Just lately, I’ve been working my way through Season One of the old TV series Vega$ on DVD. If you don’t remember it, Vega$ — not to be confused with the more recent James Caan series Las Vegas — was an early entry in the private-detective genre that dominated prime time during much of the 1980s, running for three seasons from 1978 to ’81. The show was created by Michael Mann, who would later become the driving force behind Miami Vice, and his pilot script suggested Vega$ could have been a stylish series with enough grit to allow some serious storytelling and character development, but without getting too heavy. Unfortunately, Mann’s influence was quickly swamped by executive producer Aaron Spelling’s trademark glitz, superficiality, and penchant for the ridiculous. For example, a typical episode from the first season involved an unscrupulous land developer trying to scare a retired madame off her property by — get this — sending a gorilla to threaten her. Or more precisely, a guy in a ratty-looking gorilla suit, like the ones Hawkeye and Trapper wore when they wanted to annoy Frank Burns. Yeah, it’s a pretty bad show, even by the admittedly looser standards of the time.

(In case you’re wondering, I was never a fan, not even back in the day; in fact, I don’t recall ever watching it at all. The only reason it even pinged my radar is because the lead character drove a red 1957 Ford Thunderbird like my dad’s. I picked up the DVDs out of curiosity, and to get a look at that car, and now I’m watching with the same sick “I cannot look away” fascination I feel when I see some white-trash loser getting busted for huffing paint on COPS.)

Believe it or not, though, my purpose here really isn’t to rip on Vega$ for simply being what it was, namely a product of the Spelling cheese factory. After all, it ran in the time slot following Charlie’s Angels, so what else could it have been but a big old pile of Kraft singles? No, what I’m interested in discussing is how eerily similar Vega$ was to another detective series, a much more respected and beloved series, a series that was starting production right around the time Vega$ was winding down: Magnum, PI. The two shows are so similar, in fact, that I think you can make a pretty good argument that Magnum, better though it might have been, was something of a Vega$ rip-off. Consider the following:

1. The hero of Vega$ is Dan Tanna, played by Robert Urich. He’s a tall, lanky Vietnam veteran who has a soft spot for damsels in distress and who has a dark streak lurking beneath an easy-going, genial persona.
   The hero of Magnum, PI is Thomas Magnum, played by Tom Selleck. He also is a tall, lanky Vietnam vet who’s a sucker for the ladies and who covers a dark streak beneath his easy-going, genial persona.
2. Dan Tanna is ostensibly employed as a private security consultant by a wealthy casino owner (Phil “Slick” Roth, played by Hollywood legend Tony Curtis), but in practice Tanna has plenty of time to take on other cases and pursue personal crusades.
   Magnum is ostensibly employed as private security by a wealthy novelist (Robin Masters, never seen on-screen, but voiced on occasional phone calls by Hollywood legend Orson Welles), but he, too, has plenty of free time for other jobs and personal crusades.
3. Tanna drives a flashy red convertible, a 1957 T-Bird, which ought to be beyond the means of a mere private eye but was purchased for him by his wealthy patron.
   Magnum also drives a flashy red convertible, a Ferrari 308 GTS, which belongs to his patron but is improbably at Magnum’s disposal.
4. Tanna lives in a fantasy bachelor pad, which is provided for him by Roth as a perk.
   Magnum lives rent-free in Robin Masters’ guest house, which qualifies as a fantasy pad when you consider its proximity to the ocean and the tennis courts of the Masters Estate.
5. Tanna has two sidekicks who were members of his unit in Vietnam: a large ethnic man (an American Indian) who serves as occasional muscle, and a scrawnier guy with street connections who appears to be a small-time con artist.
   Magnum also pals around with two Vietnam buddies, a large ethnic man (African-American, in this case) who is useful in a fight, and a small-time hustler with dubious connections.
6. Tanna knows someone inside the Las Vegas Police Department who feeds him information. Magnum knows people inside the US Navy who help him fill in the blanks.
7. And finally, a similarity in production: Vega$ was filmed on location in the title city and part of its appeal is the many glimpses of a place that would’ve been, in 1978, pretty exotic to a sizable chunk of the US audience. Magnum was filmed on location in Hawaii, which of course was and remains exotic to mainland audiences.

So there you have it, my case that Magnum may owe a large debt to Vega$. It’s largely circumstantial, of course. The two shows aren’t identical; Magnum was, by and large, a far more serious show, and definitely a smarter one. But there are enough points of congruence there — and the production times of the two are staggered just enough — that I can’t help but wonder if Magnum‘s creator, Donald Bellasario, wasn’t inspired by what Michael Mann and Aaron Spelling were doing out there in the desert…

Any thoughts, anyone?