Magnum, P.I. Trivia
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52 free Magnum, P.I. trivia questions with answers. Magnum, P.I. ran eight seasons on Thursday nights and turned a Ferrari, a Detroit Tigers cap and a mustache into pop-culture shorthand. This quiz covers the original 1980-1988 series first: Thomas Magnum's Navy past, the running war with Higgins over the estate's amenities, T.C.'s helicopter and Rick's club, Robin Masters and the Higgins-is-Robin theory, the Murder, She Wrote and Simon & Simon crossovers, the Emmys, and the finale that was supposed to kill Magnum off a season earlier. The last dozen questions turn to the 2018 reboot with Jay Hernandez and Perdita Weeks, its move to a new network, and the original cast members who dropped in. The easy questions are for anyone who has ever hummed the theme; the hard ones ask about Higgins's doctorate, the Billboard peak of that theme, and which blues legend Roger E. Mosley played before he was T.C. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the series, its characters and its cast, and each question carries the sentence that supports it.
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Q 01On which network did the original Magnum, P.I. air from 1980 to 1988?
CBS
CBS. The network kept Magnum, P.I. on Thursday nights for most of its run, and thirty years after the finale it revived the title with a reboot that premiered in 2018.
Q 02What is the name of the Oahu estate where Magnum lives in the guest house?
Robin's Nest
Robin's Nest is the beachfront Oahu estate of novelist Robin Masters; Magnum lives in its guest house in return for handling the estate's security.
Q 03Which model of Ferrari does Magnum drive around the island?
308 GTS
308 GTS. The red Ferrari belongs to his employer, not to Magnum, and the production swapped in newer GTSi and Quattrovalvole versions; cars from the show were later auctioned off.
Q 04What are the names of Higgins's two Doberman guard dogs, 'the lads'?
Zeus and Apollo
Zeus and Apollo are Higgins's two Doberman Pinschers, 'the lads', who chase Magnum across the grounds and returned for the 2018 reboot.
Q 05Which baseball team's cap does Magnum usually wear?
Detroit Tigers
Detroit Tigers. The cap was no accident: Tom Selleck was born in Detroit, and in 1991 the Tigers sent him up to pinch-hit in a spring training game, where he struck out.
Q 06Who provided the voice of the unseen novelist Robin Masters?
Orson Welles
Orson Welles. He voiced the never-seen author in a handful of episodes, and in the finale Higgins tells Magnum that he is Robin Masters himself, only to say later that he lied.
Q 07What is the name of T.C.'s helicopter charter and tour business?
Island Hoppers
T.C. owns Island Hoppers, a helicopter charter and tour service flying a striped Hughes 500D; Magnum constantly commandeers the chopper and never pays for fuel.
Q 08Magnum's friend Rick Wright refuses to go by which given first name?
Orville
Orville. The name makes him a namesake of aviation pioneer Orville Wright, and the show put it in the title of a late episode in which Rick is arrested and confesses to a killing.
Q 09On Magnum, P.I., Rick manages which exclusive members-only beachfront spot?
King Kamehameha Club
King Kamehameha Club. Rick lands there after the nightclub he owns in the pilot is dropped from the show, and he answers to a board that includes Higgins.
Q 10In the pilot, Rick's bar was modeled on the cafe from which classic film?
Casablanca
In the pilot Rick, a Humphrey Bogart devotee, ran a bar copied from the cafe in Casablanca and dressed in 1930s style; the conceit was dropped once the series proper began.
Q 11Who composed the up-tempo Magnum, P.I. theme that replaced a jazzier original during the first season?
Mike Post and Pete Carpenter
Mike Post and Pete Carpenter. Their theme, with Larry Carlton on guitar, took over from Ian Freebairn-Smith's jazzier original, which was later cut from the syndicated reruns altogether.
Q 12After Magnum, Tom Selleck spent 14 seasons as New York police commissioner Frank Reagan on which drama?
Blue Bloods
Blue Bloods. When the Magnum reboot arrived in 2018 its makers asked Selleck to appear, and he turned them down flat, saying he was busy with Blue Bloods.
Q 13Magnum star Tom Selleck led which 1987 film, that year's top-grossing US release?
Q 21In the original series, which branch of the Navy did Magnum serve in as an officer?
Naval Intelligence
Naval Intelligence. Magnum, also a former Navy SEAL, resigned in disillusionment in 1979 to become a private eye, yet the series finale ends with him going back to the Navy.
