The Age of the Secret Agent, Part II

In our last posting we spoke about the craze over secret agents and spies that swept the nation and its popular culture while were in high school back in the 1960s.

The source for a lot of it was the popularity of the James Bond movies. It spread to TV as well through hit shows like THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.

But it went even further than that...and sometimes the show formats were not the typical Cold War situations of Bond and Solo.

In many ways THE WILD, WILD WEST TV show was the merging of the secret agent, spy craze with a longstanding popular tradition on American network television, the western. And for good measure the show mixed in a little sci-fi and alternate history ideas.

THE WILD, WILD WEST ran for 104 episodes on the CBS Network from September 17, 1965 to April 4, 1969 featuring the adventures of two post-Civil War Secret Service agents, James West, played by Robert Conrad, and Artemus Gordon, played by Ross Martin. The two traveled around the country in a special luxury train (complete with a horse stable and a laboratory.

According to Wikipedia, The show was conceived as "James Bond on horseback" and always featured (like the Bond moves) "beautiful women, clever gadgets and delusional arch-enemies" as West and Gordon tried "to protect President U.S. Grant and the nation from all kinds of threats."

The I SPY TV show was little more like the Bond movie format following the exploits of Robert Culp as international tennis player, Kelly Robinson and his trainer, Alexander Scott, played by Bill Cosby. They traveled around the world as "tennis bums", but really they were both Pentagon agents chasing villians, spies and beautiful women (sound familar?)

The show made history as the first American TV drama to feature an African American male actor in a leading role. Bill Cosby, then known primarily as stand up nightclub comic who sold a lot of comedy albums, was so good in the show he won three consecutive Emmys as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama series.

I SPY was more realistic than the Bond films and other secret agent TV shows. It was a drama series with little comedy. There were no special gadgets or crazy villians. The show ran on the CBS Network for 82 episodes from 1965 to 1968.

In this interview, courtesy of YouTube, Robert Culp describes how the show's concept came about and how Bill Cosby got involved....

Believe or not, there's still lots more to talk about in our look back at the secret agent/spy craze that dominiated popular culture while we were in high school at Father Ryan. Back with Part III in my next posting.

In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or memories to share on this subject or anything else concerning our times together in high school between 1965 and 1969, please feel free to write them below or drop me an e-mail at pat.nolan@dvl.com.

A HEADS UP! Invitations to our Class party on Saturday night, June 6will be in the mail to you in the next few days. Please send in your checks, money for registration ASAP. Then check back here for directions to our classmate Jimmy Wilson's home and other details about the evening. We thank Jimmy and his wife for hosting the event again.

By the way, if you have contact information about classmates who you are not sure Father Ryan is in touch with, please let us know so we can extend them an invitation to our reunion if they want to come.

After 40 years, the more, the merrier!