Brass Monkey?
I never thought this series was a rip-off of the Indiana Jones series - but at the time it was on the air (in the early 80s), I always thought the idea was inspired by a series of full page liquor ads (I forget which liquor company - (Hueldin? Something like that.) that ran in magazines (like Playboy, National Lampoon, Rolling Stone, etc.) in the 70s that had mini-stories of adventure that took place in a bar called the Brass Monkey - and like this series - it took place pre-World War Two with Japanese and British spies (no airplane), in some South Pacific backwater. At the end of the ad the drink the ad was advertising was also called "The Brass Monkey."
Does anyone else remember these ads?