (Hawaii being a great place to do that). I think most technology has not really changed the quality of life for most people (it has increased the efficiency of one's life though).

Also it is kind of hard to meet people in real life nowadays because everyone is a slave to their phone. I understand its allure, it makes you feel as important as the President checking texts and whatnot but I don't get it. I still have a flip-phone for this reason (they are indestructible btw; Verizon salesmen told me that my phone was one of the best ever made for its utility).

EDIT: I vaguely remember the last episode. I knew he wore his Navy whites but I thought that was to go to Orvilles wedding. Also he got (or rather by his exwifes death) got custody of their daughter. Seemed with all the trouble he caused the Navy he wouldn't have been allowed to re-up.

[St Max Kolbe]

I am a 38 yr old who also fantasizes about the magnum life. In fact I feel like I am in the magnum years and need to make the most of them. My entire wardrobe is based on what i call "magnum style", some smart polos, cotton fields shirts with epaulets, cotton web belt etc. When I am confused about clothes I ask myself "what would magnum wear? " Just need the red ferrari to complete things. I once had a doberman and hope to have another one day. And good points raised by Bob. Yes the 80s did seem more simple (maybe coz I was a kid then).

[BWheelz54]

I had my first child, a wonderful girl, when I was thirty-nine a few years ago. Staying up late into the night helping feed her, I clicked onto Magnum on Netflix. My father had passed away several years ago, and I got to thinking about how Magnum was a show we both enjoyed when I was a kid growing up in the eighties. I missed my dad and wished he was around to see my girl Kate. But watching Magnum really helped because it reminded me of days when my extended family remained really close. And with my little one, I was ready to take a bit of a trip down the memory lane of my childhood.

I was so wonderfully surprised to realize how good Magnum really was back in the day. With my perspective as an adult, I got so much more out of the characters and stories. I have been hooked on Magnum ever since. Sometimes, the plot lines are not the most sophisticated pieces of mystery, but the bonds between Thomas and the gang never fail in my estimation.

I also remind myself that it is easier and easier as time goes by to look back on the past and think that all the lost days were always golden. I haven't forgotten some of the problems of those days, either. Not saying those bygone days were tough, or wrong, or bad, but just that - as my father was fond of saying - "things are rarely as good as you think they are, or as bad as you think they are."

I'm thrilled that there are so many Magnum fans like me on this site. I wear my Magnum Hawaiian shirts and my TC Island Hopper t-shirts. I often call my two German shepherds "the lads." I love banging stories behind my typewriter like Higgins, and I've got a picture of the majordomo framed on my wall, right above my set of Encyclopedia Britannica. And maybe best of all, I've found a gaggle of folks here on this site that are just as crazy as I am for this television show.

[steveadl]

I'd love to go back in time and visit '80's Honolulu, or for that matter a lot of other places like New York etc. Think it would be great. I get that feeling whenever watching old favourite TV shows or movies. '80's would definitely seem to be my preferred era to visit.

But present day Honolulu is pretty damn good too, as I'm sure New York will be when I get there...

[Luther's nephew Dobie]

I'd love to go back in time and visit '80's Honolulu, or for that matter a lot of other places like New York etc. Think it would be great. I get that feeling whenever watching old favourite TV shows or movies. '80's would definitely seem to be my preferred era to visit.But present day Honolulu is pretty damn good too, as I'm sure New York will be when I get there...

Hi Steve,
NYC in the 80's is a good choice, been there done that and got the Tour shirt. You want to stir the possum and raise Hell you couldn't do better, but if one showed up acting like it was Bush Week they'd have you for breakfast, you'd have Buckleys. Okay enough with the strine.
I for one would have liked to see Magnum go to Sydney on a case. If you go by the tv series Water Rats it looks like a picture postcard with no slums, the same way Honolulu is shown in Magnum.
Magnum meeting another Higgins brother there who is half Aborigine, married to Kylie Minouge, would have possibilities.

[steveadl]

I'd love to go back in time and visit '80's Honolulu, or for that matter a lot of other places like New York etc. Think it would be great. I get that feeling whenever watching old favourite TV shows or movies. '80's would definitely seem to be my preferred era to visit.But present day Honolulu is pretty damn good too, as I'm sure New York will be when I get there...

