Customer Reviews

Tales of the Gold Monkey: The Complete Series

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Tales of the Gold Monkey was one of the greatest shows on TV in the 1980's when I was growing up. I remember this show but for the life of me I have been struggling to remember the name of the show for the last 5 years. I knew I the actor from 7th Heaven from somewhere but I could never remember why I remembered him.

Jack the one eyed dog, is how I tracked it down as I put that in my web browser. I want so bad to buy the 21 episodes all on DVD for my step-father for Christmas but it's not available. He and I would watch it and laugh at the hilarity and silly things this "Pirate" gone good, the freelancing mercenary of the air with his pontoon boat in 1938, set right before the beginning of World War II.

A great TV series and it should never been canceled.

Until today I really did not know the exact name of this show but I remember the two words from the photo I have in my mind of a Golden Monkey so I tried to search for it in the web since all these TV series are being released on DVDs as sets. So I tiped THE GOLDEN MONKEY TV SHOW, and I found out that the real name was TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY, I was very happy that I finally found what I was looking for and desided to search Amazon.

I hope that the show will be released very soon due to the fact that it is a great show and I was really sad when I found out that it only lasted for one season.

The Cast were:
*Jake Cutter............Stephen Collins
*Corky..................Jeff MacKay
*Sarah Stickney White...Caitlin O'Heaney
*Bon Chance Louis.......Roddy McDowall
*Rev. Willie Tenboom....John Calvin
*Princess Koji..........Marta DuBois
*Todo...................John Fujioka

The show first aired on September 22nd, 1982 until July 6th, 1983 for only one season and 22 episodes and they are as follows:

01- Tales of the Gold Monkey (1) 9/22/1982
02- Tales of the Gold Monkey (2) 9/22/1982
03- Shanghaied 9/29/1982
04- Black Pearl 10/13/1982
05- Legends Are Forever 10/20/1982
06- Escape From Death Island 10/27/1982
07- Trunk From the Past 11/3/1982
08- Once a Tiger... 11/17/1982
09- Honor Thy Brother 11/24/1982
10- The Lady and the Tiger 12/8/1982
11- The Late Sarah White 12/22/1982
12- The Sultan of Swat 1/5/1983
13- Ape Boy 1/12/1983
14- God Save the Queen 1/19/1983
15- High Stakes Lady 1/26/1983
16- Force of Habit 2/2/1983
17- Cooked Goose 3/4/1983
18- Last Chance Louie 3/11/1983
19- Naka Jima Kill 3/18/1983
20- Boragora or Bust 3/25/1983
21- A Distant Shout of Thunder 4/8/1983
22- Mourning Becomes Matuka 6/1/1983

I really wish that this show will be released very soon.

Have a nice day :)

Any fans of Indiana Jones type series or movies should like this TV series. Decent acting, stories, and music made it well worth watching. I like many others have my fingers crossed this will come out on DVD. It didn't quite catch on as well as the Jones movies, so I guess it was more of a Smith. But I know if you see it you won't be disappointed. Some great flying in one of the best planes of the period, a Grumman Goose. Fans of aviation should definitely check it out. If you like this series be sure to catch "Aviator" with Christopher Reeves, "High Road to China" with Tom Selleck, and "Snow Walker" with Barry Pepper. A bit more serious aviator survival movies, but well worth a look.

There's a beautiful moment in the bonus commentaries from this sensational just released DVD box set of the TV series "Tales of the Gold Monkey" where writer-producer Tom Greene dissects in detail a marvelous scene that he wrote. It says everything about what made the magic of "Gold Monkey" so great, and in my own opinion, and, it seems many others here, made it perhaps one of the best series ever on TV.

The scene is from the episode "Last Chance Louie" wherein Louie, brilliantly played by Roddy McDowell, is about to be put to death by guillotine for killing a long-ago rival. He is innocent, of course, and he is, in fact sacrificing his life to save his long-lost daughter, who he believes was the real culprit. All of his friends are saying goodbye to him. Greene explains that the episode had a lot to do with the idea of what he calls hidden tears. The characters can not, or will not show real tears, or if they do, they hide them from each other. In fact, an earlier scene shows Louie actually shedding a tear, but only from the side away from Jake (series star Stephen Collins), and he brushes it away quickly so Jake can not see it.

