Greetings to all you Tipsters, Agents, and Spies!
In our last communique we began discussing various spies and secret agent types from various sorts of fiction. Well, I didn't quite get through my list, so we're going to continue that now! Again, these spies are getting listed in no particular order, just as they come to my mind.
We'll pick it up with Mission Impossible, which ran on TV from 1966 to 1973. This was the team from the Impossible Mission Force, usually led by Peter Graves as Mr. Phelps. Each week, he would receive his assignment via a record that would always self-destruct when finished. His crew changed slightly from week to week, but usually included Barbara Bain, Martin Landau (and his disguises), Greg Morris, and Peter Lupus. Of course, this has evolved into a movie series starring Tom Cruise.
I Spy starred Robert Culp and Bill Cosby as a pair of American agents who went around the world as an amateur tennis player and his trainer. They were a charismatic pair who traded snazzy banter as they filmed on location all over the world. They were also more grounded in reality than other spy shows, they had no James Bond-style gadgets or over-the-top villains, and often featured heavy subjects like heroin addiction.
Of course, there is perhaps the most famous spy of them all: James Bond. I'm sure everybody knows James Bond, his world-hopping adventures, larger-than-life villains, and wacky gadgets. So we'll just mention him real quick and move on.
The Avengers featured proper British spy Jake Steed (played by Patrick Macnee) and his string of exceptional but amateur partners: Dr. David Keel, Dr. Cathy Gale (played by Honor Blackman), Mrs. Emma Peel (played by Diana Rigg), and Tara King (played by Linda Thorson). You know, now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever actually seen any episodes of this, but I understand it was very Mod (it was the 60's, after all!) and very much influenced by James Bond.
Next up: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Some of this show's concepts were devised by Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond), himself! The show is about Napoleon Solo (played by Robert Vaughn) and Ilia Kuryakin (played by David McCallum) who fight the world-domination schemes of THRUSH, a global organization SO evil that various governments were forced to cooperate to create the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, or U.N.C.L.E., to stop them!
Nick Fury was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best agent, and eventually the man in charge of that organization. As a spy, he fought against the forces of HYDRA, AIM, and the supervillain of the week. He often acted as an intermediary between various superheroes and the US Government and/or the U.N. He was once portrayed by David Hasslehoff, but nowadays folks expect hi to be played by Samuel L. Jackson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the TV show, Agents of SHIELD.
There are also a bevy of spies who were intended to be direct parodies of the spy genre, and usually James Bond specifically. James Coburn in Our Man Flint and In Like Flint, Mike Myers as Austin Powers and Don Adams in Get Smart are great examples.
There are a fair few spies in cartoons, too. The greatest ones have just got to be Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, whose sole goal is to make the adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle more adventurous. There are also the Black Spy and the White Spy from the Mad Magazine feature Spy Vs. Spy, and the Spies and Saboteurs who used to haunt the margins of Cracked Magazine.
I understand there is (was?) a cartoon show called Totally Spies, but I've never seen it and really can't comment. I can mention the Spy Kids, three movies of CGI-enhanced adventures of a brother and sister who have to rescue their kidnaped spy parents from a supervillain.
I'm running out of spies. I know there are more. The TV show Chuck was about a guy who gets accidentally recruited by a spy ring, right? And Burn Notice was about a spy who got fired from his spy job and was trying to figure out why.
Well, that's more than enough. I know there are more I can't think of right now, and there have got to me more I don't even know about. Did I leave out anyone important? Who is YOUR favorite fictional spy? Let me know in the comments below!
Well, I guess that wraps it up for now. So be sure to tune in next time to find our next assignment!
Until then, I wish you all...
Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell
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