The Love-For-Sale Boat (5.17)

[ENSHealy]

EPISODE: 5.17 The Love-For-Sale Boat

Famous guest stars:
Hawaiian shirts:
Tigers Cap:

Island Hopper shirts: 1
Shirtless Magnum:
OMG: 1
Higgins Organizations:
Higgins musings:
Negotiations:
Body Count:
Bullet wounds:
Little Voice:
I know what you’re thinking:
When I write HTBAWCPI:
Investigator corrections:
4th wall breaks: 1
Magnumometer: 3
Magnumometer Moments: https://vimeo.com/567936325

The thought that ran through my mind when I started up this episode was, “Ah, the good old days, when human trafficking was still funny.”

I’m tired of fake-Mac’s shtick. Probably the biggest mistake of the series was killing off the real Mac, and then doubling down by creating this terrible character just to bring Jeff MacKay back. I mean, MacKay was good, but not that good.

Those girls on the boat would have been seriously cut up – they break bottles over the skinny enforcer’s head and then walk on and roll around in the broken glass shards. I know, I know…suspension of disbelief. But sometimes it’s hard.

I have to quibble with the second flub listed in the episode guide. Everyone, even the geisha girls, has changed clothes in that scene, and the light is noticeably different (although that may be coincidence, as they don’t always seem to worry about whether the light during filming matches when the scene is supposed to be taking place). I think the raffle ticket scene was occurring in the morning and the scene where fake-Mac cons Rick occurs in the late afternoon or evening (they are sipping cocktails, after all, it must be after 5) and Rick has obviously been home and changed clothes.

[Treadwell]

None of the main characters were accepting human trafficking nor taking it lightly. They were all quite clear in their disapproval, and Higgins was "deprogramming" them after all.

[Spagnum]

Not a bad one, but The Mac Character so so so gets on my nerves!!!
I mean Thomas, Rik and TC are all clever guys yet they keep getting had by MAC, I mean this is getting silly now!!!

Still some good bits in this episode, Love when Higgins talks Japanese!! Does anyone know what he said???

I want to know this too. It bugs me the way they never give subtitles/translations when people aren't speaking English.

As my first post here, I'll take this one!

An English translation of what Higgins says would be: Sakiko, please forgive me. Think of yourselves as our guests here; furthermore, enjoy your time as my students. (Since he's going to school them in personal freedom.)

In Japanese, it would look like: サキ子さん、お許しください。あなたたちをここのお客様になって、そして、学生として大変楽しんでいただきます。

And in Romanized Japanese, would be: Sakiko-san, oyurushi kudasai. Anatatachi wo koko no okyakusama ni natte, soshite, gakusei to shite taihen tanoshinde itadakimasu.

As for the correctness (since they obviously had some sort of consultant write this for them), it's basically correct, but Japanese has different levels of speech depending on who is speaking and who is being spoken to, and a few of the words use the casual form when the polite form would be more appropriate. As for John Hillerman's pronunciation and delivery, it's very, very good! Probably one of, if not, the best examples of an actor speaking Japanese I've ever seen. Definitely the longest passage I've ever seen one recite. One or two of his pauses between words is a little unnatural, but otherwise great! I wonder how much coaching he needed, or whether he had had any prior experience with Japanese.

[Spagnum]

Interesting that the sisters are named Tamiko, Umeko and Shakiko in the credits, but Rick clearly introduces Umeko as "Shazuay" (sp?). Well, interesting to me as I write the DV - I had to go back and change all my descriptions - "Umeko hits him with a champagne bottle" etc.

Yes, he introduced Umeko as "Shizue" (she-zu-ay).

[Luther's nephew Dobie]

Not a bad one, but The Mac Character so so so gets on my nerves!!!
I mean Thomas, Rik and TC are all clever guys yet they keep getting had by MAC, I mean this is getting silly now!!!

Still some good bits in this episode, Love when Higgins talks Japanese!! Does anyone know what he said???

I want to know this too. It bugs me the way they never give subtitles/translations when people aren't speaking English.

As my first post here, I'll take this one!

An English translation of what Higgins says would be: Sakiko, please forgive me. Think of yourselves as our guests here; furthermore, enjoy your time as my students. (Since he's going to school them in personal freedom.)

In Japanese, it would look like: サキ子さん、お許しください。あなたたちをここのお客様になって、そして、学生として大変楽しんでいただきます。

And in Romanized Japanese, would be: Sakiko-san, oyurushi kudasai. Anatatachi wo koko no okyakusama ni natte, soshite, gakusei to shite taihen tanoshinde itadakimasu.

