 This is the SF Productions podcast network Welcome to the memory in the comnet. People used to tape shows. Let me see. There's a tape on the idiot. Let me hook this up here. Let me see what we got. Back with us to the 60s and 70s, the dwelling place of the lost generation. An era whose heroes, role models, and very lives were molded and formed by weekly installments of favorite television programs. Welcome to the place your parents didn't understand. Welcome to the vast wasteland. Welcome home. This land I'm your host Mark Schmidbar along with Wilbur Neil and Marty Wiley. And we're here to talk about 60s and 70s television. And tonight it's the spy shows. But first before we jump into that topic I just want to give you the information as usual. We're on Tuesdays at 6, Wednesdays at 10, and Thursdays at 3 here on ACTV on vast wasteland. And for some strange reason, if you'd actually want to write into us, write to vast wasteland box 151526, Columbus, Ohio 43215. And now let's zip right into spy shows. Take it away, Wilbur. Okay. I'm going to zip right in there. Yes, that's exactly what we're doing here. Oh, that was a zip? Yeah. Good evening, television audience. The spy shows that were on during the 60s and 70s were basically, I guess you could look at just about any of the spy shows and say that they kind of came from the Cold War era. And they were probably pretty much spawned by the novels done by Ian Fleming, the James Bond novel. Right. Because around that time they came out and they got to be real popular. The fact that John F. Kennedy, who was president right there at the early part of the 60s, really liked them, just boosted the popularity. And everybody just figured they had to get out there and they had to read these books. And then TV, well, the movies started up right around 63, 64. And the TV producers were like, hey, we've got to jump on this. We've got to get in there and do some spy things, too. I mean, there were some spy shows that were out during the 50s, actually. Well, most of them really tended to be more like, you know, almost like public service messages type things. They weren't as so dramatic as they were, you know, based on actual files from, you know... That's probably true. They did quite a few interesting things, though, I guess, because the earliest reference I found was one back in 1951. Not that we can spend a lot of time on there because that's outside of our area there. But there was one called Shadow of the Cloak that was on from 1951 to 1952. There's one called A Man Called X that was on in 1956. There's one man from Interpol. Well, that really gets into our section here that was on in the 60s from January 60 to October 60. Okay, now talk about one somebody watched. Okay, well, here's one. I caught it on reruns, but I did watch it. Burke's Law. Amos Burke. And then it became Amos Burke's secret agent. It was just a wonderful show. Hi, Golly. Basically, this Amos Burke guy was a... Well, see, I caught it on reruns. I used to catch it when I went down to my grandmother's house in South Carolina. I just remember the title of that one, but I don't... Oh, hey, this was great. It's got Gene Berry. He played a Los Angeles chief of detectives who was also a millionaire. Of course. You had to be a millionaire to be a spy. That's right. And then the character... It first appeared earlier in another show, but then he had a Rolls Royce. He had this chauffeur that would drive him around. He'd basically go around and... Was he like a freelance spy or something? No, he was an actual detective. He worked on a police force for a while there, but then he did branch out on his own. And then he worked later for a U.S. intelligence agency, when the show actually changed its name to Amos Burke's secret agent. And on this show, they premiered or debuted a character who later went on to have her own show, which we'll talk about here a little later. And then, let me see, there was a show called Espionage, which was on from October 63 to 64. And then, well, 64. This is like the big year. Yeah, that was it. One of the biggest shows of the spy era started, The Man from Uncle. Right. And that, yeah, you got Napoleon solo, Ilya Kuriyakin. They worked for Uncle, UNCLE, the United Network Command Law and Enforcement, which was based in the U.N. building in New York, which was a really neat idea. They'd go in through this little tailor shop, then they'd walk through a secret tunnel, and they had their ID badges that would get them in. They'd go through all the secret tunnels, and they'd go through the main building, and they were basically the TV equivalent of the James Bond movies. Although there were two, there wasn't just one. There was two. Napoleon solo was like the major, let's just say the major character here. And Ilya Kuriyakin is Russian sidekick. And they just pretty much went around and solved your basic spy espionage kind of thing. At the beginning, it was always like a twinge of almost like satire to it. True. But as the show