A Spy Show Like No Other.
Ok So Imagine This. It's the Mid 60's. THEE NUMBER ONE thing that is sweeping pop culture in America at the time (and arguably around the world) are Spies and Espionage. The first James Bond movie came out in 1962 and all of a sudden, EVERYONE wanted to be secret agents. The idea of basically being a globe trotting super hero with a gun and fancy gadgets fighting off crazy bad guys all of a sudden seemed appealing to most people after being introduced to this world by the words & characters of Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond).So when this happened overseas, America DID NOT WAIT ONE MOMENT to jump on this craze. They soon came out with their version of this both in Movies (Matt Helm and The Flint Movies). And on TV (first with The Man From UNCLE)
But when the Spy craze was going on in America. Another movement that at the time was reaching it's boiling point in America that was making news headlines night after night that stemmed from a problem that was long rooted into American Society for many years was The Civil Rights Movement. And for the first 4 years of the 60's, the lack of opportunities blacks were getting in Hollywood at the time was starting to show itself when you turned on the TV and every major show on Network Television at the time consisted of all white casts. You almost NEVER saw black actors & actresses on TV, while the records you heard on Top 40 radio consisted of both black & white artists.
But on TV. It simply wasn't like that. Until this show came on the air and literally changed EVERYTHING. The producers knew what they were going to do for this show, and they knew what they were up against and what kind of criticisms they were going to get from people in the south but they simply thought "if not now, then when?". They realized network TV was stuck in a vast wasteland frozen in time and things needed to be propelled forward instead of backwards.
So they decided to cast an UNKNOWN Actor of Color in a lead role alongside a white actor in a co lead role. The black actor in question was someone who's race was almost never in question in the show nor was it ever an issue. For all anyone cared, he could have been a white guy. This was the first time EVER this occurred and it couldn't have come at a BETTER time. America was experiencing MAJOR Civil Rights Reform at the time the show aired. And along with TV going from Black & White to color, People Of Color also started to show themselves on TV creating a realistic view of American Society on TV for the first time EVER.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg as far as how groundbreaking this show is. Not only did they cast a black actor in a lead role, but he was also a COMEDIAN and because of this, he brought a flair of comedy to the series and since him and his co Star worked as a team of American Government agents, they brought a certain level of Chemistry to their roles combined with one liners & banter that probably was never scripted or made up really, and the friendship Culp & Cosby had on screen was also real and would last long after the series ended. Robert Culp was already a star in his own right having guest starred on DOZENS of TV shows before he landed this role, but Bill Cosby at the time basically had NO acting experience when he was cast in this show alongside Culp and the only thing they had to go by for him was clips of his stand up comedy routines on the late night or day time talk shows
But that was enough for them to sign him on to do this show because even though he was basically unknown, they saw something of a certain kind of charm and likeableness in him that no one else did and Robert Culp & Sheldon Leonard wanted to make history. They knew this had to happen eventually and the time to do that was now. They knew NBC's southern affiliates wouldn't air the show but did they care? Absolutely Not! Time marches on and this show is a good example of that.
But another thing that made this show different was When the Secret Agent genre was established, the shows (like The Man From UNCLE and The Saint). were shot on bland fake sound stages & sets that didn't always look realistic. When it looked like American TV watching audiences were seeing them in Hong Kong. They actually weren't in that country. But this show went the extra mile and did something no other show had done before. They did extensive location shooting in other countries besides America and all of a sudden, the idea of having two globe trotting spies seemed all the more real with actual locations that matched the places they were in in each episode of the show vs Hollywood sets and sound stages . The show is AMAZING to watch now because you get to see what the world looked like 55 years ago and how maybe if you've been to these countries Kelly and Scotty go to, you'll notice they aren't that incredibly different now from when the series was shot.
But also, the series was different from other Spy shows of it's time because Kelly and Scotty we're undercover agents bud they didn't always enjoy their jobs and often questioned why they were even doing their jobs in the first place. They also never owned any special gadgetry other then their guns so all they had to go by to fight off the bad guys were their wits & gut instincts. And since One of them was black, this also allowed some MAJOR black celebrity actors & actresses to guest star on the show. Then all of a sudden, TV was no longer a white washed medium and people of minorities became well represented on TV for the first time in history.
Bill Cosby also became the first black actor to win an Emmy for Best Actor in a Dramatic series and this show served as a launching pad for his incredibly successful career he would have after this show ended. But not only that? Just a season after I Spy debuted, SEVERAL network TV shows all of sudden had black actors & actresses in lead parts (everything from Star Trek to Mission Impossible and Mannix and everything in between) I mean this show LITERALLY kicked the barn door open for black actors & actresses to thrive on TV in non stereotypical roles for the first time EVER.
I can't speak highly of this show enough, and it definitely was THEE BEST Spy/Espionage show at that time because it dared to be different and defy all odds and be a successful show. Please go watch it. Even if you can't stomach seeing Cosby in anything right now, It's worth watching just to see all of the cool foreign location shooting they did at that time. It's available to watch on Prime in it's entirety (Prime Video has Seasons 2 and 3, you can watch season 1 on YouTube as well).
score 10/10
sam-468-676831 13 November 2020
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6264606/14964
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