In the "goodbye" scene, Sarah, played by the exquisitely beautiful and talented Caitlin O'Heaney, tries to find words to say goodbye. She will not cry, because Louie has ordered everyone not to. However, as Greene explains, he wrote in the stage directions that as she moves towards Louie, a beam of moonlight shines through the brim of her straw hat and a pattern of "moonlit tears" shows on her cheek. Greene explains that this is something you may write in a script, but usually, especially in TV, you would never really expect to actually visualized, even if you were, as he was, also a producer on the show. However he shows how that was not the case on "Gold Monkey, and how everyone worked so hard to create moments like the "moonlit tear". Moments that you may not notice right away, but added together make for a very, very special series. In fact, he lists all the people who worked together so very hard just to make that one moment work. From the director, to the cameraman and his lighting people, to the costumer who designed the special hat (no special effects here, the light really had to shine through and make "tears" on her cheek), to the composer who wrote the background music, to the editor who cut it perfectly, to, of course Caitlin and the other actors who pulled it off with such grace and talent.

When I watched the episode before listening to Greene's commentary, I didn't even notice this lovely little detail of the "moonlit tears", but I was so moved by the scene, that it brought real tears to my eyes! But what Greene's commentary showed was just what made "Gold Monkey" such a treasure. Why this series, which lasted only one season, has such a loyal and fervent cult following all these years later. Why I could put on any of the shows on the box set, and turn the uninitiated into loyal fans who suddenly want to watch each episode. It wasn't one person, but a team of talent who truly loved the show and made miracles to give "Gold Monkey" this special power and magic.

As we hear both in Greene's sensational commentaries', and in the excellent bonus documentary filmed just last year with Stephen Collins, Caitlin O'Heaney, director Harvey Laidman, and Tom Greene, this show was obviously something very special for everyone involved.

The creator and "Godfather" of the show, Don Bellisario, is strangely absent from these bonus materials, but Greene in the commentaries, and everyone in the documentary, repeatedly give him all the deserved credit for both creating the show, the characters, hand-picking the cast and crew, working everyday to make it perfect, and in sticking with his vision, to the point where it seems he may have sacrificed the show at the end of the year so that it wouldn't go down in quality since the network apparently wanted the second season to be more comic book silly than classic story telling.

Of course a huge amount of credit must also go to Stephen Collins. I'm hard pressed to think of another actor who had his qualities in TV then or since. Strong, moral, naughtily playful, fun, full of soul and heart, sexy as all outdoors and then some (!), in all, the perfect American hero. In the documentary they wisely gave him a lot of time to talk, and he's so charming, and still handsome and sexy it almost hurts! You begin to realize that the man Collins, is indeed the character of Jake Cutter. Sure we've seen him being a bit more pious in "7th Heaven", but it's in the much more spicy Jake Cutter that we probably see more of the true real Stephen Collins. There is no way you could think of anyone else playing this part (I cringe at the idea, like when I heard that Ronald Reagan almost got the part of Rick in "Casablanca"!), and even though there are only 21 episodes, we are all blessed to have these, and to have Stephen.

Add to that the fact that he meet his wife on the show, actress Faye Grant who played Louie's long-lost daughter on the episode I mentioned earlier, and in fact is still married to her, and obviously still loves her with the same passion he felt when he first met her on the set. The stories both in the documentary, and in Greene's commentaries are a love-story in themselves as to how they met, and how he found himself falling for her. Two actors still in love and still happily married all these years later is, from what I see on the gossip channels, very rare and says volumes about the soul of Stephen Collins, not to mention Faye! I guess what I'm getting at here, is that the real Stephen and his alter ego, Jake Cutter, are strongly intertwined. And that is one of the great strengths that make "Gold Monkey" such a classic.

The series is beautiful to look at and listen to, both in the words and music.

I was also so impressed how everyone spent so much time in the documentary and commentaries, giving the cast and crew credit for the success of the show. Something rare in Hollywood I would imagine! But it showed how much everyone respected each other. As if the series took on a life of its own. And what a magnificent life it was and is now again in this beautiful box set!

This was one of the ten best tv series ever. As such, it was doomed to not last long. I truly think it was because they picked the wrong name for it. "Jake Cutter - Adventurer", or "Adventures in the South Pacific" would have been better. Except for the pilot show, the gold monkey had nothing to do with this show. Great cast, great writing, taking advantage of the atmosphere created by and for "Raiders of the Lost Ark". When it is available on DVD, it will go into my library right by the Indiana Jones trilogy. I loved the Jack Russel terrier with the eye patch.

