One of my favorite TV spy shows of the day was "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." which debuted on NBC TV on this day in 1964. With All of the Bond films and other spy movies of the 60s, TV shows started to pick up on the theme. What made this show so cool was the suave duo who starred, and the tongue-in-cheek clever dialogue.

Here's more about the show, according to Wikipedia:

"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.

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.

The first season was broadcast in black-and-white.

Ian Fleming contributed to the show's concepts after being approached by the show's co-creator, Norman Felton. The book The James Bond Films reveals that Fleming originally proposed two characters, Napoleon Solo and April Dancer (The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.). At one point, Fleming's name was to have been associated more conspicuously with the series. The series's original proposal was titled, Ian Fleming's Solo."

Watch this brief video open, which explains what the show is all about, and check out it's great theme music.

You may recognize a young David McCallum, co-star as Chief Medical Examiner Donald 'Ducky" Mallard in the current CBS TV crime drama, "NCIS". I guess he must like to star in TV shows that have abbreviations in the titles.

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