went on, and it got into the era when Batman became big, when everybody said, oh, well, satire's in, so it really got selling. That was around the time from The Girl from UNCLE for Stephanie Powers. That was just totally gone. Any pretense of seriousness was pretty well shot down. Stephanie Powers and Noel Harrison, son of Rex Harrison. But that didn't, the A.G. The Girl from UNCLE didn't do until 66, which was two years into the show. Right. Into the era, I guess. I got a question, because this is like one I didn't watch. What did UNCLE stand for? United Network Command for the Law and Enforcement. Okay. There you go. And there was thrush. Well, all I remember on a lot of these was the beginnings. Either the music or the person with the big voice saying, oh, man, from UNCLE. And I guess I had to go to bed or something. Or you went to bed or something. And let me see. I also had good music. Of course they had good music. This, the next show that I'll mention here, had probably some of the most memorable music of the spy shows. It was on from April 65th to September 66th. Secret Agent. Oh, yeah. Oh, that had a cool song. And who lays a life of danger. And everyone he meets, he stays a stranger. Every movie makes sense. Anyway. Well, everyone thought that was a cool song. It was. It was a cool song. Whether you saw the show or not, you probably know the song. It's done by a cool guy, too. Patrick McGowan, who basically did a lot of stuff. Yeah. Of course he went on to do, what was he having? Danger Man. That other show. That one earlier. Not really a spy show. More of just like he was kind of like intrigue, foreign intrigue, but not really spy show. And went on to do like the, I don't know, what would you call it? The prisoner. Kind of like the antithesis of the spy show, really. Yeah, they. It was more like this psychological drama. What happens is the, this secret agent, who you assume is the same character from Secret Agent Man, although they never say. Right. He was always just number six. I'm ready to retire. And so he goes off and retires. But when he does, the government or somebody, and they don't ever say, ooh. Right. It's all, I mean, everything is always, it's all very deep and significant that everything's couched in symbols and all this. But he's kidnapped and taken to this island called the village. And he's like forced to stay there by these, like this bizarre, where were those things called balloons? The village people. Well, they didn't have a name, but they were. They were just these giant balloons. They were like the guards of the island patrol. And he would try to get away. This balloon would just pop up out of nowhere. And it would follow him. They're like the blamons on that. Money pies on, you know. But he would, he spent like the whole show trying to figure who was in charge and how to get off the island. And when it's over, he never does figure it out. I don't believe. So much like, like, who's in charge and how do I get off the island? They've gone on. They've got a prisoner comic book now. And they're just redoing the, I mean, they're bringing back the whole idea. So it's like, he never got off the darn island. He's still there. And then let me see. Okay. We got secret agent. We go on. Here's another one that was probably really big. Get smart. Oh, yeah. That's what I was. September 65 to September of 70. That's a whole big five years. That's pretty good record for the. And one of one of my favorite. Yeah. There's no question. One of my big favorites of shows. Agent Maxwell Smart played by Don Adams. For little kids. That is exactly where they got Inspector Gadget. True. He is the voice of Inspector Gadget. But that's also where they got the idea for Inspector Gadget. Inspector Gadget's not new. Always had these wonderful things like the shoe phone. The wonderful shoe phone. Conan silence. Yeah. It's never really worked. Let's see. What I really love was this one where they. This chaos agent. Goes ahead and kisses Max. She has this poison on her lips trying to. Trying to poison him. And she's like. You didn't die. What happened? And he just like. You want like this. Yeah. Fake lips. Nip nards. I think you made fun of a lot of the. Batman really great too. Yeah. Always been prepared for every every. Well this is so pretty much made fun of that. Well it made fun of just about everything. I think. Life itself. Everything. There we go. You got Maxwell Smart agent 99. Chief. Yep. Thaddeus the chief. Yeah. Never do his last name I don't think. And they all they all. And they all worked for a greeting card company. That was their cover. That was just a great show. Okay then let's move on here. Well about the same time that that one started up in September of 65. All this one runs from September 65 to September 66. Honey West which was the character that was. Premiered from the Berg's Law Show and she basically. Well she was kind of a. Freelance detective kind of person here also. She went around with her. Yeah that was Anne Francis. One