Tales of the Gold Monkey: Part 1

I have fond memories of watching this show in Hong Kong as a kid and loving it. This show decided my young mind's career prospects, all I wanted to be was a bush pilot in the South Pacific.

Many years later in the early '90's when was I on an Universal Studio tour the bit that I really remember being the highlight was seeing "Cutters Goose" sitting on the lot.

You can now download "Cutters Goose" to fly on Flight Simulator 2004, 2 versions, 1 comes with Corky, 1 with Sarah as your co-pilots, both come of course with Jack, also a neat switch which plays the theme tune.

Definitely will buy the DVD if it ever comes out,if anything just to show the kids that there was a time when T.V shows could be watched and enjoyed by the whole family without worries about too much adult themes, bloodshed or swearing.

I remember when this came out and it blew me away. I had seen Raiders of the Lost Ark and this was in the same genre. A former American Volunteer Group (aka "Flying Tigers") fighter pilot in the late 1930's has his own Grumman Goose flying boat and sets up shop on a fictional south Pacific island run by a cool Franch magistrate. He has a mechanic named Corky and a great sidekick, a one-eyed dog named Jack. His love-interest is a woman named Sarah, who is a covert spy for the American government. Surrounded by the Japanese military and their nazi allies, as well as remote islands full of lost treasure, it's a dangerous and exotic location and every "milk run" job Jake flies turns into a swashbuckling adventure (of course!).

The pilot was especially good, with lots of action, lovable good guys and a great twist at the end. In fact, with a bigger budget it could've been a fine theatrical film.

And if you love old airplanes, there's no question what the draw to this show was.

A final note: Bellisario concocted this show in the late 1970s, prior to the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the networks suits wouldn't bite until they saw how well Spielberg's film did, so it's not fair to call this a ripoff. Spielberg wasn't the only film maker or writer rediscovering the magic of 1930s-era adventure stories.

And this was one of the best.

I remember being a kid, waiting for summer to be over to watch this show. Hey, the commerical made this show another Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the end, this was another cheap telivision rip off. Maybe, the build up was too much. I found the stories too long, and draged out. The action too tvish. The lead actor was no Harrison Ford. Maybe, if I watched this show as a adult I would like it better, but I only watch a couple of them, and half the movie. My friend Marco liked it, but I found the series to be a big disapointment. In the end, the show did not last that long either. 3 out of 10 Is it even on in reruns. I can not believe I even rememberd it. I guess it was because it was such a bad memory.

Raids 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' in nearly every way imaginable, from the time period and search for a mysterious artifact (the titular Gold Monkey) to the two-fisted, leather jacket wearing hero battling Nazi bad guys. It's not like Indy is exactly %100 original, but coming right on the heels of 'ROTLA', 'Tales' does seem like it's definitely raiding Raiders.

Stephen Collins (yeah, I know, me too) is reasonably effective as Wannabe Jones, and a few "Oh, yeah. Him/her!" types round out the cast. The script features the occasional bit of wit, and the production values are above average. The show only ran for one season, but it has developed a bit of a cult following over the years (current IMDb rating is a more than respectable 8.2). The components for a reasonably fun bit of weekly escapism are here in this pilot episode, though I don't quite see it as being a, well, lost treasure.

Unfortunately this show was cancelled way too early. I had a chance to ask Stephen Collins about it once and he said it had more to do with politics between the network and the executive producer than it did with ratings. Yes, it was obviously inspired by the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark but that doesn't make it bad. Where would Battlestar Galactica be without Star Wars or The Facts of Life without Cooley High? The point is this was a great family adventure show. A fun cast aided Jake Cutter, a cargo plane pilot, in his efforts to make a living in the South Seas in 1938 while avoiding the Japanese and Nazis in the pre-WWII era. A highlight has to be the one-eyed dog, Jack. Jake lost Jack's glass eye in a poker game - classic. This dog was part Lassie and part Clyde (Every Which Way But Loose) and he understood several languages. Sarah and Corky rounded out an ensemble of comic relief that made this show as entertaining as it was exciting. Even though this was in the mold of 1930's action serials this show was pure 80's - a harmless romp. My only hope is that the complete set (all 21 episodes) will become available on DVD so some day when I have kids I'll be able to show them what family television used to be all about. They may have buried this show in the television oblivion but they'll never take away that one year my whole family watched Gold Monkey every week. Awesome.