Since I've been somewhat confined to quarters pending upcoming surgery and trying to get this hole in my side to close and heal I've been watching some old reruns on television.
Now as a kid back in the day I never cared for I Spy, it wasn't as cool as the Man from U.N.C.L.E. The Story lines were to adult maybe? and no really cool gadgets?
Well I still find the storylines somewhat boring but I like the guns of the day that Kelly and Scotty were using. Kelly carried a Walther P1 Compact and Scott carried the good ole .45.
They did seem to make a good team though but being Government agents you'd think that they would have been better trained in hand to hand fight, wow some of that stuff is really cheesy!
Have to laugh in one episode a Greek bad guy is running around shooting everyone with a silenced snub nose, guess what there was no silencer on the gun! Must have been using silenced bullets?
Did they have missions that were never in the Far East or the Middle East?
Well I guess I'll get back to me Afternoon Rerun Matinees!

That series was made back in far happier days for Bill Cosby.

Look at when the series ran...1965-1968. "Cheesy" was the order of the day for almost every show on television then. Most of us, though, didn't really recognize it as cheesy, and even if we did, we didn't care. Shows like I Spy took us away from the reality of the times.

With a few exceptions (most notably Star Trek), most television shows wouldn't get past the pilot episode if they came out today. Shows then were made to take our mind off the Vietnam war and the political climate in this country. I mean, just look back at some of them. The Andy Griffith Show, Gilligan's Island, The Addams Family. They were feel good shows. Or Bonanza...a series about ranchers whose clothes never got dirty. And the list goes on. Watching those shows didn't require any brain power...kinda like today's Survivor, or Orange Is the New Black, or NFL football.

I suppose it is politically incorrect, to say you liked Bill Cosby, his shows or his comedy! Oh Well, once again I missed the PC bus!

Ivan

Cosby gave my 5th grade class the game of "Buck, Buck!" What more could 5th grade boys want!

...I still like Cosby...he is the victim of a political witch hunt...he didn't do anything everyone else at the Playboy Mansion wasn't doing back then...but I'm guessing he was the only black guy doing it...

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A Country Boy Can Survive

Spoke too soon, seen one episode that takes place in Palm Springs and one in Washington.
Have to laugh at that they referred to an American Motors Ambassador convertible as an American sports car!

I believe the piece on bumping into Carroll Shelby was on Bill Cosby 200 MPH.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

1st use of "***" sneaked into a prime time show.Watch till the end.........1960's TV Series Robert Culp says ***! - YouTube

some of you seem to think that today's tv is better?
well, i can't say because i only watch old stuff.
i think I SPY is a hoot.

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susie

I have NEVER found Bill Cosby to be talented or amusing.

He probably didn't do anything with those complaining women that other big name actors or producers didn't do then, but I just really dislike this guy and Red Foxx and some others of that ilk.

Why some university gave Cosby an honorary doctorate has to be one of the peak examples of PC.

Among older TV series on YouTube, I've been watching, "Hong Kong." I liked it as a kid, and it seems now to have been one of the best then, 1960. It had superior actors and scripts. BTW, it had a Canadian playing a Briton and an Australian playing an American, in case anyone doesn't know. But they did very well. (Lloyd Bochner and Rod Taylor.)

What I liked about the series (apart from France Nuyen, who was at one time married to Culp) was that when they did something stupid, they got hurt and ended up in the hospital.

And did I mention France Nuyen?

It seems that it is not fashionable for Hollywood men to like women. I like all of Bill Cosby's work. If he went over the line, he did not do more so than other Hollywood men or my in-laws. At some level, the purported victims had to know what they were getting into and effectively consented.

My wife still will not let me watch South Pacific because of France Nuyen (France is still cute - grey hair, bifocals and all).

I Spy is now unintentional comedy.

Today's TV is terrible. Give me the 50's stuff any day.

We are now watching Resurrection: Etugural on Turkish TV (in Turkish) and it beats anything on network TV (with the possible exception of "Elementary").

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

Wasn't ISpy the first TV show with a black & white partner that were equal to one another or had equal roles? Seems like I heard that somewhere.

Yes it was and Robert Culp was the person behind making it happen.

I Spy was a good show for its time, fairly realistic especially compared to Man from Uncle. I've watched Uncle recently and boy is it campy! I can't watch anything with Cosby in it anymore, regardless of how many people were doing what he did, it's still wrong.

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Support your Police, & NRA

We are rating old TV shows based on our current feelings. Back then watching it for the first time I bet you all thought it was spectacular. Remember that back then there was no CGI and many actors did their own stunts.

Growing up with Combat, the Rifleman, Wanted Dead or Alive etc. I wouldn't trade that time in my life for all the money in Hollywood.

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James Redfield
LM #497

As a preteen smart mouth I thought no better comedic line could be found than in "To Russell my Brother, whom I slept with"
Father "how did he get in?"
Cosby "He came in through the window"
Father "There is no window in this room"
Cosby " He took it wif him"
For me the child's pronunciation of wif rather than with was over the top funny, along with being a carpenters son who knew if you took a window with, a hole remained.

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Front sight and squeeze