of the big things on the show was. She agreed to do the show if they'd buy her this very expensive wardrobe with one of the. Which is why every show she had these glamorous gowns on. Because they one of the conditions of the contract was she kept to keep got to keep them. When the show was over. And she had this really cool like a black cat woman type suit that she wore a lot. It had a leopard belt and leopard boot kind of thing. She had this ocelot too. This ocelot named Bruce Ocelot a little while. South American. No they're from Africa. Some sort of cat. African cat. African spotted cat. Name Bruce and she went around with her. Business partner Sam Bolton she did karate and they had. Cars you know karate all kinds of weapons she was a weapons expert. And. Let me see your traveling office was especially equipped with spy label. Van labeled HW Bolt and company TV service. And so it just had everything that they needed right in that van there and they would go around and just. You know pretty much do the spy thing. They did the spy thing. Okay and then another big one here. The started also in September of 65. From September 65 to September 68. I spy. I spy this. Okay Bill Cosby's show. And Robert Cope's show. And this was kind of different too because it was more like it was serious situations. The situations weren't like laughable but they kind of just like joked their way through them a lot. You know I mean when it came to action it was like hey we're going to you know get the job done. But most of the time they were like making making fun of each other and it was very different in that. Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott were a team of American agents. The cover was Kelly was a top seated tennis pro. Kelly was Bill Cosby. Right. No? No. Kelly was Robert Cole. Really? And then Bill Cosby played his coach. Alexander Scott. Yep. He was a trainer. Okay. He was his trainer and a traveling companion. He was a graduate of Temple and a Rhodes Scholar. Well he was a graduate of Temple by Golly. Yep. That's Bill Golly. Golly did graduate from Temple. And then the other guy was a Rhodes Scholar. Okay. So Kelly Anderson, Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott. Yep. That was a fun one. It was a good one. Well how about another one that started in 65? Another one ran from September 65 to September 70. That big five years fan there. Probably one of my favorites. The Wild Wild West. It was really cool because it combined the western, which was popular, and the spy show. And it lengthened the whole western genre, which at the time was starting to wind down. Yeah. Because a lot of the shows, other than like Gunsmoke and Bonanza, were starting to go down. And this show almost outlasted the rest of the genre. This is true. Because of the weird twist in it. And of course all these anachronistic things going on in it. Well basically they were secret service agents that worked for President, let's say that's Grant. Yeah. And they traveled around the country in a train. A cool train. One train car. It was a cool train. It was a train car that had just weapons everywhere. They'd push a button here. Guns would flip out here. They'd push another button here. Some champagne would twirl around or something. They'd push another button. This whole wardrobe would open up. They'd push another button. The wardrobe would slide back. And here's all these other weapons and things back there. And basically you got James T. West. Wild Wild West. James T. West. That's Robert Conrad. Conrad. And he's the lead agent. Mr. Swab and Devin there. Mr. Ago out and find the girls. You saw the crime. If I just happened to fall upon some clue while I'm with this girl, well that's nice too. Artemis would go around. Artemis would go around. He'd wear the disguises. He'd sneak into the places. He'd find the stuff out. I mean they were both pretty well going. It's just like West would just go busting in and Artemis would sneak in. But they had things like he would pull out his trusty wrist derringer or something and put this gigantic arrow head into it and blast across the street with this high tension wire that he could slide across. And it would always stay there and nobody else could figure out well how in the heck he's doing this stuff. And they had the really excellent criminal on there, Loveless. Well, Miguelito Loveless. Miguelito Loveless. Yeah, it's the little guy. Well, he's a diminutive guy. Well, he's played by Michael Dunn who was a small person. He was the greatest criminal mind in the whole West it seemed like. He was always, let me see, I don't know. He invented LSD. This guy was just incredible. Did he have like robots at one point? He had robots. All these bizarre things that, you know. And he always had these nice big women with him. They were just big statuesque women. Here's three of Loveless's nastiest, what they judge in this book. The nastiest plots. He invented LSD and wanted to poison the entire world's water supply with. At that