Why Did They Have to Split Us Up?

From Motion Picture Magazine, January 1967

Why Did They Have to Split Us Up? - Motion Picture Magazine, January 1967

By: Bill Cosby (as told to James Gregory)

On I Spy Bob Culp and I are a team. And that’s why I don’t feel anyone should split us up and give an award to just one guy – the way they gave an Emmy just to me a while back. With other comedy teams there is always only one guy who is funny – Jerry Lewis, Lou Costello – but Bob can be as funny as he wants. The two of us make it together. One plays off the other. We do comedy, but there’s no straight man.

On the Emmy Awards show I thanked Bob for helping me learn to act – thereby losing his own chance to win an Emmy for best actor in a dramatic series, for which we had both been nominated. What he had done for me was the finest thing one friend could do for another. He had taken a comedian who knew nothing about acting, and without being selfish he helped me along – eased my tension, gave me pointers, made sure certain things were right. He told me what acting really meant – “This all has to do with what’s inside of you. If you believe what you’re saying your face will show it.”

He taught me about lighting, where to stand, how to move, how to speak up. He wouldn’t let a director make me do something I couldn’t handle yet. He protected me that first year. And he still does at times, if I don’t know what’s going on. I think that’s why he lost the Emmy. He always helped me, and he might just not have had enough time to do certain things for himself.

Of course, he did it to help the whole show too – because Bob knows as well as I do that the strength of the series happens to be the relationship between the two men. If one man goes bad, it all starts to fail. As Bob said a few months ago in an article in MOTION PICTURE,” “The gold in the show is the relationship between Bill and me; and that’s what makes the show.”

Our relationship is important in our personal lives, too. We are very, very close.

Bob came up to me on the set of I Spy and gave me some old Captain Marvel comic books, which he knows I dig, and old Captain America second issue and a Captain Marvel poster. And he wrote me a little note that said, “Thanks a lot for everything.” He thanked me. We sat down and we kind of discussed the awards. And that’s when I told me him that they shouldn’t try to split up a team like us. He saw what I meant, and agreed with me, I told him it really got to me that there was a trophy for only one guy, when that’s not really the way it is – at least not with us.

We're so close that we instinctively understand each other.But I really didn’t have to explain to Bob how I felt. We’re so close that we instinctively understand each other. We even have a certain way that we speak to each other. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a friend who was so close to you that maybe just one word could key you off into – not necessarily fits of laughter, but enjoyable moments, when you’ve both been depressed or tired. For me that particular pick-me-up happens to be Bob Culp.

I don’t think we like the same things as much as we can sit down and really communicate with each other. I can talk with him for a long time and never get bored. We’ve discussed many things, from acting to pro football to lizards – to the beauty of putting an A-bomb together for fun. Or we may talk about some choice, beautiful thing we saw on TV: good acting, good actors, good actresses, good movies. Nothing really deep. We talk occasionally about politics, but neither of us is very active in that field. I wouldn’t back any politician, because I don’t believe in them. I have very little faith in politicians. They will make noises at election time, putting down their opponents, saying, “Hey, you stink … you’re bad!” So forth and so on. Then you put the guy in office, and soon the other guy says, “Look at him! He’s messing up, too.”

I don’t think it’s surprising that Bob and I can discuss so many things so easily, or that we’ve developed our own way of communicating. When you live with somebody 12 hours a day for 5 days out of the week, you get to know him awfully well. And then, in our case, we also go to places around the world together for our show … Hong Kong, Mexico, Japan, Italy. You pick up on the lingo and start to have your own little dialogue. And pretty soon you can revert back to something that you said maybe a month ago, just by using a punch line or a little joke that you’ve got going. And believe me, we’ve shared some good jokes on trips to other countries. To an outsider, a key word or line might mean little or nothing. But to us they contain a whole adventure.

For instance, I could say El burro es grande and Bob might double up laughing. Why? Well, it dates back to our trip to Mexico. I enjoyed the Mexican people very much – beautiful, beautiful people. And they have a great sense of humor, which of course is terribly important to me. And that’s where El burro es grande comes in.

I studied Spanish in high school and came out of the class with just one sentence – the one quoted above which means, “The burro is big.”

So while we were on location in Mexico, I would sit down on the grass with the Mexican crew – about 20 guys who took care of the lights and stuff – and I’d say, El burro es grande. And they would give me other lines: El burro es muy (very) grande. Si! (Yes!) And so on.

Well, finally it was time for Bob and me to return to California, and the majority of the crew came to see us off at the airport. And most of the son-of-the-guns had tears in their eyes. Then suddenly one of them says: “One, two, three …” and they all chimed out in unison: “El burro es good-bye!” So neither Bob nor I will ever forget that sentence. It turned out you could say quite a lot with it after all.