As for the correctness (since they obviously had some sort of consultant write this for them), it's basically correct, but Japanese has different levels of speech depending on who is speaking and who is being spoken to, and a few of the words use the casual form when the polite form would be more appropriate. As for John Hillerman's pronunciation and delivery, it's very, very good! Probably one of, if not, the best examples of an actor speaking Japanese I've ever seen. Definitely the longest passage I've ever seen one recite. One or two of his pauses between words is a little unnatural, but otherwise great! I wonder how much coaching he needed, or whether he had had any prior experience with Japanese.

Interesting stuff, Spagnum.
I have a question for you, have you ever noticed that a character speaking Japanese on a TV series or a movie
is actually sneaking in some off color remarks, or saying something that has nothing to do with the scene?
For instance when I was a kid my buddy's Yiddish speaking father would relate how Louie in the Bowery Boys movies would slip in some very blue Yiddish slang words.
And there are Westerns where local Indians on location shoots were hired to speak in their native tongue to the cowboy hero and are actually commenting on
the stock market or telling the hero to get stuffed.

Welcome to Magnum Mania Spagnum.
If I may ask, what does "spagnum" mean, isn't that some kind of moss?

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"Jack Irish" (much heralded Australian murder/mystery series on ACORN network) -

Old school copper Barry Tregear(Shane Jacobson), relates to his mate Jack Irish the horrors of being clinically dead for 3 minutes:
"I've seen the other side, Jack.
Shit house. The beer's light.
Got no sport.
Got to wear white. Everyone's happy.
It's a ...it's a bloody nightmare."

[Spagnum]

Thanks for the welcome, Dobie.

Nah, never noticed any shenanigans with Japanese words/phrases on shows.

The name "Spagnum" is what one of my college roommates and I, just to be stupid I guess, started calling the show. We'd often watch the re-runs in the afternoons. So for example, it would be, "Hurry up! We gotta get back by 4:00 for Spagnum!" This was in the fall of '86/spring of '87, so the first-run episodes were still being produced then, and even though we'd watch the daytime re-runs, I don't have any memories of watching the new episodes in prime time. This could possibly be explained by beer/partying now that I think about it...

As for the moss, I think you're thinking of sphagnum.

[CanadianP1]

I don't recall ever having seen this episode before but I just couldn't get past the slavery aspect. I know Higgins was deprogramming them, but both Mac and Rick seemed a little too causal about the whole thing and it was played a bit for laughs. I'm watching these in order so perhaps seeing this on the heels of the 'freedom for all' episodes All for One made it even more jarring.

[Wilson_MacLeish]

I rated the episode as "decent". I used to roll my eyes and skip it, but it's grown on me in the sense that I appreciate the balance it strikes between silliness, and flat-out insufferable stupidity. I think this one is self aware enough to be enjoyable whereas episodes like Legend Of The Lost Art, or Kiss Of The Sabre cross over into the insufferable stupidity category for me.

I feel that anyone taking the "slavery" aspect seriously should ask themselves why. Also, the woman in the photo that Rick has is definitely not Nancy DeCarl Manetti.

[ZelenskyTheValiant (Ivan)]

I don't recall ever having seen this episode before but I just couldn't get past the slavery aspect. I know Higgins was deprogramming them, but both Mac and Rick seemed a little too causal about the whole thing and it was played a bit for laughs. I'm watching these in order so perhaps seeing this on the heels of the 'freedom for all' episodes All for One made it even more jarring.

I think the "slavery" complaint is utter nonsense. No one uses that word in the episode and not once during my viewing of it did that word ever pop into my head. I think it's sad when we can't enjoy a breezy comedy episode from the 80s because we've been so programmed to be offended by so many things. So 3 beautiful Japanese women entertaining a white guy and doing some odd jobs for him automatically equals slavery? That's basically what they were doing for Mac, Rick, and Higgy. No different than having a servant or housekeeper come over to clean your house. Granted there's probably no massages involved there. But basically the whole "owning" business is a moot point because neither of those guys really believe that they own those girls. They basically just came with the boat and the guys are just enjoying their company and if the girls want to give one of them a massage or put a grape in his mouth then so be it. I don't see anyone cracking a whip at them. This whole "slavery" bit is so overused these days. It gets thrown around too much. Now, as for Kanki back in Japan perhaps he really did own these girls (maybe had some papers to prove it too) but even then it seemed like it was in capacity of servants than actual slaves who are abused and mistreated. Heck, they even say to Higgy that serving Kanki is something they consider an honor.

[SeamanWolfe]

Trying to do a 40 year rewatch (I joined the fun in 2022 but fell behind and missed a bunch of episodes). This episode definitely shows it's age (the female characters are just cringe worthy in this day and age, even if Rick and Higgins seem to have the best intentions - well at least Higgins). The Jim Bonick version of Mac is at his worst in this episode. In addition the scene with the lady waiting for her aerobic instructor is just dumb. It seems like the show was stumbling to figure out what it wanted to evolve into at this point. Interested to see how season 6 holds up, I feel like 7 and 8 had a lot of great episodes - this season not so much.