Q 22Which Magnum, P.I. co-creator went on to create Quantum Leap, JAG and NCIS?
Donald P. Bellisario
Donald P. Bellisario. He had served four years in the Marines, and his heroes followed suit: Magnum, JAG's Harm Rabb and NCIS's Gibbs are all Navy or Marine veterans.
Q 23In season seven Magnum moved from Thursday to Wednesday to escape which sitcom's ratings juggernaut?
The Cosby Show
Three Men and a Baby
Three Men and a Baby. A rumor later spread that a ghost boy stands at a window in one scene, but the figure is a cardboard cutout of co-star Ted Danson left on the set.
Q 14Higgins actor John Hillerman played Howard Johnson in which Mel Brooks comedy?
Blazing Saddles
Blazing Saddles. Hillerman was American, yet his Higgins, which won him a 1987 Emmy, so convinced English viewers that they wrote to him as one of their own.
Q 15Tom Selleck's Magnum, P.I. contract famously cost him which film role?
Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones. Selleck won the part but his Magnum contract kept him from taking it; a Hollywood strike then stalled the series for months, long enough for him to have shot Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Q 16Which mystery series staged a two-part crossover with Magnum in November 1986?
Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote. The story began in Magnum's 'Novel Connection' and finished on Jessica Fletcher's own show, where Magnum is arrested for murder and she has to clear him.
Q 17The Magnum, P.I. episode 'Ki'is Don't Lie', about a cursed Hawaiian artifact, concluded on which detective series?
Simon & Simon
Simon & Simon, starring Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker as San Diego private eyes, finished the story; the 1982 crossover helped turn the struggling show into a hit in the slot after Magnum.
Q 18In 1982–83, its best Nielsen season, Magnum, P.I. finished just behind 60 Minutes and which prime-time soap?
Dallas
Dallas. Only 60 Minutes and the Ewing saga out-rated Magnum that season; it was the peak, and within four years a slide in its numbers had the network moving the show to a new night.
Q 19What is the title of the Magnum, P.I. series finale, first shown in May 1988?
Resolutions
'Resolutions', the two-hour finale aired on May 1, 1988, sees Magnum rejoin the Navy and reunite with his young daughter before the final fade-out.
Q 20Each year Magnum, whose Navy-pilot father died in the Korean War, spends which holiday alone at sea?
Fourth of July
Fourth of July. One year the ritual nearly kills him: a reckless boater capsizes his surf ski, and he treads water for hours, kept going by memories of his parents.
The Cosby Show. With Magnum stumbling against it, Tom Selleck stepped in as a producer and the network moved his series to a new night.
Q 24Which legendary singer made his last major acting appearance in the Magnum, P.I. episode 'Laura'?
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra. He played retired New York policeman Michael Doheny, who comes to Hawaii to hunt the men who killed his granddaughter and draws Magnum into the search.
Q 25Which future star played a client with a split personality in Magnum, P.I.'s two-parter 'Echoes of the Mind'?
Sharon Stone
Sharon Stone. Years before Basic Instinct she played Diane Dupres, who hires Magnum because she fears her twin sister; the menacing twin turns out to be Diane's own second personality.
Q 26Which comedy legend played Susan Johnson, a client who ended up locked in a bank vault with Magnum?
Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett. Her bank teller Susan Johnson accidentally locks herself in a time-release vault with Magnum, then returns in the final season as a private eye working the other side of his case.
Q 27Magnum's treasured wristwatch, inherited from his father, is what brand?
Rolex
Rolex. The GMT-Master belonged to his father, a Navy pilot killed in the Korean War when Magnum was five, which is why he counts it as his most prized possession.
Q 28Which recurring Magnum, P.I. character is killed by a car bomb meant for Magnum at the start of season three?
Lt. Mac MacReynolds
Lt. Mac MacReynolds. Actor Jeff MacKay returned all the same, both as Mac's ghost and as Jim Bonnick, a con man who is Mac's double.
Q 29What is the name of the daughter Magnum had with his wife Michelle?
Lily
Lily. Michelle leaves the girl in Magnum's care without telling him she is his daughter, and by the finale he has returned to the Navy and become her full-time father.
Q 30On Magnum, P.I., what is Jonathan Higgins's middle name?
Quayle
Quayle. Jonathan Quayle Higgins III is grander than his job suggests: the estate's majordomo is the second son of a Scottish duke and holds a Cambridge doctorate in mathematics.