Let us venture forth and get some of these wonderful things that they have on the menu here. Then there was something that happened to Bob and me in Hong Kong while we were filming the 1st show in the series. Now, when I get to a foreign land I like to eat the food of the country. I don’t care how sick it makes me feel. Well, we were sitting in this restaurant. (A Chinese restaurant, of course!) Both of us had just learned how to work out with chopsticks, and were starting to learn a little about Chinese food, I mean real Chinese food. So we sat down and looked at the menu and said, “What is this?” and so forth and so on, and “Let’s have some of this. Have you ever tried this? No, man, let’s try some. Let us venture forth and get some of these wonderful things that they have on the menu here. We don’t care what it is. Give us some of this and some of that, with flangs and floosh and zoobie … and oh, yes, we must have some duck. Give us some duck. This barbecued duck here.”

“It’s $36,” the waiter said, (That was Hong Kong dollars, but it still added up to $9 in American money.)

“Oh, so what!” we said, “We don’t care – $36 – man, give us the duck.”

So the guy’s bringing the food to us, and it’s all great – just great. Even the bean curds, which I’d never had before. Pretty soon we’re acting like high school kids – you know like fooling around with a chocolate sundae or something like that. And every time we’d taste something new, if it’s kind of weird, you look at your partner and your partner looks at you, and you break up laughing.

So we’re munching and crunching, till we’d finished a good part of the meal. (As a matter of fact all of it.) And I said to Bob, “Did we get everything – except the duck?” Bob said, “Yeah – we forgot the duck.” But we were both so full we couldn’t have cared less.

Then suddenly this guy comes up the stairs and over to our table – and he’s got a whole duck. What Bob had ordered was a whole barbecued duck! I was so startled I thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t. Now, we’re full of food – it’s up to the Adam’s apple, man. Well, we don’t want to make the guy feel bad, so we said, “Oh, this is wonderful …” Here are two guys so full of food, and now we’ve got to eat a whole duck. We’ve got to force it down.

The guy brought out the plum dressing and everything for it, and it was really delicious. I ate about two slices and Bob ate about two slices, and then I told the waiter, “Okay – put it in a bowser bag and we’ll take it home!”

And that’s what we did. We took it back to the hotel and gave it to one of the kids who worked in the lobby – they make like a penny a day. I’m sure that when he went home with a whole 36-Hong-Kong-dollars barbecued duck they all flipped.

Memories like that tie Bob and me together in a genuine friendship. It’s as genuine a friendship as any can be. There’s no pretending about anything. Although we have different tastes, we always respect that. He never demands anything of me – if I don’t want to do it, I don’t have to do it. There’s no argument, no walking off or anything like that. We don’t even have to pressure each other into saying, “Now, listen, man, if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it.” That’s simply understood.

And if I ever take Bob some place that I think is special, and it fails, we both laugh – and vice versa. I went to the ballet with him one night. Went right to sleep. And we laughed and I thanked him. I said, “Listen, I probably would have stayed up til 12:30 – if I hadn’t gone to the ballet!”

He Bears Witness to His Beliefs

From TV Guide, January 15, 1966

Robert Culp’s character is revealed by his behavior on ‘I Spy’ and off.

BY DICK HOBSON

“Some of these white cats they say, ‘Hey, man, dig this, dig that, dig the other thing.’ When they talk like that they think they’re saying: ‘See? I’m with you. I’m sympathetic to the Negro cause.’ But I just say, ‘Man, you talk that way at home?’ I’d rather have a cat that shuts up and does it than a cat with the words. That’s what I like about Bob Culp. He’s a cat that does it. I got confidence in the man.”

The speaker is Negro comedian Godfrey Cambridge, all got up in white flannels and navy-blue double –breasted yachting jacket, as he paces the deck of a luxurious yacht on Stage 6 at Desilu-Cahuenga Studio in Hollywood. He awaits the nod of Robert Culp, who is directing his first I Spy episode, “Court of the Lion.”

“A Negro’s always got to be the Good Guy on TV these times,” Cambridge says. “I am tired of being loved. Now this king of the Zulus is the first villain I’ve been allowed to play on TV. I’m doing a black Goldfinger. Bob Culp had the guts to put me in this part. So many other people in this town would say, ‘Let’s not have an argument, let’s make the Zulu an Indian.’ But Culp says, ‘Let’s do it right.’ That’s what I like about Culp.”

Sagebrush Victorian would describe the style of Robert Culp’s dressing room: leather upholstery, bar with a foot rail, roll-top desk—a hark back to his days as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman on Trackdown. Prominently hung in an oval gilt frame is a photo of Sammy Davis Jr. gripping Culp in a vigorous bear hug. The door is flung open and the minor whirlwind that is Bob Culp whips across the room, deflating into a chair, sandals flying. “First question,” he says, in the manger of a director saying, “Action.” The man is lean, athletic, brown of hair, hazel of eye, and looks rather professorial behind his horn-rim glasses.

