I Spy

Infobox Television
show_name = I Spy


caption =
format = Espionage
camera =
picture_format =
audio_format =
runtime =
creator =
developer = David Friedkin & Morton Fine
executive_producer = Sheldon Leonard
starring = Robert Culp
Bill Cosby
narrated =
theme_music_composer = Earle Hagen
opentheme =
endtheme =
country = USA
network = NBC
first_aired = September 15, 1965
last_aired = April 15, 1968
num_seasons = 3
num_episodes = 82
website =
imdb_id = 0058816
tv_com_id = 571

"I Spy" is an American television secret agent adventure series. It ran for three seasons on NBC from 1965 to 1968 and teamed Robert Culp as international tennis player Kelly Robinson, and Bill Cosby as his trainer Alexander Scott. In reality, they were both top agents for the Pentagon and, while ostensibly traveling as "tennis bums" (a talented amateur who plays tennis with rich people in return for food and lodging), they were usually busy chasing villains, spies, and beautiful women.

The creative force behind the show were writers David Friedkin, Morton Fine, and cinematographer Fouad Said. Together they formed Three F Productions under the aegis of Desilu Studios where the show was produced. Friedkin and Fine were co-producers and head writers. Together they wrote the scripts for 16 episodes, one of which Friedkin directed. Friedkin also dabbled in acting and appeared in two episodes in the first season. Actor-producer Sheldon Leonard, best known for playing gangster roles in the 1940s and '50s, was the executive producer. He also played a gangster-villain role in two episodes and appeared in a third show as himself in a humorous cameo role. In addition, he directed one episode and served as occasional second unit director throughout the series.

Background

"I Spy" broke new ground in that it was the first American television drama to feature an African-American actor (Cosby) in a lead role. Originally an older actor was slated to play a fatherly mentor to Culp's "Kelly Robinson." But after seeing Cosby performing stand-up comedy on a talk-show, Sheldon Leonard decided to take a chance on hiring him to play opposite Culp. The concept was changed from a mentor-protege relationship to same-age partners who were equals. It was also notable that Cosby's race was never an issue in any of the stories. [The November 9th, 2007 Episode of The O'Reilly Factor featured an interview with Culp. It also showed a clip of one early episode titled "Danny was a Million Laughs" in which Cosby's character was the brunt of a Shoeshine racial remark. Culp said he and Cosby went to the producers after that episode and insisted it never happen again] Nor was his character in any way subservient to Culp's, with the exception that Culp's "Kelly Robinson" was a more experienced agent. (Culp revealed in his audio commentary on the DVD release that he and Cosby agreed early on that "Our statement is a nonstatement" regarding race, and the subject was never discussed again.) As a strait-laced Rhodes scholar fluent in many languages, Cosby's "Scotty" was really the brains of the team. His partner (Culp) was the athlete and playboy who lived by his wits. Another way in which "I Spy" was a trailblazer was in its use of exotic international locations in an attempt to emulate the James Bond film series. This was unique for a television show, especially since the series actually filmed its lead actors at locations ranging from Spain to Japan, rather than relying on photography and stock footage. (Compare with the recent series, "Alias", which also utilized worldwide settings but rarely filmed outside the Los Angeles region.)

The success of the show is attributed to the chemistry between Culp and Cosby. Fans tuned in more for their hip banter than for the espionage stories, making "I Spy" a leader in the buddy genre. The show also coined unique phrases that, briefly, became catch phrases, such as "wonderfulness"; "Wonderfulness" was used as the title of one of Cosby's albums of stand up comedy released concurrently with the series. Cosby also occasionally slipped in bits of his comic routines during his improvised banter with Culp. (In one episode Scott, being interrogated under the influence of drugs, says his name is Fat Albert.) Many details of Cosby's life were also written into his character. Scott, like Cosby, does not drink, smoke, or womanize—while Kelly Robinson does all three. There are frequent references to Scott's childhood in Philadelphia and attending Temple University (Cosby is sometimes seen wearing his own Temple sweatshirt). And in the "Cops and Robbers" episode, Scotty returns home to Philadelphia to re-visit his old neighborhood.

