After a party attended by his roommate Gordon Fog (played by Tom Hanks), his girlfriend Heather introduced him to "funny brownies" and persuaded him to partake.
His genius appears at unpredictable times, such as during episode 20 of season 4, when, at a cocktail party, he agrees to fill in for an absent pianist and (after some comic moments) proves himself to be a virtuoso.
He spent a year of his life making a macrame couch, and was once traded from his commune to another one for two goats and an unspecified Donovan album.
Jim once claimed that instead of finding God or Nirvana through his 1960s experiences he has only been left with recurring flashback visions of the original Mouseketeers (especially Cubby) hatching out of seedpods.
Reverend Jim's introduction to the crew at the Sunshine Cab Company was a guest appearance in Season 1, Episode 8, when he presided over a "paper marriage" between Latka Gravas, the cab company's immigrant mechanic (played by Andy Kaufman), and a prostitute, so Latka could stay in the United States.
He lived in a condemned building; bought a racehorse he renamed Gary (to erase his "slave name") and kept him in his living room; spent a considerable period of time trying to become the "perfect" cabbie only to spend all his earnings on a wall of TVs; and dismantled his van to build a castle for Elaine Nardo (played by Marilu Henner).
His drug expertise allowed him to identify the coca leaves (from which cocaine is made) in Latka's cookies—"Southern Peru, '74, before the rains"—much like a sommelier describing subtleties of wine.
His heroes were St. Thomas Aquinas, Mahatma Gandhi, Alan Alda, and his dispatcher Louie De Palma, who treated him quite poorly and took advantage of him at every opportunity.
[3] In an episode of The Big Bang Theory (S10E10, "The Property Division Collision"), Sheldon rents his share of the apartment to an Ignatowski-like character, played by Lloyd, for $1 a day, prompting the new tenant to exclaim "It's like the forties again!"