Hi Steve,
NYC in the 80's is a good choice, been there done that and got the Tour shirt. You want to stir the possum and raise Hell you couldn't do better, but if one showed up acting like it was Bush Week they'd have you for breakfast, you'd have Buckleys. Okay enough with the strine.
I for one would have liked to see Magnum go to Sydney on a case. If you go by the tv series Water Rats it looks like a picture postcard with no slums, the same way Honolulu is shown in Magnum.
Magnum meeting another Higgins brother there who is half Aborigine, married to Kylie Minouge, would have possibilities.

haha another Higgins brother from down under would be funny!

Having said that, I'm glad they didn't do an episode in Australia. As cool as it would have been to see TM with an Australian back drop behind him, I usually cringe whenever they have US shows film an episode down here. They're always full of so many typical cliche's. Possibly fun for Americans and Europeans to watch, but for actual Aussies they can be quite painful!

Modern Family did one here a couple years back and it was the standard, ho hum from memory. Just trot the cast out in Sydney Harbour, then somewhere in the bush to see Koala's, perhaps on the beach on the Gold Coast...... yuck. Same with Simpsons, Baywatch, the list goes on.

Incidentally Water Rats was a good show, wow it seems like a lifetime since I've watched that!

[Luther's nephew Dobie]

I'd love to go back in time and visit '80's Honolulu, or for that matter a lot of other places like New York etc. Think it would be great. I get that feeling whenever watching old favourite TV shows or movies. '80's would definitely seem to be my preferred era to visit.But present day Honolulu is pretty damn good too, as I'm sure New York will be when I get there...

Hi Steve,
NYC in the 80's is a good choice, been there done that and got the Tour shirt. You want to stir the possum and raise Hell you couldn't do better, but if one showed up acting like it was Bush Week they'd have you for breakfast, you'd have Buckleys. Okay enough with the strine.
I for one would have liked to see Magnum go to Sydney on a case. If you go by the tv series Water Rats it looks like a picture postcard with no slums, the same way Honolulu is shown in Magnum.
Magnum meeting another Higgins brother there who is half Aborigine, married to Kylie Minouge, would have possibilities.

haha another Higgins brother from down under would be funny!
Having said that, I'm glad they didn't do an episode in Australia. As cool as it would have been to see TM with an Australian back drop behind him, I usually cringe whenever they have US shows film an episode down here. They're always full of so many typical cliche's. Possibly fun for Americans and Europeans to watch, but for actual Aussies they can be quite painful!
Modern Family did one here a couple years back and it was the standard, ho hum from memory. Just trot the cast out in Sydney Harbour, then somewhere in the bush to see Koala's, perhaps on the beach on the Gold Coast...... yuck. Same with Simpsons, Baywatch, the list goes on.
Incidentally Water Rats was a good show, wow it seems like a lifetime since I've watched that!

Hi Steve,
I had a close Australian friend as a kid when your average American invariably confused Australia with Austria and thought Vienna was your capitol.
My buddy married a girl from Victoria and through Molly I now have several Australian friends who all enjoy MPI because I introduced them to it.
What you said about how American television presents Australia echoes what my pals have said for years, its condescending as hell to not show it as a fully realized society instead of a population of comical and colorful Down Under versions of Cockneys, beach bunnies or inbred lonely Outback Ockers(red necks) who tart up 'Roos with lipstick and romance them after first getting them drunk on Fosters.
As for Water Rats, Molly insisted I watch it on You Tube after I had made her into a Magnum fan and I thank her for it. It takes a few episodes to orient yourself to the world of the police who patrol Sydney's waterfront but it's well worth it and the two leads are aces.
My fellow Magnum fans, if you want something different from the endless Law and Order type cop shows, try this series, you won't be sorry and its free on You Tube.
The scenery is beautiful like in Magnum, plenty of babes for both sexes in the show along with good writing and humor that will help you understand the real Australia. Like their use of the song "True Blue" at a cop's funeral, it's quite affecting and indicative of its spread amongst the general population at such rites, in fact Molly wants to have it sung at her funeral one day.
I better stop lest the Board Police object to my going too far off the Magnum Reservation.

[bobrobertsxxx]

Thanks for the replies!

