Title card for The Man From My Uncle
Actor Dick Van Dyke turned 98 on Dec. 13, celebrating a long career of entertainment. He even ventured into the realm of spies on occasion.
The Dick Van Dyke Show, "The Man From My Uncle," original airdate: April 20, 1966: The uncle of the title refers to Uncle Sam. Comedy writer Rob Petrie is contacted by a federal agency. Agents want to use the Petrie house in New Rochelle, New York, to conduct a surveillance operation.
The lead agent is Harry Bond (Godfrey Cambridge). Before Rob can make a joke on Bond's name, the agent waves him off. He's heard them all before. The episode goes on to make other references to Bond films and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
The episode was written by Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson. The duo would develop The Odd Couple into a TV series before they went their separate ways. Marshall would create TV comedies such as Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. Marshall and Belson also wrote an episode of I Spy during the 1965-66 television season.
Diagnosis Murder, "Discards," original airdate: Nov. 13, 1997: In this series, Van Dyke played a crime-solving doctor, Mark Sloan. One of Sloan's associates (Charlie Schlatter) discovers his father (Robert Culp) is a spy.
Culp had starred in I Spy (1965-68). The roster of guest stars also included former TV spy actors Patrick Macnee, Robert Vaughn and Barbara Bain. The latter actually reprised her Mission: Impossible character, Cinnamon Carter.
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