The DVDs in my media cabinet prove that I'm a sucker for short-lived television series. With few exceptions, any series that I think is good gets the axe after only one or two seasons. Here are some cases in point. "Firefly," the outstanding, cerebral sci-fi series, lasted less than a season. "The Lone Gunmen," an X-Files spinoff, bit the dust after 13 episodes. The superb "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," was ignominiously cancelled by shortsighted Fox bean-counters after a season and a half. The edgy, groundbreaking "Dollhouse" fared no better. There are other examples, but you get my point.

So I had high hopes for "Tales of the Gold Monkey: The Complete Series," which ran for one season of 21 episodes in 1982. I don't know why, but I never watched it when it originally aired. I never even heard of it until I saw this DVD set. But the description pressed all my buttons. Everything about the series seemed calculated to fire up my interest. It takes place in 1938, on the eve of World War II, a time period that I find endlessly fascinating. It features action, adventure, international intrigue and exotic locations in a backwater corner of the South Pacific. It has a cast of interesting characters who would fit right in with Indiana Jones. And, best of all, one of the "stars" is a well-used Grumman "Goose" amphibian (okay, "seaplane"). It's a real airplane, with genuine noisy, temperamental, smoke-belching radial engines, and it really flies--there's no CGI here. What's not to like?

Having now watched some but not all of the episodes, I have mixed feelings. First, the quality of the DVD set is outstanding. The six single-sided disks are securely packaged in a sturdy case on hinged partitions that protect them from damage. Inside is a glossy 24-page booklet with a short overview of the series and synopses of all the episodes, with credits and a small color photo from each one. Extras include a 36-minute "Making of..." documentary, audio commentaries on five episodes, cast and character biographies, stills galleries and a few other items. But what about the episodes themselves? Here I think perhaps my expectations were too lofty. The stories are okay, but the production values are a bit lacking and the pacing is fairly slow some of the time, especially in the 1-1/2-hour pilot, which seems padded by about 15 minutes. I do enjoy watching the episodes, but they're not the best thing I've ever seen. I'd call this series "typical '80s television," with all that the term implies, both good and bad. My most serious issue is with the soundtracks. The dialogue is so quiet that I have to crank the volume way up, but then the music comes in so loud that it almost blows out my speakers. A little level equalization would have been nice.

So, if you fondly remember watching "Tales of the Gold Monkey" when it aired, I'm sure you won't be disappointed with this set. If, like me, you were not familiar with the series, it's still a good purchase, as long as you keep your expectations in line with the time when it was made. I think the decade of the '80s was a transition period for television in many ways. It was neither "classic" nor "modern," but something in between. There are very few shows from that time that I find worth owning. "Tales of the Gold Monkey" is a rare exception.

"Tales of the Gold Monkey" is an easy show to make fun of. It is full of worn-out clichés, embarrassing stereotypes, stupid dialogue, needless narration, bad blue screen effects, cruddy matte paintings, ill-fitting stock footage, archaic costumes, cringeworthy acting, fake sets and utterly preposterous plots. When people try to defend this series, they often begin by pretending as if this isn't so, and thus fatally weaken their argument. I would never make the case that "Tales" was great television. I would actually start by acknowledging that in many ways it was terrible television...and then explain just why that doesn't make (hardly) any difference.

"Tales" is a series which even in 1982 was a rare breed: the action-adventure show. It recreated a period in history (the last period in history, actually) when vast areas of the Earth were still unconquered, and thus adventure and exploration still possible. We forget it now, but there was a time within the living memory of some people when a large portion of this planet still slept in the pre-industrial era, and wandering too far off the map could get you eaten by cannibals, devoured by wild beasts, or plunk you down amidst the ruins of a lost city. When men and women who lived on the edge of that map literally straddled the line between civilization and savagery, the known world and the deep blue. It was an era of explorers, treasure-hunters, missionaries, smugglers, sailors, silk-scarfed pilots, drunken storytellers, one-eyed traders, pirate, crooks, spies, unscrupulous businessmen, and empire-builders. And that is what "Tales of the Gold Monkey" was all about. That brawling, half-tamed lawless time when half the world was an unknown quantity and wonder was still possible. Think "Magnum P.I." train-wrecked into "Indiana Jones" (with just a little "Land of the Lost" sprinkled on top) and you have "Tales Of The Gold Monkey."