time, 1965, I don't think many people would argue with him there. Well, it's not just 1965. We're looking at the 1800s. He invented a pesticide that eliminated bugs and caused a famine in the Indian territory. Then he was going to use the Indians as slaves to take over the world with. Okay, and this is the one I like the best. He discovers the other dimension inside of paintings. Yeah. Which, that's just really far-fetched, but it's like a neat idea. Yeah. And it was neat when they did it too, because you'd like, see things, and then when they'd go in the painting, it was like a... And you'd be on the... And they put the paintings in banks, and then they'd go and rob the banks? The interesting sideways image that you get from in Batman, when they'd always show the bad guys. Yeah, they were all in that show. Interesting twisted image. It was just a really great show. It really was. Okay, then we move on here. Well, there's one called Blue Light, which I remember watching, but I couldn't really tell you much about it. No, I don't remember anything. It was on from like January 66th to August 66th, and then from March 66th. But there's something about that I thought I remembered. Let me see. I was reading about that. That was significant for some reason. Robert Goulay. That's right. Robert Goulay was the spy. That's... Oh, I'm a spy. This is like almost before he was singing in, you know? Unless he just figured, hey, that's cool. Spies get the girls. I want to be a singer. I'll be a spy. Yeah. That'll do it. That didn't last. That's true. It didn't. Not at all. It was about almost a year. In the same year, though, one of the longest running shows. The whole spy thing. The Avengers. It was ran from March 66th to September 69th, at least first right off there it did for that long. But it made several reincarnations after that. Not that the American doing public got to get all of them, but it was... There we go. Yeah, they had it. Tell them who these people are up here. Okay, we got Jonathan Steed, who was Patrick McNeigh, and then Emma Peel, played by Diana Rigg. He was like really cool. He always went around with the umbrella, and you thought he was like, what's this guy going to do with this umbrella? But the umbrella had a sword inside. Well, the umbrella actually had several different things. Well, he had several different umbrellas. It had a camera, a gas projector, a sword case, a tape recorder, and of course it was an umbrella. Those were just some of the functions of his umbrella. But yeah, it was kind of like the penguin. Right. Who came first? Well, actually the penguin did. This was in Britain, so it's like they didn't watch Batman. So anyway, and then Emma Peel was once again the lady in the nice black, slinky clothes with the high heels. Right. Did karate and judo and everything. Well, do you know where her name came from? Emma Peel. Okay, it's a British thing for... There's like a word they say, man appeal. Emma Peel. Emma Peel. Okay. So that's why she was on the show. But she was clever in everything, you know. And it was a great show. And then they came back later with the new Avengers in 75. That was like a CBS late night or something. Right. We did kind of get a hold of that a little bit, but it just... And in fact, they're going to come out with this fall an Avengers comic book. The new new adventure. Well, I think they're going to go back and just kind of bring the whole thing up to date, which they've done with. They've also got a Wild, Wild West comic book. I don't think I mentioned that. They do have a Wild, Wild West comic book. You don't read comic books, do you, Bertie? Oh, not at all. Not at all. Okay. I went in on it. But that same year, another big show came out. Well... A long-running show. Well, let's see which one you have here. I have Mission Impossible, personally. Okay, okay. Well, I've got a couple before, but it's impossible. Okay, okay. I'll go ahead and run here. September 66, September 67. For both of these, in fact, one was T.H.E. Cat, who was Thomas Hewitt, Edwin Cat. He worked for a circus, and then he was like... He was an acrobat, wasn't he? Yeah, he was an acrobat in the circus. He did high-wire kind of things. Then he became a cat burglar, and then he joined up, and they hired him to do government things, you know? Wasn't he sort of a bodyguard? Kind of a bodyguard who solves the crime? Wasn't that his... What is his assignment, actually, to protect more than to... Well, let's see here... Dive into the mystery of it all. Okay. He fought crime by guarding those clients who had been marked for death. Only T.H.E. Cat stood between them and there would be assassins. Declining to use weapons himself, Cat relied on his quickness and agility to protect his clients and himself. Okay, but it was kind of a neat show. I mean, I don't know how many people out there really remember this one, but it was a fun one. And then that was the same year also the girl from Uncle came out, which lasted for just about a