Ted Danson Got His Ass Kicked By Magnum P.I.

1981 was one hell of a year for Ted Danson. Not only did he draw Hollywood attention for his supporting role in the steamy thriller Body Heat, he also got his ass kicked on Magnum P.I. Talk about hitting the daily double.

Danson’s Magnum P.I. episode was monumental for two reasons, Tom Selleck told Danson this week on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast. First, the day Danson showed up to film was the day that Selleck learned his show had been picked up for a second season. “We were doing pretty good,” Selleck said, “but you never know.”

The second reason the episode was a big deal? It was the one in which Selleck went rogue. Danson was the villain of the week, playing “a murderous, wimpy husband.”  

“Here was the monumental thing for this show,” Selleck said. The two men, along with Danson’s fictional wife, were on a boat. “You had to get stupid, which you did. You had a gun, so of course, you got stupid enough to let me kick it out of your hand. And then we fight.”

At this point, wimpy husband Danson is getting his ass handed to him by the hirsute Magnum. Danson’s character didn’t stand a chance in this physical fight — or did he? “You go over (to the side of the boat) and pull out a big grappling hook,” Selleck remembered. “Andrea Marcovicci, playing your wife, was behind me. And you're acting up a storm, acting your little brains out with this grappling hook.”

A grappling hook? Against an unarmed private investigator? Selleck held up his hands. “I go, Wait a minute. Stop shooting. I can’t do this.” Rejecting detective-show cliches about taking down opponents no matter their advantage, Selleck insisted on bringing a little logic to the situation. “I said, ‘He’s got a grappling hook. And she’s back here. I got the keys to the boat. Why don’t I just grab her, dive in the water and run away?’”

“And that’s what you did,” laughed Danson. 

“They really freaked out,” Selleck said, “because we weren’t allowed to change anything. The writers were back in L.A.” Hawaii, where Magnum P.I. was shot, was three hours behind California so they dared to change the plot on the fly without permission.

“It was so much a change in the show,” Selleck said. “Commenting on those kinds of cliches helped us make our mark.” 

But the preceding ass-kicking may have cost Danson early movie stardom. “Here’s my memory of it,” he explained. “Steven Spielberg was casting Poltergeist. We had a meeting, and he was very interested in me — this is what I was told. Then he saw the episode that you and I shot, and he saw this weak, kinda namby-pamby husband getting the shit kicked out of him by tall, handsome Tom Selleck.” 

That might not have been the worst part, though. “There was an overhead shot,” said Danson. “This was when I discovered, Oh, I’m balding. I have an actual full-on bald spot.”

“You, with no bald spot, were kicking the shit out of me,” Danson remembered. “And I think Mr. Spielberg went, ‘Ah, no.’”