It’s true, he had to shell out $2000 to get into the Directors Guild in order to direct this episode, for which his director’s pay is $3500. He concedes he laid out $2500 for an artist to story-board the entire script. “Rarely can a man successfully act and direct at the same time. One has to suffer and it will always be the acting.” That conviction is what motivated Culp to hire acting coach Jeff Corey to stand by and observe his performance.

“At first I found only nitwits in this business,” Culp is saying. “I became childishly hostile. I got the image ‘troublesome.’ But I got wiser. I set about to rectify my ways.”

One of those to whom he was “childishly hostile” was Vincent Fennelly, producer of Trackdown, the series Culp starred in back in 1957. Fennelly claimed Culp walked more like a Method actor than a Texas Ranger, and for a year they didn’t speak to each other. “Yeah, he thought I walked funny,” Culp says, “I invented my own kind of slouch-stroll. Fennelly’s an accountant. He wanted the same old Western hero. But he was right; I was wrong. In Omaha they couldn’t care a rat’s nose.”

*****

A thick blue pall clouds the dressing of Bill Cosby, first Negro to co-star in a network dramatic series. Cosby is stretched over an easy chair, puffing on a 9-inch cigar, sprawled under a framed photo of the co-stars dressed in tennis garb.

“I could be just a nothing. I could be crumpled and crushed if Bobby had turned out to be the kind of guy who wants everything for himself,” Cosby says. “But we made contact. We tuned each other in. Now Bobby knows me better than anybody. We’re closer than brothers.” Godfrey Cambridge sidles into the room and pours himself some coffee, picking up the drift of the conversation. Cosby continues: “We don’t have any race jokes in the scripts. Even in real life, race jokes would be embarrassing to Bobby and embarrassing to me.”

But what about Sammy Davis Jr. and the Clan? They’re integrated and they make ethnic-type jokes. “The old-timers like Sinatra do it. But the Clan has guilts and complexes. They’ve always got to talk about race. It’s very corny, unhip. We’re beyond that.

“You know how the Clan has to have a Leader and all that? No King of the Road with us. Bobby and I are equal. Another thing, we’re closer to the people. The Clan could play golf on Forest Lawn, they’ve got so much money.”

*****

Out in Woodland Hills in San Fernando Valley waits Culp’s wife, the former Nancy Wilner (or former Nancy Asch, actress-theatrically speaking), described by a close friend as “nutty, droll, and bright.” “I hate being called a ‘former’ somebody. Just say I’m the current Mrs. Culp. There was a previous Mrs. Culp, you know—Bob’s college drama coach. She was 24; he was 19. I think she was another mother to him. Shall we tour the homestead?” It’s a big, old frame house with an oversize cupola, a decidedly eccentric house among all those new-moderns in suburbia.

“This is the playroom. This is Jason’s room. This is Joshua’s room. This is Joseph’s room. This is Rachel’s room.” All but one of the offspring are pre-schoolers. One room has a jungle tree-house in one corner and bunks suspended from the ceiling on chains. “Bob did it.” Another is fitted like a ship’s cabin with bunks, ladder, and real portholes. “Bob built it. This is our kitchen. Bob laid the floor.

“We first met at an off-Broadway theater. Off-stage he was very shy, insecure, ill-at-ease. But on-stage he could do the most fantastic things. We did the Greenwhich Village scene together, the Brando thing, the motorcycles, the whole bit.”

On a peg hangs a black cowboy hat. “Gary Cooper’s. Bob wore it in a Gunsmoke.” The oversize cupola on the third floor turns out to be Culp’s study. “We call it the Lion’s Den.” Up here Culp has a 360-degree view of his two-acre wooded domain. Here is his typewriter.

“Bob’s first script was a Trackdown. He thought all the stories were adolescent drivel. So he just wanted to do one that would be his own way. But Trackdown was an unhappy period for us. It was agony for Bob to go to the studio each day. He was hanging on for dear life. I didn’t know from one day to the next whether he would come home or not. Sometimes he didn’t.”

*****

After Trackdown, Culp loudly let it be known he wanted no more of series. “Bob had a reputation as being quite tumultuous,” agent Jimmy McHugh says of him. “He’s one of those actors who has a deeply rooted desire to say something in his work. But Hollywood is not that kind of town.” Culp says: “Jimmy helped me change. He set out to make a comedy image for me and he did a beautiful job.” In two years Culp made four feature pictures, including “Sunday in New York.”

Any discussion of I Spy invariably returns to the Culp-Cosby relationship. Mark Rydell, who has directed three I Spy episodes this season, says: “Bob could easily overpower Cos simply by exercising his talent. But Bob is always helping Cos and guiding him in a way that I find quite moving.”

