This was one of my favorite television shows of the early '80's. How could I not like it? Set in the late 1930's, a time of spies and intrigue, on a tropical island under French jurisdiction in the south Pacific. A ex-military pilot flying a seaplane who has a comic sidekick and a one-eyed dog with a cafe singer for a girlfriend make for exciting television. And that's just a few of the characters. With plot lines dealing with German spies and unruly natives things kept getting better and better. Stephen Collins played the main character, Jake Cutter, the owner-pilot of the Grumman flying boat, Cutter's Goose.
I'm a big fan of adventure stories whether on film or in print and this was one of the best. I'm reminded of a character in a Louis L'Amour story who flew a seaplane which had machine guns mounted on it. Maybe the creator of Tales of the Gold Monkey read the same stories. And maybe that is the connection between the best of western fiction and the best of south Pacific pre-WWII aviation intrigue. At any rate this was a great fun show. Plots were simple and the good guys were easy to distinguish from the bad guys.
Of the actors in this show Stephen Collins went on to many movies and television series and is probably best known for his role in 7th Heaven. Roddy MacDowall was a well known film actor when he took a part in Tales of the Gold Monkey. Jeff MacKay would play recurring characters in other television series such as Magnum P.I., JAG, Battlestar Galactica, The Black Sheep Squadron, and Airwolf as well as other adventure shows.
I'm a great fan of the productions of Donald P. Bellisario, the producer of Tales of the Gold Monkey. Other Bellisario productions include Magnum P. I., Airwolf, Quantum Leap, JAG, and NCIS. Bellisario was also the writer of such shows as Black Sheep Squadron and Battlestar Gallactica.
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