I Spy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other uses, see I Spy (disambiguation).
I Spy was an American television secret agent adventure series. It ran 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 a tennis "bum" (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 show was produced by Desilu Productions.
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. It was also notable that Cosby's race was never an issue in any of the stories. Nor was his character in any way subservient to Culp's, with the exception that Culp's character was a more experienced agent. 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 Japan to Italy, 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.
The series was additionally notable in that co-star Culp wrote numerous episodes, including the show's first broadcast episode, "So Long, Patrick Henry". In the mid-1960s, it was considered rare for actors in a dramatic series to write scripts for their own shows.
After the show went off the air, the two lead actors teamed again for the film Hickey & Boggs (1972), a downbeat and violent story that failed to capitalize on what I Spy audiences had loved. 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 also spies.
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 reunited once more for a TV special marking the 50th anniversary of NBC in 2002.
A movie remake I Spy followed in 2002 with Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson. As with most remakes, it diverged from its source material, including 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.
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[edit] Popular culture
A sure sign of a film or TV show's popularity is a Mad magazine parody. In the Mad version, the show was called "Why Spy?" featuring characters called "Killy" and "Scoot". It received predictably mixed reviews: [1]
The series was also parodied in an episode ("Die Spy") of the television series Get Smart, in which agent Maxwell Smart pretends to be an international table tennis champion. The scriptwriters successfully imitate the rhythms of the banter between Robinson and Scott. Robert Culp makes a cameo appearance in the episode.
[edit] Original novels and comic books
A number of original novels based upon the series were published, most written in the late 1960s by John Tiger:
- I Spy (1965)
- Masterstroke (1966)
- Message From Moscow (1966) by Brandon Keith. This was a hardcover novel published for young readers.
- Superkill (1967)
- Wipeout (1967)
- Countertrap (1967)
- Doomdate (1967)
- Death-Twist (1968)
- 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, is being published by McFarland & Company, Jefferson, NC, in Fall/Winter 2006. The book 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, devloping 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.
[edit] Other uses
I Spy was also the title of a short-lived thriller series starring Raymond Massey that aired in 1956.
The adventues of DC Comic's secret agent King Faraday from Danger Trial Vol.1 #1-#5 were reprinted in Showcase #50 under the title "I-Spy". I-Spy later became Faraday's codename.