year. Right, because that was pretty much the end of the whole Uncle thing. All right. Oh, then I've got another one here, the man who never was. Hey, that lasted from like September 66th to January 67th, which means it almost never was either. Yeah, but anyway. The show that never was. It almost never was. Yeah, from September 66th to September 73th, that's a whole big seven years. Seven years. We had Mission Impossible. There you go. Okay. You know what? How did they get the tape to like dissolve and I would say that was dry ice personally. Yeah, probably something like that. Of course. Yeah. Originally you had Daniel Briggs was the main that was like the first season. Good morning, Mr. Briggs. Every episode you really never see. Did they even put them in the syndication package? Maybe they didn't because people get confused. Well, I don't know, but I do remember going to Channel 10 and they had the picture that had the original cast on there. You know, they had Mr. Briggs and there's Mr. Phelps and what's what was his name? Roland Hand and Cinnamon Carter and Baron Barney Collier and Willie Armitage who were Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris and Peter Lupus, along with Stephen Hill. But then the second season and on after that was always Mr. Mr. Phelps. Right. You had. It was Peter Gray's. We have here. Well, after Star Trek left. Leonard Nimoy went on there and he was a guy named Para. Leonard Nimoy was actually first picked to do that, but he went to do Trek or was it the other way around? It was both ways, believe it or not. It felt like they were both supposed to do each other's part. Right. Because Martin Landau was being considered for Spock at one point. I mean, this is really weird because they were both done by Desi Lou, okay, same production company and Martin Landau was being thought of for Spock and Roland Hand. They were thinking to have Leonard Nimoy for that part, but it didn't happen that way. It was one of those crazy things that happened. You know, now Martin Landau is like this big, huge Oscar-winning star, but he could have been one of the cast of Star Trek if not for the twist of fate, as it were. Yes, indeed. And of course later he went on to do a science fiction series. He was on Space 1999. Yeah, he and Barbara Bain. Right. There we are. Get them back. Okay. Okay, then, well, let me see, from May 67 to September 69 we had The Saint, which starred Roger Moore, who later went on to be James Bond, so it all just kind of sits in there together. There's a show called It Takes the Thief that ran from January 68 to September 70. It starred Robert Wagner, Alexander Mundy, who was a thief, but then he went on to work for the government and selling. And then he went on later to be in the show Switch. Right. It's basically the same character. Okay. Well, then there's just a few other shows. I'll just run down the name. The Prisoner, which we talked about already. Right. Barnaby Coast. Barbary Coast. Excuse me, not Barbary Coast. Oh! Which was a good show. I mean, that brought William Shatner in. William Shatner. To do a kind of a thing. He was doing the Artemis Gordon thing. Right. Kind of a Wild Wild West deal, but it was in San Francisco. And it was along the coast there. And it was kind of neat. He was letting him by himself. Oh, well, I can't remember what you guys think. Then we had a Matt Helm series, which starred Tony Franciosa, which Matt Helm used to be a spy, but then he went on to be a detective. Okay. And then there was a show called Hunter, a show called A Man Called Sloan, which was on in the 70s. And that was a Robert Conrad, where he came back. Right. And it was actually in this time period. And then, well, by golly, after that, there were quite a few shows. Then we had the 80s stuff, really. Yeah, the 80s. Yeah, Revington Steele, Scarecrow, Mrs. Keegan, Diver, New Adventures of Beans Baxter. And then Mission Impossible came back. Right. So really, spy shows seemed to be, I mean, the James Bond shows don't, the James Bond movies recently have not been doing as well as they used to, but the TV shows seem to be coming back. Yeah. Just because I think, well, I mean, the show would be fairly expensive to run, but it seems like they get a lot of ratings. That's true. We don't know. Anyways, well, it looks like we're bringing in the signal to get out of here. So I just want to tell you, next week we think, we're not sure, we think next week is going to be our exciting tribute to Bill Bixby. Yes. We told you about earlier in the season. We couldn't be more proud. We don't know if it's going to happen, if it's going to happen next week. Necessary materials and research have to be done. So it, you just never know. We got to find reruns at Eddie's Fodders. Right. At Eddie's Fodders. Technical things, you people, the lay people in the industry, you know. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Okay. But anyways, for all of us here at Bass Wasteland, we'll see you next time. Get out everybody. Get out.