Judging from popular culture, we did truly live in the Age of the Secret Agent while we were attending Father Ryan High School in the mid to late 1960s.
One of the TV shows that was part of the craze was clearly Mission: Impossible. The series ran from September,1966 to March, 1975 on the CBS Network. It featured the missions of a team of secret American government agents lead by Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves.
According to Wikipedia: "The hallmark of these shows (was) Graves receiving receiving instruction on a tape recorder that self destructs" with the warning that should the operation fail or they be captured, "the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions."
The show has endured through the decades including a two-year revivial on ABC-TV from 1988 to 1990 and a trio of recent motion pictures starring Tom Cruise. Then there's the musical theme for Misson:Impossible, composed by Lalo Schifrin. It has been used for the opening of all the shows (and movies). And, in a unique touch, it always featured a montage of action scenes from that week's episode...
Another strong pop cultural theme of our high school years in the 1960s was the "British Invasion." And that was certainly true in the secret agent/spy craze, with the James Bond novels and movies that originally sparked the craze. Then there was the British-produced TV show THE SAINT starring Roger Moore, who later succeeded Sean Connery in the movies playing James Bond.
THE SAINT began in 1962 on British TV. It was picked up by NBC as a summer replacement show in 1966 and continued on the network schedule until 1969.THE SAINT experienced worldwide popularity being picked up and shown in 60 different countries.
The master spy thriller was based on the character Simon Templar created by Leslie Charteris back in the 1920s. 120 episodes were produced,many of which began like this...
The only British-based TV spy show that was more prolific than THE SAINT was THE AVENGERS. A so-called "spy-fi" show, it featured the exploits of British secret agents operating in 1960s England. Several of the shows had sci-fi themes.
The primary character was John Steed, played by Patrick Macnee. He had a number of female sidekicks during the run of the show from 1961 to 1969, including Honor Blackman, who later gained fame in one of the Bond movies (Goldfinger) as Pussy Galore.
But the most famous of THE AVENGER female agents is Diane Rigg, who played Emma Peel from 1965 to 1968, which corresponds with the years that the show came to America on the ABC TV network. ABC paid a then unheard of amount of $2 million for the rights to 26 episodes that first season. Certainly many young boys watching the show thought the money was well spent just to watch Diane Rigg :).
A catch-phrase from those seasons was Steed saying "Mrs. Peel, we are needed." And indeed, according to Wikipedia, THE AVENGERS was the longest running spy series produced for English-speaking television, although MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE had more episodes with
171.
The secret agent/spy craze was, of course, tailor made for satire and comedy.
One hit TV series that took full advantage of that was GET SMART which aired from September 18, 1965 to April 12, 1969 on NBC. It was a series created by two comedic legends, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.
The show featured Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 and Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 (her full name was never given). Both worked for CONTROL, a secret American counter-spy agency battling their opponents, known as KAOS.
The show has sparked 4 different full-length TV and theatrical movies over the years, and some of the catchphrases from the original show live on today such as: "Sorry, about that, Chief" and "Would you believe...?"
And here's how it began that first season in 1965 just a few days after we began classes for the first time at Father Ryan...
Some might see GET SMART as the American TV version of Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) of THE PINK PANTHER movies fame. Clearly that is an apt comparison in some ways. But since the PINK PANTHER movies, by in large, came to full prominence during the 1970s, I am not including them in this posting.
Of course, popular culture certainly also included the pop music scene in the 1960s, and you could find secret agent and spy themes there as well. We've already mentioned all the Bond movie theme songs that became hits on the charts. Then there's this hit record, by a man who had many hit songs in 1960s, Johnny Rivers with SECRET AGENT MAN in 1966...
This ends our look back at the secret agent/spy craze of our high school days. I sure I have overlooked or omitted some movies or TV shows or other things that should almost be remembered in this retrospective.
If so, leave me a comment below or send me an e-mail(pat.nolan@dvl.com) with your other memories or thoughts and suggestions.
Nice article there!
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