The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an American television series that was broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1964, to January 15, 1968. It follows the exploits of two secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a fictitious secret international espionage and law-enforcement agency called U.N.C.L.E. Originally co-creator Sam Rolfe wanted to leave the meaning of U.N.C.L.E. ambiguous so it could be viewed as either referring to "Uncle Sam" or the United Nations.[1] Concerns by the MGM Legal department about possible New York law violations for using the abbreviation "U.N." for commercial purposes resulted in the producers clarifying that U.N.C.L.E. was an acronym for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.[2] Each episode of the television show had an "acknowledgement" credit to the U.N.C.L.E. on the end titles

Season 1[edit]


Vaughn and a young Kurt Russell in "The Finny Foot Affair".
The show's first season was in black and white. Rolfe created a kind of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland world, where mundane everyday life would intermittently intersect with the looking-glass fantasy of international espionage which lay just beyond. The U.N.C.L.E. universe was one where the weekly "innocent" would get caught up in a series of fantastic adventures, in a battle of good and evil. Rolfe also blended deadly suspense with a light touch, reminiscent of Hitchcock. In fact, U.N.C.L.E. owes just as much to Alfred Hitchcock as it does to Ian Fleming, the touchstone being North by Northwest, where an innocent man is mistaken for an agent of a top-secret organization, one of whose top members is played by Leo G. Carroll. This role led directly to Carroll being cast as Mr. Waverly in the show.[3]

U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in New York City was most frequently entered by a secret entrance in Del Floria's Tailor Shop. Another entrance was through The Masque Club. Mr. Waverly had his own secret entrance. Unlike the competing TV series I Spy however, the shows were overwhelmingly shot on the MGM back lot.[7] The same building with an imposing exterior staircase was used for episodes set throughout the Mediterranean and Latin America, and the same dirt road lined with eucalyptus trees on the back lot in Culver City stood in for virtually every continent of the globe. The episodes followed a naming convention where each title was in the form of "The ***** Affair", such as "The Vulcan Affair", "The Mad, Mad, Tea Party Affair", and "The Waverly Ring Affair". The only exception was "Alexander the Greater Affair," parts 1 & 2. The first season episode "The Green Opal Affair" establishes that U.N.C.L.E. itself uses the term "Affair" to refer to its different missions.

Rolfe endeavored to make the implausibility of it all seem not only feasible but entertaining. In the series, frogmen emerge from wells in Iowa, shootouts occur between U.N.C.L.E. and THRUSH agents in a crowded Manhattan movie theater, and top-secret organizations are hidden behind innocuous brownstone facades.

The series also began to dabble in science fictional plots, beginning with "The Double Affair" in which a THRUSH agent, made to look like Solo through plastic surgery, infiltrates a secret U.N.C.L.E. facility where an immensely powerful weapon called "Project Earthsave" is stored; according to the dialogue, the weapon was developed to protect against a potential alien threat to Earth. The Spy with My Face was the theatrical film version of this episode.

In its first season The Man from U.N.C.L.E. competed against The Red Skelton Show on CBS and Walter Brennan's short-lived The Tycoon on ABC. During this time producer Norman Felton told Alan Caillou and several of the series writers to make the show more tongue in cheek.[8]