truepenny: artist's rendering of Sidneyia inexpectans (illya-geek)
[personal profile] truepenny
N.b., this is a post of the purest self-indulgence and unlikely to be interesting to anyone who isn't a fan of (a.) The Man from U.N.C.L.E., (b.) The Great Race, or (c.) both.


It's [livejournal.com profile] matociquala's fault that I'm an MfU fan, of course, but my abiding and irrational love for The Great Race comes from early childhood indoctrination. I watched it on TV, in variously cut versions (160 minutes is its full runtime), with my father and uncle and sister, and you know, I don't care if it's unwieldy and the jokes are dumb and cartoony (it features the largest pie fight ever staged) and the Prisoner of Zenda subplot comes out of freaking nowhere. I love this movie. Just sayin'.

So, anyway, first point of contact between these two probably equally indefensible passions: Robert Vaughn dated Natalie Wood for a while.

2. Keenan Wynn, who plays The Great Leslie's henchman, is a number-two bad guy in the dreadful Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E..

3. Dorothy Provine guest-stars in an episode of MfU. (She's much better in The Great Race. Honest.)

And then I started digging. Consider it a kind of peculiar version of 6 Degrees of Separation.

4. Tony Curtis guest-starred on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Sonny and Cher, in turn, guest-starred on MfU.

5. Robert Vaughn appeared in a couple of Columbo TV movies. Peter Falk (Columbo) is Professor Fate's henchman.

6. Keenan Wynn, Arthur O'Connell, William Bryant, Dale van Sickel, J. Edward McKinley, Bob Herron, Charles E. Fredericks made appearances on The Wild, Wild West. (Hang on, the relevance will be clear in a minute, aside from the fact that [livejournal.com profile] tzikeh is pushing WWW at me as hard as she can, promising that if I love MfU, I will love WWW as well.)

7. Larry Storch also appeared on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. And on Get Smart, which is a parody of MfU, which in turn is a parody of James Bond. (Tony Curtis starred with Roger Moore (of James Bond infamy imho) in The Persuaders!, on which Larry Storch also made an appearance. George Lazenby, another Bond, apears in The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.)

8. David McCallum (making me stretch), was in a movie called Hell Drivers. So was Sean Connery, the Bond of Bonds.

9. Ross Martin plays the villain in the Prisoner of Zenda subplot. (And, [livejournal.com profile] tzikeh, your chances of making me fall in love with WWW went waaaaaay up when I realized that Artemus Gordon and Baron Rolfe von Stuppe are the same guy. Because ... guh.)

10. George Macready is Marshall Gurnius.

11. Hal Smith appeared in "The Matterhorn Affair."

12. Johnny Silver appeared on Get Smart.

13. Charles Seel appeared in "The Pieces of Fate Affair" (which, bonus sf shout-out, was written by Harlan Ellison).

14. Frank Kreig appeared in "The Adriatic Express Affair."

15. Clegg Hoyt appeared in "The Her Master's Voice Affair." (Another sf shout-out: he also appeared in the first episode of Star Trek.)


Boy, this is one well-vacuumed cat.

Feel free to play along!

Date: 2005-01-27 04:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tzikeh.livejournal.com
Oh, honey.

Honey, sweetiepie baby pussycat.

Artemis Gordon is going to KILL YOU DED with the guh.

Examples:

here (http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/10183926/776902), here (http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/22517316/728224), here (http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/23062929/973880), and here (http://www.thechicagoloop.net/dorinda/JimArtielab.jpg).

Also, he swordfights in this show several times too.

Date: 2005-01-27 05:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] truepenny.livejournal.com
Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...

I'm going to miss Rolfe's goatee and mustache (http://www.wildwildwest.org/www/rmbio/bio_3_nw.jpg), though. This may take some getting used to.

Ooh, hey, a better DMcC-TGR connection: Ross Martin appeared in an episode of The Invisible Man. Fantastic!

[Edited to close the damn tag.]

Date: 2005-01-27 05:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kelliem.livejournal.com
Artie often wears a moustache and/or goatee in one of his many diguises. :)

I had the biggest crush on Artemus Gordon. *sigh*

Date: 2005-01-27 05:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] matociquala.livejournal.com
Also, private train cars. *g* Not to be underestimated.

Date: 2005-01-27 05:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kelliem.livejournal.com
Definitely a boon to the slash writer. You don't have to wory about disapproving hoteliers or waking up the folks in the next room ...

Date: 2005-01-27 08:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tzikeh.livejournal.com
Don't worry - Artemus wears a disguise every episode - you never know what you'll get. Had I *known* you were a Great Race fan, that would have been the first thing I'd mentioned about WWW to you.

Date: 2005-01-27 05:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kelliem.livejournal.com
I definitely think that anyone who's a fan of MFU will also be a fan of WWW. It's almost a given. Cute men in tight pants? Check. Slash out the wazoo? Check. Frequent bondage? Check. Improbable plots? Check. Overcompensating Womanizer/Scientific Loner chemistry? Check.

Oh yeah. Definitely. ;-D

I just wish it was available on tape.

Date: 2005-01-27 05:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] matociquala.livejournal.com
*g* Really, it's hard to resist. Good stuff.

Date: 2005-01-27 08:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tzikeh.livejournal.com
Wild Wild West is on DVD. :)

Date: 2005-01-27 08:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kelliem.livejournal.com
It is??? Uh oh.

I'm in trouble now... (off to check deepdiscountdvd.com...)

Date: 2005-01-27 08:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tzikeh.livejournal.com
Oh - it's at Columbia House only (http://go.columbiahouse.com/cache/product.do?group=NORMAL&ql=4PnmV&sc=true&dk=DHS&club=4&mode=QJR&forceCheckout=true&language=en&pageId=genre%7Cdvd_classics&&cache=true&v=287), I think.

Date: 2005-01-27 08:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kelliem.livejournal.com
Oh. *grumble*

I don't want to join their stupid club. Grrr.

Date: 2005-01-27 08:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kelliem.livejournal.com
*sniffle* It's listed as 'Not Yet Released' everywhere I've looked. Wah.

Date: 2005-01-27 05:06 pm (UTC)
ext_87310: (Default)
From: [identity profile] mmerriam.livejournal.com
Oh yes, if you like MfU, you will enjoy WWW. I wanted to be Artemus Gordon when I was a kid. A part of me still wants to be Artemus Gordon.

Date: 2005-01-27 05:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mamculuna.livejournal.com
i HEART david mcallum, and always did!

Date: 2005-01-31 07:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] betty-m.livejournal.com
I thought I was the only one that loved The Great Race. Oh my . . .
I heart Tony Curtis.

The Persuaders is on BBC America late Saturday nights.

As a kid, I just had to watch Jimbo and Artie, Adam West on Batman (I think there's a theme of hunky men in tight pants), don't forget Kirk and Company, Alexander Munday and It Takes a Thief (Robert "Bob" Wagner, Natalies husband so nice she had to do it twice), Steed and Emma on The Avengers, Prisoner No. 6 on The Prisoner (I am not a number, I am a human being), Maxwell and Agent 99 . . . boy your post brings up a lot of memories. (And I saw them all in first run, in B & W).

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