Captain's Library GET SMART "Infiltration Caper"

Would you believe the spies you're supposed to infiltrate want you to infiltrate the spies who employ you?

Only Maxwell Smart could end up in that situation...

Illustrated by Henry Scarpelli, this tale from Dell's Get Smart #7 (1967) captures more of the vaudville-humor flavor of the show itself than most of the comic stories.

Unfortunately, it was also the last new issue of the comic.

Scarpelli illustrated a number of Dell's tv adaptations, including The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, Hogan’s Heroes and McHale’s Navy.

He eventually ended up at Archie Comics, where he did both comic book stories, and illustrated the both the Archie daily and Sunday newspaper strip for 15 years!

The writer is Alan Reife, who also wrote The Adventures of Jerry Lewis for DC.

The Spies Who Love ME-Week 4

Here's some facts and trivia about the eps in Sunday's...

...group of shows...

10pm (ET) Man from U.N.C.L.E.

"The Shark Affair" features one of leads of another 60s spy series as the...well, not so much villain as anti-hero!
Robert Culp, who would play secret agent/tennis pro Kelly Robinson on I Spy a year later, delivers an astounding turn as Captain Shark, a Captain Nemo-esque survivalist who plans to ride out nuclear armageddon with the best and brightest mankind has to offer, whether they want to join him or not.
Also in the cast are two familar faces from Star Trek; James Doohan (Scotty), and Meg Wilie (The Keeper, the head Talosian from "The Cage"/"The Menagerie" as well as The Last Starfighter.

11pm (ET) Mission: Impossible

"Boomerang" is one of the "IMF vs Organized Crime" episodes that dominated the final season.

Midnight (ET) Get Smart

"Strike While the Agent is Hot" features Max taking over as the union rep for CONTROL's agents, trying to solve a puzzle and prevent a crime while discovering KAOS has better working conditions for their agents!
"The Only Way to Die" has Max declared dead so he can go undercover.
Look for a very young Gordon Jump (WKRP in Cincinnati) in his first appearance as Hobson, The Chief's assistant before Larabee.

1am (ET) The Saint

"Simon and Delilah" features future James Bond Roger Moore with his Miss Moneypenny, Lois Maxwell when both are involved in the kidnapping of a starlet from a big-budget biblical movie set!
And, no, there are no romantic scenes between them!
But there are a number of moviemaking in-jokes, especially about Italian movies!

Be here tomorrow for a classic comic story based on one of these series!

Captain's Library THE SAINT "Death in the Sky"

Though the tv show ran for several years in America...

...there was no comic book based on it.

Rumor was that The Saint's creator Leslie Charteris was unhappy with 1940s-50s comics based on his novels and refused to allow one based on the tv show.

However, in England, there was a comic strip as part of the TV Tornado comic anthology weekly...

These weeklies had color covers and centerfolds, but the rest of the interiors were b/w.

TV Tornado later merged with other weeklies, first with Solo (from which this story was taken), then with TV Century 21.

The Saint strip survived both mergers, but ended in 1969 when The Saint tv series was cancelled.

Regrettably, both the artist and writer of the strip are unknown.

The Spies Who Love ME--Week 3

Here's some facts and trivia about the eps in Sunday's...

...group of shows...

10pm (ET) Man from U.N.C.L.E.

"The Quadripartite Affair" finally gives Illa Kuryakin equal on-screen time and features David McCallum's then-wife, Jill Ireland as the innocent character caught up in the intrigue...who is irresistably-drawn to Illya.
The initial plan was to make her a recurring character, but when Illya proved to be incredibly-popular with women, it was decided to leave him romantically-unattached.
Jill would appear the next year on Star Trek as Mr Spock's first love in "This Side of Paradise".
The ep features a veritable whos-who of '50s-'60s genre performers including...
Roger C Carmel, who would play loveable rogue Harry Mudd in both classic and animated Star Trek, as well as the only villain to battle both Batman and The Green Hornet, in a rare heroic role.
He would also reappear on UNCLE as other, evil, characters.
Anne Francis would play the first recurring UNCLE villainess before becoming karate-chopping private eye Honey West in her own short-lived series.
John Van Dreelen seemed born to play arrogant villains, and did so in everything from Mission: Impossible to Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, to Wonder Woman and even Get Smart!
Richard Anderson was going through a period in the 60s-70s playing bad guys on The Green Hornet, Mission: Impossible, and other shows before being cast as good-guy Oscar Goldman on Six Million Dollar Man.
Trivia note: both Anne Francis and Richard Anderson appeared in the 1950s classic Forbidden Planet, but had no scenes together!

11pm (ET) Mission: Impossible

"Underground" is from the final season of the show, when the IMF battled organized crime more than Communists and terrorists.
Guest villain Peter Mark Richman was equally at home playing heroes and villains for several decades on shows from the original Twilight Zone and Outer Limits to Star Trek: the Next Generation.

Midnight (ET) Get Smart

"Last One In is a Rotten Spy" was the final episode of the first season.
Alice Ghostly, who appeared in literally every comedy series in the 50s-60s-70s, steals the episode.
She would make one more appearance as a different character two seasons later, but the producers were so pleased with her work that they cast her as the second lead on their 1967 super-hero spoof, Captain Nice, playing the hero's annoying mother!
"Anatomy of a Lover" opened the second season with the return of Dick Gautier as Hymie the Robot.
Laurel Goodwin, who played the Chief's niece was Yeoman Colt in the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage".

1am (ET) The Saint

"Counterfeit Countess" features two actresses with numerous genre credits.
Villainess Kate O'Mara menaced Doctor Who, The Persuaders, Department S, and Adam Adamant, among others.
She also appeared in a rare good-girl role as Miss Moneypenny's assistant in the documentary Welcome to Japan, Mr Bond, about the making of You Only Live Twice.
Alexandra Bastedo was best-known as the telepathic heroine of the super-spy team The Champions. She also had roles in The Starlost, Department S and its' spinoff, Jason King (as different characters), the original Casino Royale,.
Her final on-screen appearance was in Batman Begins.

Be here tomorrow for a classic comic story based on one of these series!