I’m rewatching the Radio Job right now and it’s a passing joke, but I got curious about something and decide to do some research.
So we know Parker has this time travel obsession during the episode and when Jimmy disappears, there’s the scene where she says he time traveled and Hardison asks why he would choose 1962 out of all the years.
Well! I thought maybe there was some significance and yeah, it’s probably unlikely it’s an actual connection or intentionally added, but it turns out, in 1962, the Great Plymouth Mail Truck Robbery happened. Basically, some gunmen disguised as cops robbed a mail truck holding $1.5 million that was headed to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston. The end result doesn’t matter much, but what matters is the $1.5 million.
Why? Because it was never found.
That’s right. Apparently, when the robbers stole the truck, they disappeared somewhere and stashed all that money, and its location is still unknown today.
So gee, 1962 may seem like a random year to us, but I’m sure a thief in Boston would be well aware of this crime. Not only that, Tom Skerritt, who plays Jimmy, was born in 1933, so if we consider that to be how old Jimmy is too, that means he witnessed the Plymouth Mail robbery and knew that the money was still floating around out there.
Oh and, uh, by the way, when this episode aired in 2012, when adjusted for inflation, $1.5 million would be $11.4 million that year. In 2021, it’s $13.1 million.
So I don’t know about you, but I’d say that’s a pretty good reason to try and go back to 1962. ;)