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It’s time for POP CULTURE ARCHAEOLOGY WITH GRANDPA BUNCHE!

While making today’s breakfast, I watched a YouTube article where a mother who’s a bit older than me watches classic TV shows with her 30-something son and they discuss them from the perspective of seeing them during original air versus watching them from the perspective of someone born well after the fact. Today’s subject for examination was THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E, which was easily the biggest ’60’s super-spy item this side of 007 at the time, and definitely the most popular of the wave of Bond imitators that flooded the airwaves during that era (though most of the other Bond wannabes crashed and burned quickly, even U.N.C.L.E.’s terrible spinoff, THE GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E, starring a young Stephanie Powers). (It should also be noted that the only other spy shows of the ’60’s that did as well in the ratings were THE AVENGERS, an imprt that was picked up by ABC, and IT TAKES A THIEF, which was terrific but for some reason is all but forgotten today.)

So, inspired by the discussion of U.N.C.L.E. and my clear memories of it — I had dodgy bootlegs of it via the Union Square Nazi maybe a decade ago, so it’s fresh in my mind —  thinking of snagging the boxed set of Season 2 of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (hands down the best that series had to offer) but it was only available as individual seasons on Region 2.  I personally have no problem with foreign discs, as I have an all-regions player, but I like to own as much as possible on Region 1 so I can lend to my friends. 

Anyway, I remembered that the only way the show was available on home video in the States was as either a handful of VHS tapes that cherry-picked two episodes per tape (I had a couple of them during my VHS phase) or as a fancy complete series set that came in a metal briefcase. The latter was great for completists, but what most don't recall about THE MAN FROM U..N.C.L.E. is that though it lasted for four seasons (and a terrible reunion TV movie fifteen years later) and had two memorable protagonists, the overall series simply wasn't that good. 

The first season was decent, as it was American TV's first attempt at aping the James Bond formula (the series debuted after the release of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and just a few months before GOLDFINGER, with the latter being where the '60's super-spy mania was ignited), but the show was still little more than an obvious Bond knockoff with the sex and violence toned down for primetime viewing. Season 2 saw the show moving to color, which truly brought it to life, but the showrunners also made the series' tongue-in-cheek aspects more overt, but that was okay because it worked. For my money, Season 2 is all that the casual viewer with an interest in '60's spy pop culture needs to bother with.

Then, halfway through Season 2, BATMAN premiered and instantly became a pop culture phenomenon that ushered in “camp” as the new big thing. Without any real understanding of what camp actually is, network honchos scrambled to create shows with what they thought was a camp sensibility, and also tried to shoehorn it into already existing series, much to the detriment of the existing shows in question. That’s why LOST IN SPACE became so aggressively idiotic during its second and third years (though that idiocy arguably made that show more fun and memorable), and why THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. went full-tilt comedy for Season 3. Those of us who have clear memories of U.N.C.L.E. will tell you in no uncertain terms that Season 3 was ruinous for the show, as its plot veered directly into the outright ridiculous, absurd, and silly, with the emphasis on making everything look as intentionally cheap and bad as possible. Look up “The My Friend the Gorilla Affair” as my go-to example of the absolute nadir of the series. Just appalling in every possible way. There is nothing that fails harder than unfunny comedy, and by that yardstick Season 3 was a massive and embarrassing failure. In one season they managed to undo all of the progress and quality of the previous seasons offerings. And it should be noted that the BATMAN-inspired camp wave was a fad that lasted maybe a year, and ddamned near every American TV series that jumped on the camp bandwagon was dead by the end of a season, or less, and pretty much all of them except for BATMAN, LOST IN SPACE, and U.N.C.L.E. are forgotten today. (Though MY MOTHER THE CAR deservedly lives in infamy.) And super-popular though it was, even BATMAN was dead at the end of its third year, largely because its novelty was over. (The show would have been given a fourth season on NBC, provided that all of the sets like the Batcave and such could still be used, but ABC had all of the sets torn down when they got the cancellation notice.)

Realizing the shift to camp was a terrible idea, the U.N.C.L.E. showrunners again changed gears for Season 4, returning the program to its more grounded roots and even giving it a bit more of a darker adult edge, but by that point the damage was done and it was only a matter of time before cancellation. It was the end of the 1960’s and the spy boom was petering out anyway, so the plug was pulled on U.N.C.L.E. halfway through its final season.

U.N.C.L.E. was fondly remembered for the next 30+ years, enshrined mostly by those who were kids when it first aired and who were too young for the more adult thrills of the Bond franchise, though it surprisingly did not turn up much in sydication in the major U.S. markets. (It mostly aired in regions like the Midwest, for some reason.) But then the home video boom happened and lavish DVD sets of classic TV shows became a thing. It took a while but THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. eventually saw relase in a fancy metal briefcase that collected the entire series rather than putting it out in individual season sets. That edition was released at around a hundred bucks, and despite my avid interest in ’60’s spy pop culture, I had no interest in owning the whole series, and certainly not for a hundred bucks. Apparently the general audience shared my sentiment, thus leading the briefcase set to tank to such a degree that it was seen as lack of interest in the property, so no further relases of the series were forthcoming, not even as individual seasons. 

I like having “comfort programming” close at hand, and the closest I could get for THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. is a set of the theatrical films spliced together from episodes of the series for release in Europe, where they spiced things up for the movie audience by adding levels of sex and violence that would never have been allowed in the original TV versions. 

 

 

Those films sometimes showed up on American TV as filler for afternoon and weekend movie showcases on local TV stations, and that was how I first saw THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., as it never ran in syndication on the East Coast in my youth. I saw ONE SPY TOO MANY (1966), which was the show’s only 2-part story, “The Alexander the Greater Affair," one afternoon on Channel 9 when I was around 11 or 12, and found it a lot of fun, so from then on I kept my eyes open for more. Little did I realize that the much ballyhooed actual series would turn out to mostly be another item that was bigged-up the nostalgia of now-grown children.

And the failed briefcase set now starts at over $200 when encountered on eBay and other collector’s resources. Absolutely NOT worth it.