"I Spy" was a main fixture in the wildly popular secret-agent genre—a trend that followed hot on the heels of the hugely successful James Bond films. After the blockbuster earnings of "Goldfinger" in 1964 and "Thunderball" (which confirmed the spy craze was more than a passing fad) in 1965, the "gold rush" was on at every studio to produce their own brand of secret agent TV shows, films, and spin-off merchandise. What set "I Spy" apart from its fellow programs such as "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", "The Avengers", and "The Wild Wild West" was its emphasis on realism. There were no fanciful 007-style gadgets, outlandish villains or campy, tongue-in-cheek humor. Although Culp and Cosby frequently exchanged breezy, lighthearted dialog, the stories invariably focused on the gritty, ugly side of the espionage business.

Occasionally the series produced charming comedic episodes such as "Chrysanthemum," inspired by "The Pink Panther", and "Mainly on the Plains" with Boris Karloff as an eccentric scientist who thinks he's Don Quixote. However, most episodes dealt with more serious subjects (e.g., heroin addiction in "The Loser") and didn't shy away from ending on a sombre note. This is perhaps the only television drama in the Sixties to set an episode in the then-taboo region of Vietnam ("The Tiger," written by Robert Culp). While filming this episode in 1966, a romance ensued between Culp and Vietnamese guest star France Nuyen. The two were married the following year, and Nuyen went on to appear in several more episodes.

Another unique feature of the series was a running gag involving a locked-room scenario. Time and again the two spies would be captured and left in a locked room, cellar, or warehouse. After much humorous banter they would improvise an ingenious escape using whatever materials were at hand. For example, in "A Cup of Kindness" they create an explosive out of chemical fertilizer and dry ice.

The series was additionally notable in that co-star Culp wrote the scripts for seven episodes (one of which he also directed), including the show's first broadcast episode, "So Long, Patrick Henry." In the Sixties it was exceedingly rare for an actor in a dramatic series to write scripts, much less direct, for his/her own show. In the four-episode "Robert Culp Collection" DVD, Culp reveals in the audio commentary that his seven episodes were the only ones filmed exactly as written. He wrote them to establish a specific dramatic tone and level of quality for the other writers to follow. Nevertheless, Culp and Cosby were dissatisfied with the often frivolous and formulaic scripts they received and rewrote most of their dialog and improvised a great deal during filming.

According to commentary recorded by Robert Culp for the 2002 DVD release of the series, Culp—a professional scriptwriter as well as an actor who had written acclaimed episodes of "The Rifleman" among other series—also reveals that prior to joining "I Spy" he wrote a pilot script for a proposed series in which he'd play an American James Bond-like character. He took the script to his friend Carl Reiner, who recommended he meet with Sheldon Leonard, who was in the midst of creating "I Spy". This script was eventually rewritten by Culp and produced as the aforementioned episode "The Tiger."

After the series ended its three-year run in 1968, Culp asked Cosby to co-star with him in the film "Hickey & Boggs" (1972), a downbeat and violent detective story written by Walter Hill. Despite the fact that Culp was also the director, the film failed to show any of the warmth and camaraderie characteristic of "I Spy". In 1994, Cosby and Culp reunited once more for the nostalgic television movie "I Spy Returns", in which the aging spies have to leap into action once again to rescue their children, who are now spies for the same agency.

Robert Culp also reprised the role of Kelly Robinson during a dream sequence in a 1999 episode of Bill Cosby's series, "Cosby", entitled "My Spy." Prior to this, Culp made a guest appearance on "The Cosby Show" on April 9, 1987 in an episode titled "Bald and Beautiful" in which he plays an old friend of Dr. Huxtable's named "Scott Kelly."

The duo also reunited once more for an appearance at a TV special marking the 75th anniversary of the NBC television network in 2002. Cosby was actually on stage with his Cosby Show co-stars at the time in reference to that sitcom. However, he called on Culp (who was in the audience) to join him as well and both men received a round of applause and cheers when they donned their sunglasses and tossed off a few wisecracks in a nod to their secret agent characters.

A movie remake "I Spy" followed in 2002 with Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson. Like most remakes, it diverged from its source material. This included reversing the character names so that Alexander Scott (Wilson) was now the experienced agent and Kelly Robinson (Murphy) the amateur, possibly in reference to Murphy's popular Mr. Robinson character on "Saturday Night Live". The film was a commercial and critical flop.

