Crossover of the Week

1938

LEGENDS ARE FOREVER

Jake Cutter’s fellow former Flying Tiger, Gandy Dancer, recruits him to fly medical supplies to the Watusi tribe and locate the treasure of King Solomon’s Mines. Initially, Jake tells Gandy whatever he’s searching for, whether it is the Shinto Emerald, the Maltese Falcon, Tut’s treasure, or the Fountain of Youth, he can count him out. When Bon Chance Louie refers to his past experiences at Fort Zinderneuf, Gandy wonders if Louie may know the location of the Blue Water Sapphire. Gandy says Haggard omitted from his novel the fact that after Tremain’s visit, the Watusi relocated Solomon’s treasure to a Pacific island.

Episode of the television series Tales of the Gold Monkey broadcast October 20, 1982. “Tremain” is a pseudonym for Allan Quatermain, the protagonist of King Solomon’s Mines and several other books by H. Rider Haggard. The references to the Watusi are likely another fictionalization, as the tribe Quatermain and company encountered in Haggard’s novel was called the Kukuanas. The Kukuanas were substituted with the Watusi in the 1950 film version of King Solomon’s Mines, which probably inspired their use in this story. The Maltese Falcon needs no explanation at this point. Fort Zinderneuf and the Blue Water Sapphire are from P. C. Wren’s novel Beau Geste. Bon Chance Louie referred to his service at Zinderneuf in the episode immediately preceding this one, “Black Pearl,” though there he mistakenly gave the fort’s name as “Zinderman.”