In a world of spy spoofs like the Avengers, the Man from UNCLE, and, yes, even the Wild, Wild West, I Spy breathed fresh CIA air into the mix. There was something edgy (not as edgy as Secret Agent Man) and real in the super villain free world throughout which Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott cavorted. Cool graphics announced each episode with Robert Culp as Kelly Robinson (who spied under the cover of being a world class tennis player) morphing from a racquet wielding serve-and-volleyer to a handgun brandishing, enemy-stalking agent. The haunting theme music is as recallable as Star Trek's even though I haven't heard it since the mid 60's. Yes, I just admitted to being a teen fan of the show. My views are therefore time colored. A card carrying nerd at the time, I reveled vicariously in any number of these kinds of shows. I pulled the plastic P38 from my Man from UNCLE shoulder holster and took aim at various on screen enemies from my top bunk bed superior vantage point. I tried to teach myself tennis banging wildly at a viaduct near our home. I even took for a brief period to introducing myself to girls as Kelly, not a complete lie since it is my surname. None of this, however, was as bad as when I shaved back my temples a couple years earlier in a vain attempt to simulate Robert Vaughn's receding hairline when I was a 14 year old Man from UNCLE zealot. I digress, and this has turned into a review about teenage boy obsessions instead of a critique of the I Spy series. Can you really critique something that affects your outcomes almost as much as your first love did perhaps more so? Maybe it was because I was fatherless as a teen. These spy guys were the mentors and the role models I so sorely lacked. They taught me the virtues of standing up against villainy, developing rich friendships with at least one other trustworthy guy, and to keep a stiff upper lip even when you never win the Emmy. Robert Culp was, in fact, quite gracious every year when Bill Cosby would beat him out of it. Of course, Cosby's Alexander Scott was brilliant (and not just because he was a Rhodes Scholar insert laugh track here). The sum of their complementary parts managed every week to be greater than the whole. This period of my life feels remarkably clear (aside from my skin). I think it's because shows like I Spy, many of the aforementioned and of course Star Trek made such powerful imprints on my psyche. They showed boys how to be men (including not to be afraid of liking girls). I would recommend this series to anyone who wants to return to a wonderful time in television history (or in their own lives as in my case). There were many now recognized to be classic shows, and this one is very near the top of that list is my memory.
Review of I Spy