The original television series and the 1994 reunion movie are both available on DVD. Episodes 1-25 of the first season of the television series are also available on Joost and Hulu, from the DMGI Classics channel.

Merchandising

Popular culture

A sure sign of a film or TV show's popularity is a "Mad magazine" parody. In the "Mad" version published in 1967, the show was called "Why Spy?" featuring characters called "Killy" and "Scoot". It received predictably mixed reviews: [http://www.sidrat.net/ispy/spoofs/whyspyreviews.html]

In 1968 the series was also parodied in an episode ("Die Spy") of the spy-spoof television series "Get Smart", in which agent Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) pretends to be an international table-tennis champion. The episode successfully duplicates the theme music and humorous banter between Robinson and Scott (with actor/comedian Stu Gilliam imitating Cosby). Robert Culp makes an uncredited cameo appearance as an inebriated Turkish waiter.

Original novels and comic books

A number of original novels based upon the series were published, most written in the mid-to-late 1960s by Walter Wager under the pseudonymous by-line John Tiger. Wager, under his own name, authored numerous thrillers, three of which were adapted into films: "Telefon", "Viper Three" ("Twilight's Last Gleaming") and "58 Minutes" ("Die Hard 2"). The "I Spy" novels were published by Popular Library:

* "I Spy" (1965, no book series number on cover)
* I SPY #2: "Masterstroke" (1966)
* I SPY #3: "Superkill" (1967)
* I SPY #4: "Wipeout" (1967)
* I SPY #5: "Countertrap" (1967)
* I SPY #6: "Doomdate" (1967)
* I SPY #7: "Death-Twist" (1968)

The following tie-ins, not by Wager, were also published.

* "Message From Moscow" (1966) by Brandon Keith. This was a hardcover novel published for young readers by Whitman.
* "I Spy" (2002) by Max Allan Collins - novelization of the motion picture remake

Gold Key Comics also published six issues of an "I Spy" comic book between 1966 and 1968.

"I Spy: A History And Episode Guide to the Groundbreaking Television Series," published by McFarland & Company, Jefferson, NC, in January 2007, examines "I Spy"'s contribution to American television and society by being the first series to star a black and a white actor together, and also being the first weekly production to film around the world, developing the technology to make this possible. This "biography of a television series" was written by Marc Cushman and Linda J. LaRosa, with a foreword by Robert Culp. [http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-2750-7 I SPY: A History to the Groundreaking Television Series]

Internet

In 1999, the [http://www.network54.com/Forum/172251/ I Spy Forum] and the [http://www.dpcphoto.com/ispy/ I Spy - The Definitive Site] were created by Dave Cole and Bob Mitsch, which carried forward the friendship theme of I Spy to the Internet.Britton, Wesley. (2004) "Spy Television." Published by Praeger Publishers; [http://books.google.com/books?q=In+1999%2C+Dave+Cole+and+Bob+Mitsch+created+the+%2F+Spy%E2%80%94The+Definitive+Site+and+the+%2F+&btnG=Search+Books&as_brr=0 Afterlife of I Spy'; Page 91.] ISBN 0-27598-163-0] At these sites, fans continue to discuss I Spy just about every day.

Home video

Selected episodes of the series were made available on VHS in North America in the early 1990s.

Image Entertainment released the complete series on DVD in Region 1, initially in a series of single-disc volumes, which were later compiled into three box sets. The episodes were not presented in any particular order. In addition, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the 1994 reunion made-for-TV film on DVD in Region 1 on October 8, 2002. In April 2008, Image reissued the series, this time organized in order of original broadcast, in three box sets, one for each season. This includes Robert Culp's bonus audio commentary on four episodes that he wrote (originally issued in 2002 on a single DVD called "The Robert Culp Collection").

ee also

* "The Avengers"
* "Honey West"
* James Bond
* "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."
* "The Saint"

Other uses

"I Spy" was also the title of a short-lived thriller series starring Raymond Massey that aired in 1956.

References

External links

*
* [http://ispy65.tripod.com/ "I Spy": The Series]
* [http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/I/htmlI/ispy/ispy.htm Museum of Broadcast Communications]
* [http://trickster.org/truetrue/ I, Spy Fanfiction Archive]
* [http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-2750-7 I SPY: A History to the Groundreaking Television Series, info on 2007 book]
* [http://www.billcosby.com/ Official Bill Cosby Site]