Spy Programs daughter whose existence he discovered during the run hotel owner) who stumble across international crimi- of the series. nals. Only the last, Five Fingers, starring David Hedi- Surrounding the usually isolated secret agent with son as double agent Victor Sebastian, even hinted at family, colleagues, and friends is yet another television the cool, hip style that was to he the hallmark of spy strategy for domesticating both strains of the genre. shows in the 1960s. Humor and a fraternity -boy camaraderie between An interesting oddity during this period was an Kelly Robinson (Robert Culp) and Alexander Scott adaptation of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale for the an- (Bill Cosby) leavened I Spy's sometimes bleak Cold thology series Climax, in which the British James War ideology, while the developing romance between Bond is transformed into an American agent. "Jimmy" the two lead characters (Bruce Boxleitner and Kate Bond (Barry Nelson). confronting a French Commu- Jackson) kept interest high between chases in The nist villain named Le Sheef (originally Le Chiffre). Af- Scarecrow and Mrs. King. In Under Cover an in- ter a tense game of baccarat, Le Sheef (played by a tensely realistic series that featured plotlines drawn di- sleepwalking Peter Lorre) captures Bond. confines rectly from recent world events, the husband and wife him in a hotel bathtub, and rather bizarrely tortures agents (Anthony John Denison and Linda Purl) were him by twisting his bare toes with pliers. forced to juggle the dangerous demands of their pro- There is no doubt that the mid -1960s was the high- fession with the everyday problems of home and fam- water mark for the spy genre. Spies were every- ily life. Finally, those spy stories that, for whatever where-in books, on records, and on the big and little reason, could not be domesticated. such as adaptations screens-and their images were emblazoned on count- of best-selling spy thrillers, generally ended up on ca- less mass-produced articles from toys to toiletries. ble or the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) or on Most were hour-long color shows that featured pairs or network television as TV movies and miniseries. teams of professional agents of various races, genders. The history of the spy on television reflects this con- and cultural backgrounds. The pace was fast and the tinuing tension between the genre and the medium and style cool, with lots of outrageous villains, sexual in- between romantic and realistic tendencies. Whenever nuendo, technical gadgetry, and tongue-in-cheek hu- public interest in foreign affairs is on the rise, spy pro- mor. A third subcategory of the genre. the spy "spoof," grams of both types proliferate, with fictional villains developed during this time (Get Smart, created by Mel reflecting the country's current political enemies. Brooks and Buck Henry, is the quintessential exam- The first regular spy series appeared on U.S. televi- ple), but there was so much humor in the "serious" sion in the early 1950s. A handful, including an early shows that it was often difficult to distinguish spoofs series also called I Spy (hosted by Raymond Massey) from the real thing. and Behind Closed Doors (hosted by Bruce Gordon), By 1968, the high spirits had soured, and the spy were anthologies. Others, such as Biff Baker (Alan craze came to a fitting end with the unsettlingly para- Hale, Jr.) and Hunter (the first of four series called noiac series The Prisoner; created and produced by its Hunter; this one starring Barry Nelson), featured gen- star, ex-secret agent Patrick McGoohan. Still, many tlemen amateurs caught up in foreign intrigue through of the shows of this period, including The Man .from chance or patriotism. The rest, which usually had the U.N. C.L.E., The Avengers, I Spy, The Wild, Wild West, word "danger" in their titles (Doorway to Danger Mission: Impossible, and even The Prisoner have en- Dangerous Assignment, and Passport to Danger), joyed continued life in periodic film and television re- were undistinguished half-hour series about profes- vivals and in cult fan followings throughout the sional agents battling Communists. These series lasted, world. with only three exceptions. a year or less. The decade of the 1970s saw a few sporadic at- Those exceptions were I Led Three Lives, Foreign tempts to breathe new life into a moribund genre. All Intrigue, and Five Fingers. 1 Led Three Lives was an the spy series introduced during this period featured enormously popular hit series based on the real -life gimmicky characters who worked for organizations story of FBi undercover agent Herbert Philbrick who identified by acronyms. Among the gimmicks were an infiltrated the American Communist Party. A favorite agent with a photographic memory (The Delphi Bu- of J. Edgar Hoover (who considered it a public ser- reau), agents fitted with electronic devices connected vice), the show reportedly was taken so seriously by to a computer (Search), an agent accompanied by a gi- some viewers that they wrote the producers to report ant assistant with a steel hand filled with gadgets (A suspected Communists in their neighborhood. Foreign Man Called Sloane), and a superhuman cyborg (The Intrigue, a syndicated series, boasted colorful Euro- Six Million Dollar Man). With the exception of the pean locations but replaceable stars (five in four years last, which appealed primarily to children, all were played four various wire -service correspondents and a quickly canceled.

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