El agente de CIPOL

Like other baby boomers, I grew up with this weekly spy series. It was very popular with all my classmates, and the talk the next morning at school after its TV showing would invariably be the latest exploits of the daring young Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. The boys all wanted to be just like them, and the girls were all besotted with them. We were all hooked on their ridiculous intelligence seeking or defensive gadgetry devices. After the spin off series The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. premiered, then all the girls wanted to be just like HER.

The show chronicles the assorted adventures and derring do of two agents of the agency U.N.C.L.E. (the United Network Command for Law Enforcement)... the American Napoleon Solo and the Russian Illya Kuryakin. (For a change, the Cold War enemies were comrades here.) Together the pair use their charm, wits, and of course assorted spy gadgetry to defeat the forces of evil, notably the terrorists and other threatening international villains of the wicked agency T.H.R.U.S.H. The duo take their orders from the older Mr. Alexander Waverly.

The two lead actors had the looks and the charisma to carry off the show, with great chemistry between them. Robert Vaughan plays the suave, dashing dark haired Solo, and David McCallum his cool, blond, British accented sidekick, Kuryakin. The role of Mr. Waverly is portrayed by the gentlemanly Leo G. Carroll.

It's been quite a few decades, have not seen it in re runs, so have forgotten many of the details. However, it was an adventurous, suspenseful, and primarily fun show, shades of James Bond's 007. Lots of fights, close calls, torturing villains, assorted intrigue, and of course beautiful women! Around this era there was also a cute comedy spy series, Get Smart. To this very day, whenever The Man From U.N.C.L.E. comes to mind or I chance upon either of its two stars on TV, I'm filled with a great sense of nostalgia. Sigh.

My dad used to watch this show during the first two seasons of the show,and I immediately became hooked! The Man From U.N.C.L.E was one of the best spy shows ever to come out of a period which the cold war,civil rights,and the height of the Vietnam War was a great escape for young minds back then. Since the show was a huge hit on the NBC network when it premiered on September 22,1964,it was something that no one thought of at that time: a character who was in the same ranks as James Bond 007 himself! The gadgets on that show were awesome(pens that acted as a radio to phone back at headquarters;an automobile with a built in machine gun and seat ejector)and the headquarters of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement which were secretly hidden in a tenement complex in New York..something to beholded!!! Robert Vaughn was a true gentlemen and a suave secret agent who was in the same category as Sean Connery,but he made the role very interesting as Napoleon Solo,and his Russian counterpart Illya,played by David McCallum,the coolest ever with a 60's shag blonde look(who looked like a rock star instead of an secret agent)!! The show's first two seasons were very dramatic and their was a great chemistry between the actors themselves which kept the action intense and very hipped!!! The sad part is that when the show's color episodes came it wasn't dramatic or very appealing anymore,but incredibly silly by the end of series' final run in 1968 (the 29 black and white episodes from 1964-1965 were the best ever and some of the best gadgets too). Jerry Goldsmith's theme score for the series was the best ever for a TV series,and still is to this day. U.N.C.L.E was so,so good it spawned two feature films,and dozens of toys,comic books,mystery novels,and posters,and can you believe that David McCallum have a hit record out based on the show back in 1965(which he teamed up with Nancy Sinatra on a hit song,which hit the top of the charts too-very rare to find that album nowadays),plus a very short-lived Saturday Morning cartoon show? The repeats are rarely seen on TV nowadays,but they can be seen on TNT every once in a while if possible. A total of 105 episodes were produced with 29 episodes of Season 1 were in black and white. 76 episodes of Seasons 2 thru 4 were in color until the series finale on January 15,1968.

This show which debuted on NBC in September 1964 was the first movie or show to cash in on what was becoming the "James Bond Phenomenon". With only two Bond films released and the blockbuster "Goldfinger" to be released in the US at Christmas time "The Man from UNCLE" was the first introduction to secret agents for many people. Each week Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin saved the world or part of it from the evils of Thrush, an organization bent on world domination.It started as a cult show but quickly became a hit and at times the #1 show in the ratings to losing it's focus by the third season when it decided to copy the campy tone of the "Batman" TV show which turned off viewers who had liked the more serious tone of the first two seasons. As someone growing up in the sixties the Christmas of 1965 was flooded with secret agent toys with "The Man From UNCLE" even rivaling James Bond as far as toys and other product tie-ins. For a lot of people including myself this is their all time favorite TV show.

Watching a "Christmas Carol" and seeing Leo G. Carroll, more or less made me remember the "Man from U.N.C.L.E.". Napoleon Solo, in my humble opinion, was the only other spy who could seriously rival Sean Connery. Vaugn was not only kool and suave, but handsome and cunning, much like James Bond except that Napoleon Solo had a quite different style. Illya Kuryakin, aka David Mcallum, was excellent as the right hand man for solo and was the first time I had seen an intelligent Russian portrayed on the screen. Although I had previously seen Mcallum in "The Great Escape". Finally, Leo G. Carroll gave a commanding performance as Mr. Waverly, a man who had complete control over his agents yet had a fatherly kind of feel. But, hey, you all know this and now back to the movies!

I know the last user thought the episodes were just average, but you cannot judge very early 60's TV by today's standard and technology. The show was very cool, and so were Napoleon and Illya. Heck, that is why there is still a huge following forty years later.

Yes, the shows look as if they were filmed on back lot. They were. The pace and budget did not allow for on location scenes. Look at old Star Trek and you will see the same limitations.

Many shows were intended to be funny or at least tongue in cheek. The episode with Joan Collins is a riot. The agents are trying to get a low class woman to pass off as a lady. This episode, The Galatea Affair, is a take on My Fair Lady and introduces Noel Harrison as Mark Slate. OF course you will remember that his father had the task of transforming Liza Doolitle in MFL.

Try the very early pairing of Shatner and Nimoy in Project Strigas or The Ultimate Computer Affair, another great MFU episode. There were over 100 of them in this popular 60's show.