The premise was dead simple. An ex-Flying Tiger named Jake Cutter (Stephen Collins), his drunken, memory-challenged sidekick Corky (Jeff Mackay), and their one-eyed dog Jack (Leo the Dog) operate their seaplane, Cutter's Goose, out of the fictional island of Boragora, somewhere in the Marivellas Islands of the South Pacific. When they are not flying supplies, mail or passengers to this or that far-flung outpost in the French or Japanese mandates, they are belly-up at the Monkey Bar, which is operated by the island's enigmatic magistrate Bon Chance Louie (Ron Moody in the pilot, Roddy McDowell in the series). In the bar are likely to be found Sarah Stickney White (Caitlin O'Heany), a redheaded lounge singer and American spy; the Reverend Willie Tenboom (John Calvin), who is also a spy, albeit for Germany; and Gushie, a crippled ex-member of the Foreign Legion (Les Jankey). Pushing through the saloon doors every now and again are the villainous but charming Japanese princess Koji (the super-lovely Marta DuBois) and her grumpy samurai henchman Todo (John Fujioka, in full samurai rig). With a group like this, where nearly everyone is hiding secrets from each other and unknowingly working at cross-purposes, you just know all sorts of wacky adventures are going to ensue, and believe me, they do. Over the course of the season (sadly, the only one the show ever produced), Jake & Co. come up against slavers, spies, cultists, boys raised by apes, treasure hunters, giant octopi, rebel insurgents, angry mobs, and pretty much anything else you can think of. It's incredibly silly, cheesy, clichéd and outlandish, ripping off from just about every old movie and Western you can think of, and often looking as if it were shot entirely on dusty old sets on Universal Studios backlot...but it's also great, great fun. "Tales" is a show that made up for in heart and good, clean adventure what it lacked in other places. Though it was shot in 1982, it was essentially the product of a much earlier era, the era of the adventure tales written for boys and young men back in pulp magazines the 20s, 30s and 40s, which Bellasario undoubtedly grew up on, and that sense of lighthearted, fistfights are fun, don't-worry-it's-just-a-flesh-wound heroics percolates all throughout the series.

The age we live in is cynical, and cynicism is the opposite of wonder. Kids nowadays sit in front of first-person shooter video games, YouTube and Facebook with glassed-over eyes, and seldom get a chance to flex the adventure-muscles that are every child's absolute birthright. If you're a parent of a youngish kid, "Tales" is as good an antidote for today's world as anything out there. And if you happened to be growing up in the early 80s, it's a fabulous flight down memory lane.

This is a fun show with a very likable cast. But the transfer leaves much to be desired. The video is only so-so... but acceptable I guess. The main problem; the audio transfer is really sub-standard. There is something wrong with the dialogue and effects mix. I don't know if it's a compression issue, or the original audio off the master tapes was poor to begin with? But this audio is not DVD-quality. The best way to describe it would be it sounds like audio off of an old, cheap VHS tape recorded at EP (lowest quality) speed. This issue seems to be on all the sets. I returned my initial set, got a replacement -- the replacement set had the same problems.

When this show came out I was going to school for an Aircraft Maintenance

License, to work as an Aircraft Mechanic. In this little known TV

series, Jake Cutter was living my dream. Operating a Flying Service in the

South Pacific, with a Grumman Goose Aircraft. He was like a flying Indiana

Jones. I guess thier was'nt anything real great about this series, I do'nt

even know how long it lasted, but at that point in my life each episode

was straight out of a young aspiring aviatiors dreams. If they come out

with the whole series I'll have to buy them. I'm sure they can transport

me back to a time when I still dared to dream.

Donald P. Bellisario, creator of "Tales of the Gold Monkey" is highly regarded today as one of the great TV producers. He even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame along with his producer friends, Glen A. Larson and Stephen J. Cannell. But his rise to that lofty position wasn't an easy one....

The Bellisario produced series "Quantum Leap" was nearly cancelled on several occasions, finally being saved by a letter writing campaign which allowed the series to continue for two additional seasons (Five in all). He also created the TV series "JAG" which was swiftly CANCELLED by NBC after only one season. Amazingly, JAG was picked up (saved) by rival network CBS, where it became a HUGE hit, running for an additional NINE YEARS!!!! Talk about a huge mistake being made by NBC!

One can only wonder what would have happened if the morons at ABC had actually given Tales of the Gold Monkey a second chance (second season) to find its audience.

I think a lot of viewers were initially disappointed because they were expecting an action based "Raiders of the Lost Ark" rip-off. Gold Monkey does have its share of action, and definitely owes a debt to "Raiders", but its true inspiration seems to be the 1939 Howard Hawks film "Only Angels Have Wings".

The Mike Post/Pete Carpenter theme song is simply AMAZING, one of their all-time best!

A great 80's TV series that deserved a second season, and it certainly deserves a DVD release!

JM