This series (and the preceding TV movie of the same name) was inspired by the "Brass Monkey" drink mix from Heublein that was introduced in the 1970s. The marketing campaign had an exotic WWII Asian film noir theme, referring to a fictional bar in Singapore that was the denizen of spies, smugglers and riffraff. By taking a coaster bearing the bar's name and circling the letters to spell the name H.E. Rasske (the fictional local contact for allied spies) this would provide the means of making contact. The campaign reeled out a series of teaser tales about the fictional spy over a period of years.While the product ended production in the 1990's, the name lived on, as a number of bars across the U.S. adopted the Brass Monkey name and mysterious décor. See more

Goofs

The series takes place in 1938 with some flashbacks to 1937 and 1936, and repeated references are made to the fact that Jake flew with the American Volunteer Group or "Flying Tigers" prior to his adventures in the show. The only problem is that the AVG did not see its first combat action until December 20th 1941 (that's three years after the events in the series are supposed to have taken place). We also see at least one flashback of Jake as a Tiger, fighting Japanese "Zeros". The Mitsubishi A6M. or "Zero" never fought against the AVG. Japan sent 15 Zeros to China in 1939, before the Tigers existed, two were shot down and the remaining 13 were recalled prior to that attack on Pearl Harbour, two weeks before the AVG saw its first combat action. The AVG only fought Ki-27 "Nates" and Ki-43 "Oscars". They shot down 290 of them. See more