In retrospect I thought about the reasons why I have such a strong affection for Magnum P.I.. Sorry if I came across as bitter in my original post (but it is kinda hard to NOt when thinking about what your life may have been like living in Hawaii!). Upon more thoughtful introspection I think what I realized about Magnum is the male relationships that Magnum, TC, Rick & Higgins share are what draws me to the show.

As you get older A LOT of your friends either drop off or drop out of being your friend. Time-commitments, working, kids & marriage all add up to it being harder to make time for non-primary relationships. Let alone form and make NEW relationships. Men aren't given the encouragement nor free pass to socialize as women typically do. Often men are relegated to hanging out in the context of "watching a game" or some other sanctioned event. Just "hanging out" for no observable reason is seen as a waste of time. And to be honest, oftentimes the family-unit deserves more attention that the guy should be attending to.

I've tried to make new friends and continue old-friendships but oftentimes you can feel the pressure of your friend having or wanting to leave due to external pressures. I don't blame them. This is a part of life. Not to mention that guy friends who were once relaxed & funny are now dour & serious in their middle-age. I get it though. It is the cycle of life. Magnum and the gang in Hawaii seem removed from this timetable, thus my continued fascination...the opening credits of Magnum P.I. still make me giddy even after watching it countless times.

[BWheelz54]

Very well put, Bobrobertsxxx. I think you nailed it on the head with your observations regarding male friendships. I hadn't really realized how the fading of some of my close friends from my youth linked to my fascination with Magnum. Just well, well said. Thanks.

[Reef monkey]

I love the idea of life like it was back in the mid-80s being like Magnum. I have had Magnum fantasies for at least 20 years!!! I am not even kidding. I remember getting flashbacks of episodes watched back in 1995...

- The friendships seem stronger in the past where at best you had an answering machine and there was no Facebook or internet.

- Hawaii looks incredible without crazy overbuilding and high prices and population

- I've been coming to terms with the ONLY thing that matters in life is being happy. Not your dumb job that will probably get outsourced, not your stupid depreciating car or your cookie-cutter house...just relationships and good times with your friend and family in a healthy environment

SO AM I CRAZY????

I think you'll enjoy this thread.
http://magnum-mania.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2419


PS. I just turned 40 myself, and like you, I have a tendency towards nostalgia (which translates from greek as "the pain to return home"). Recently, though, I've realized that one day this time I am living in right now, when my 8 year old daughter adores me, and physically I don't feel any different than when I was in my 20s, this will be a time I feel nostalgic for, so I am trying to savor it now. The best way to do that is to make the most of it make great memories.

[terryfromkerry]

Eloquently said Reef Monkey,

I was looking back a bit myself. Kids are a blessing . They grow up so quickly it really is important to savour every moment with them. My two sons are adults now with their own families. I am fortunate now to get to spend a lot of time with my 4 year old grand daughter. She is our only grand child to date. Like the special bond you have with your daughter our little one adores me and my wife and its a wonderful feeling. Its had a very positive effect on our wellbeing. Having her around makes getting older a lot more enjoyable. I am looking forward to the day she's ready to sit and watch a Magnum PI episode together. My wife is looking forward to going shopping for shoes and handbags with her.

[KingKC]

bobrobertsxxx:

You are not crazy. I think that some shows are designed for you to desire to be like the star of the show. That is what keeps you coming back. And MPI was very good at that. I envied the character of Magnum when I first started watching in the 1980-81 season and was 29 years old. I still do some 35 years later as I just finished watching a couple of years of reruns on cable. I envied where he lived, his friends and the loyalty among them, and his commitment to the truth and his search for life and its meaning. I didn't realize how things like email, texts etc. kept me tied to my work and isolated me from face to face contact versus how "simple" and how more personally interactive life was in the eighties when we just started using things like video cassette recorders, answering machines and microwaves having no idea how technology would intervene into our lives. Nostalgia is a strong emotion. It is what brought me to this site. I can play the theme songs of MPI, Simon and Simon and Hill Street Blues and return to that time in my mind...oh so easily.

KingKC

[TSM308]

- I've been coming to terms with the ONLY thing that matters in life is being happy. Not your dumb job that will probably get outsourced, not your stupid depreciating car or your cookie-cutter house...just relationships and good times with your friend and family in a healthy environment

SO AM I CRAZY????

More people need to think this way...