Magnum, P.I., Season 4

Magnum:
[narrating] I've always felt at home on the ocean, even as a kid. Maybe that's why I spend so much time alone on it, even on the 4th of July. I know, the Fourth should be spent with your buddies drinking beer, or eating hot dogs at the ballpark, or hoping into a potato sack race with your best girl, or barbequing in the back yard with your folks. Maybe for most Americans, but for me it's been a day to spend alone, to remember. So, here I was all alone on the ocean starting my annual Independence Day remembrance. At least I wouldn't get my fingers blown off by a cherry bomb.

[Magnum warily watches as a shark circles him]

Magnum:
[narrating] I once had one follow me on my surf ski. He just hung a few meters off my rudder. I know I set a personal speed record getting back to shore that day.

Naval Officer:
To most Americans, this Fourth of July is a day of picnics and fireworks, of ball games and potato sack races, of political speeches and parades. But to us, the friends and family of Lieutenant Thomas Magnum Senior, this Fourth of July 1951 will always be remembered as the day he came home from the sea. God Bless and keep his wife and son.

Magnum:
[narrating] My dad once told me that life is a trick done with mirrors. You look at something from one direction, it looks like one thing; you turn it over, it looks like something else. I guess he was right. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's a real friend, and who's just an illusion in glass.

Magnum:
[narrating] Sure, I know, it's crazy to refer to whatever Higgins and I share as friendship, but it is. We fight and bicker like an old married couple, but somewhere, mixed in with the jibes, is a funny kind of mutual trust.

Higgins:
For a moment, I failed to remember that the ways of a gentleman are patently foreign to you. I revere words like honor, integrity, chivalry -- words that are clearly not in your vocabulary.

Magnum:
Higgins, enough! Knocking my rubber chicken or my sloppy habits is within the rules, but you're attacking my character. I would like to think you don't mean that.

Higgins:
Yes, I'm sorry. It's just that you can't know what it's like to care deeply for someone and have your hope taken.

Magnum:
Yes, I can.

Higgins:
You know lads, I sometimes view myself as a later-day Job, constantly being tested by our Creator. How else could I possibly justify four major wars, dozens of minor conflicts, seven natural disasters, and...

Magnum:
Aha! Double play Tigers!

Higgins:
...Him.

Rick:
Come on, T.C., a lizard could have caught that. I've seen better hands on my mother!

T.C.:
Well, maybe you oughta bring your momma out here. At least she is a girl; you just pitch like one!

[Higgins finds camera lens cap... without camera or lens]

Higgins:
Oh my god. Where is it?

Magnum:
[acting innocent] Where's what?

Higgins:
The 110mm lens this cap should be covering.

Magnum:
Higgins, I can explain.

Higgins:
I am utterly sick and tried of those four pathetic words "Higgins I can explain".

Magnum:
[narrating] When you spend your every working day basking in the balmy breezes of paradise, when you play year round on the beautiful sunny beaches of the Pacific, where do you dream of going on a vacation? The answer is obvious: Detroit. Reason one: Detroit's a fun city. Reason two: There's a superior group of athletes there known as the Tigers! Reason three:

T.C.:
A free trip? You think you're going to get a free trip to Detroit on my tab Thomas?

Magnum:
T.C., I'm doing you a favor.

T.C.:
And Robin Master's little red wagon for the whole entire time that you're gone. Sorry Thomas, but I need wheels and I'm having problems with the van.

Magnum:
What's wrong with it?

T.C.:
It's not a Ferrari.

Higgins:
[to T.C.] You ran through a pen, striking Mr. Platt, who was chasing a pig. It's so... Magnum-esque. The body has departed, but the spirit has remained behind to haunt me. Why?

Ralph:
Mr. Magnum, thanks for the invite. This English ale's got the kick of a Molokai mule. And any time you wanna break into a place I'm guarding ... open sesame!

Higgins:
I, of course, have spent many a Christmas away from home and family. More times than I care to remember, in more places than I care to remember; Forgotten battlefields, and sometimes even forgotten wars. I think being at war, makes Christmas all the more bittersweet - peace on earth, and goodwill to all men, and all that.

Magnum:
Rick, there's a bug in your hair.

Rick:
Yeah, right.

T.C.:
No, really, Rick, there's a praying mantis.

Rick:
[mimicks]"Rick, there's a bug in your pocket," "Rick, there's a centipede," "Rick, there's a lizard." Well, I'm not buyin' it! [Rick walks off]

[Rick screams]

Rick:
You know, Higgins, there's something that I always wanted to tell you. I mean, deep down, you're really an okay guy.

