AllMovie

Series regular John Hillerman essays the first of several dual roles, appearing in both his familiar guise as the stuffy, erudite Jonathan Higgins and as Higgins' illegitimate half-brother, a rowdy Texan named Elmo Ziller. Reported killed several years earlier, Elmo has suddenly resurfaced, and his daughter Lexi (Robin Dearden) asks Magnum to protect him from a murder plot--which, according to Elmo, has been hatched by his ex-wife Marcella (Barbara Rhoades). Though unable to shake the belief that Higgins and Elmo are one and the same and that he is the butt of a practical joke, Magnum agrees t shield the Texan from harm--a job that eventually obliges our hero and his buddies to dress up as rodeo clowns! Gillian Dobb, later to join the cast as Agatha Chumley, appears as a hotel desk clerk.