Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 79

The R ockford Files

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first appeared in the series in the episode “White on White, and Nearly Perfect”
October 10, 1978, as Lance White, the perfect P.I., who makes Rockford’s life
miserable, and of course would go on to play Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P L , a
show that tried to capture some of the sardonic elements of The Rockford Files.
The episode “Tigers Fan” even had the characters discussing an episode of the old
Gamer series. But Thomas Magnum is no Jim Rockford, just as Tom Selleck is no
James Garner, and Magnum, PI. could never escape from the realm of male ado
lescent fantasies and Hawaiian surf and sunsets.
The detective sees his profession as one where a man need not sell him
self. But money almost always talks for Rockford. In “The Kirkoff Case” Jim
believes that Larry Kirkoff is guilty of murdering his parents, but he can’t resist a
$20,000 fee should he prove otherwise. The detective can move and mediate be
tween the worlds of the very rich and the very poor. While his client list is varied,
and he does occasionally hob-nob with the rich and famous, he never becomes part
of that set. After dining at an expensive French restaurant and reaching for the
alka-seltzer, Rockford comments that “There was sauce on everything—the whole
thing was too rich for me.”
Even for the seventies Rockford was steadfastly lower-middle class and
retro. In one episode we are informed by a thug who has just searched his suitcase
that he buys his underwear from a discount store. He likes to drink beer and eat
tacos. He prefers watching baseball and basketball games over the theater or op
era. He doesn’t jog, but prefers to spend all