There have been many homages to Indiana Jones, but Magnum PI held out till their final season to send Thomas Sullivan Magnum on his very own Indiana Jones adventure an episode entitled "Legends of the Lost Art?. Ronald Lacey (Arnold Toht in "Raiders" and Heinrich Himmler in "The Last Crusade") played Lowell Xavier Jamison, Archer Hayes and even Picasso in the Magnum P.I. episode, "The Case of the Red Faced Thespian".
The entire episode takes place at "Robin's Nest", and tells some of the estates history, including Lowell Xavier Jamison being the previous majordomo of "Robin's Nest" before he was fired?
Jeff MacKay, who plays (Mac), Lieutenant McReynolds on "Magnum, P.I."- who is very similar to Crystal Skull's Ray Winstone character George Mac Hale.
Besides the name and nickname similarities, he is a Lieutenant, he's the friend of the main character, he's also a schemer and a con artist, they even look very similar including thick mustaches.
The " Crystal Skull" character connections are as follows: In 1993, John Hillerman (Higgins) appeared on the show "Berlin Break" for one season. He played the role of "Mac" Mackenzie, a former spy and the current proprietor of "Mac's", a bar in West Berlin considered neutral territory during the Cold War.
The show also featured Jeff MacKay as "Mitch", who also appeared on Magnum P.I. as the doughnut-munching Navy Intelligence lieutenant "Mac" MacReynolds, killed off in the series, and even brought back as a ghost for an episode.
These 2 actors also appeared together in the Indy inspired "Tales of the Gold Monkey", Hillerman playing "Fritz the Monocle" ...another possible connection to "Raiders" Ronald Lacey? Now the bigger trivia question: Was Higgins ACTUALLY Robin Masters?
MacKay ALSO played Jim Bonnick, a con man who looked suspiciously like MacReynolds...so, everyone called him "Mac".
Character similarities? Well, both actors are a bit rotund, so, I'm guessing Indy's Mac was also a fan of the doughnuts.
Jim Bonnick being the smooth con artist he was, was very similar to McHale in the fact that you never knew whose side each one was on. Plus, it seems that both characters were in debt up to their eyeballs to some unsavory characters...and so they were always playing some angle to walk away with the payola. While not a triple agent, Mac did assume at least three pseudonyms in the episode Mac?s Back
) has a pretty big bandage on his hand. We also get a bit of dialog which gives us a good idea of what's to come, (makes you wonder why Indy would stick around for a drink...).