Higgins:
How reassuring.

T.C.:
[after Magnum and Rick complain about his piloting] You get what you pay for, and none of you paid!

Rick:
Where is your holiday spirit?

T.C.:
Back home in New Orleans, which is where I'm gonna be as soon as Captain Calvin's Charity Chopper dumps all you freeloaders off!

Magnum:
[narrating] In my dad's day it was pool halls. Me? I sometimes hung out in pinball arcades. And these days a lot of kids lose themselves in computer explosions of lights and sounds. But whatever your game, you could always count on one thing in places like these; you could, in the space of a couple of hours, temporarily escape the problems of the outside world.

[Magnum is at a fancy dress party in his normal trademark look]

Marge:
Great costume!

Magnum:
Oh, this isn't a costume.

Nolan:
Really?! You wear that shirt in public?

Higgins:
Magnum, I'm very busy placating the guests. Now, will you please send Rick and T.C., away and assume the character of a reasonably competent security person? Only you and I will know you're acting.

Magnum:
[narrating] In that Army-Navy game, where I went 21-30, one of the passes I missed was intercepted. The fastest man on the Army team caught it, and he got past everybody, until I was the only guy left who had a chance to catch him. The guy was faster than me, and I knew it, but I wasn't going to get beat by my own mistake.

Higgins:
Magnum, stop living in the past.

Magnum:
Me? Me?! Higgins, you've enshrined yours. You quote every boring war story like it was carved in stone.

Higgins:
Boring?

Rick:
Don't worry, Higgins, I like your stories.

T.C.:
Yeah, me too.

Higgins:
I do think I tell them with a certain panache.

Magnum:
[narrating] Ms. Wagner, my 11th grade English teacher, created a scandal in my hometown when she put All the King's Men on our mandatory reading list. She said she wanted us to understand the fatal attraction some men have for the very thing that will destroy them. Her love for the book got her fired and I never quite understood the attraction she was talking about, until the first day I saw Alex Carter and the way T.C. was looking at her.

Magnum:
Higgins, I can explain.

Higgins:
I knew I could count on hearing that pathetic phrase once again, it is as regular as the rising and setting of the-

Magnum:
Do you wanna know why or not?

Higgins:
Not.

Magnum:
This was done by dot matrix.

Luther:
Who's Dot Matrix, and what's she got to do with this?

Magnum:
She's a computer, Luther!

Luther:
[narrating] I was beginning to get the feeling that I was stuck with the big guy for the duration. The only thing more depressing than that was this case, because we'd run out of leads. You try being a detective with no leads. It's like a tailor without a needle, or Godzilla without Tokyo, or...

Magnum:
[narrating] A bad guy without a motive.

Luther:
Did you say something?

Magnum:
What?...Nope.

Magnum:
[narrating] Once, when I was a kid, three older guys decided to beat me up for no apparent reason. I held my own until a fourth showed up. And from that day on, I vowed that three was my limit, particularly when I didn't know what I was fighting about.

Magnum:
[narrating] One of the best things about living in paradise is that when you get a couple of days off, you don't have to go someplace else to have fun and relax. Instead, you can concentrate on some of the finer things in life, like art. It comes in many shapes and forms and textures. You can find it anywhere, even in the sand. No matter how old or young you are, there's an incredible feeling of pride when you create something with your own two hands.

Magnum:
When I write my book on being a first class private investigator, Rule Number 168 is going to be: "If you're getting chased, you should be in a fast car". Postscript to Rule 168: "No matter how fast your car is, there can always be one that's faster".

Magnum:
[narrating] It's kind of funny how the years can sometimes creep by on you, two or three at a time, and nothing much changes. You're in a routine, and all that you really get is a little older, until whammo! -- you get a big three hundred and sixty-five that sometimes sets you right on your ear, changes everything. I guess 1979 was that kind of year for me. I resigned from the Navy, and I became a private investigator. Of course, that's a big over-simplification. Actually, there was a little more to it than that. There was Karen Teal, for example. The best woman surfer of 1979, and '8, and '7, and '6. Karen was the best. She always won, no matter who she went up against, and I really think it was that way because her love for life brought out the best in her. I know that because a long time ago, Karen Teal brought out the best in me. It seemed like only yesterday.

Magnum:
[narrating] Hawaiian sunsets are among the most breathtakingly beautiful in the world. Grandly vibrant, uniquely different every day, they paint a palette with boundaries that stop only at the horizons of one's imagination. However, when the sun goes down, it looks the same all over the world. Whether you're in Milwaukee or Maui, it's dark.