“Half of my energy is spent trying to translate their private communications,” says Paul Wendkos, director of eight of this year’s I Spys. “Culp and Cosby have put-ons on top of put-ons. They’re ‘hippies,’ to use one of Bob’s favorite words. They always take the off-beat way. But underneath their hip, existentialist veneer is the sense of irony just this side of bitterness- the irony of the artist in show business, the irony of racial inequality.”

“Bob is incensed by prejudice,” says Culp’s friend, director Sam Peckinpah. “He doesn’t recognize it; he doesn’t understand it. Yet he’s not trying to carry any particular banner.” Wendkos adds: “Bob’s attitude is, ‘I don’t have to crusade. I’m it.’”

According to I Spy co-producer Mort Fine: “There is a wide audience acceptance of the camaraderie between Culp and Cosby, the white man and the Negro. People want to do the right thing, white to Negro. I think it’s vicarious. They want to watch it in action.”

“Yeah,” says Godfrey Cambridge sardonically, “watching I Spy on the tube provides a relationship with a Negro with no risk.”

As for Bob Culp, he says only, “If Cos and I have any kind of mission on this show, it’s something we’ve never had to discuss.”

More Familiar Fashion with Robert Culp

Previously I posted about an ad for Ralph Lauren Purple Label suits reminding me of Culp’s pinstripe suit in the 1973 Columbo episode “Double Exposure.” (Have I mentioned I looooove a man in a three piece suit?)

Well, I found some more Culp-esque fashion.  Sasha Charnin Morrison, Fashion Director for Us Weekly, tweeted several photos of Natalie Wood last week and, in relation to that, also tweeted that “the Gucci Spring 2013 collection looks a lot like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.” I admit it does remind me of B&C&T&A with a lot of the bright colors and all (the women’s Gucci fashions more so), but I wasn’t expecting this:

Okay, the leather one is a stretch, since the Gucci model isn’t wearing matching leather pants (and why not?) and the color is different, yes. BUT! The Gucci color reminds me of this Culp suit! (Again from a Columbo episode, “The Most Crucial Game” 1972….)

And upon further investigating in the Gucci Spring 2013 collection we have this red hued suit and…well now lookit that, a polka dotted tie…

This light blue suit (middle) harkened back to I Spy (left) and even the beige/off white tie reminded me of Frank Bogg’s similar look in Hickey & Boggs (right). Apologies to Gucci though, yes, I know Boggs’ suit looks like it was run over by a car – with him in it.

The best though? This yellow jacket and white pants combination!

So what does all this Culp inspired fashion mean? Two things. One, Robert Culp was simply fashionable and two…I pay way too much attention to his clothes apparently…

What? More eBay BCTA photos?

Yes indeedy! No, not the now Holy Grail 33 negatives that I bungled on getting previously, but another set of 27 rare negatives from the SFX Archive. This is now the third such auction on Culp photo negatives from the movie “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” that I’ve seen on eBay and is the second one that I had the smarts enough to bid or buy now on. (You can read about the first set I purchased and see the photos here.)

I’m indebted Tatia on the I Spy Forum for spotting this auction and posting about it. (You know…information, Kel 🙂 )

Here’s the scan that the SFX Archive had with their auction…

Enticing right? You bet! Especially the ones of Culp in the full leather get up. And the ones in the white shirt and brown cords with the movie camera. And…oh yeah the white swim trunks and red jacket… (SOLD).

Just as before, I had the photos done in 8 x 10 prints and this time also had them put on a CD. Yeah, I’m finally getting the hang of this I think…

Here’s the rundown…

A couple of these are not clear focus which is unfortunate. #3 and #4 are my favorites. That last one…somebody’s getting an opinion or something!

Robert Culp in “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" Robert Culp in “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" Robert Culp in “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice"
Robert Culp in “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" Robert Culp in “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" Robert Culp in “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice"
 

I love these with the movie camera. My personal favorite is #2 and #5.


image host

 

Heh heh, yeeeah….and gee, they all were clear focus. What luck!


 

Leather!

 

From the dinner scene. Wonder what somebody said in the second photo to get THAT look?

I dunno about y’all but the first pic does not match any scene in the movie that I can recall. The second one is at the “retreat,” third is from the bathroom scene and the fourth is from the Vegas scene.


All in all, another fine addition to the Culp Collection. I’m still keeping my eye out for those 33, but I’m very glad to have these gems in the collection!

I Spy: Carry Me Back to Old Tsing-Tao

Originally aired: September 29, 1965

After watching So Long Patrick Henry and A Cup of Kindness on YouTube, I purchased all three seasons of I Spy off the bat. Indeed, the season DVD sets were released just weeks after I “discovered” Robert Culp and I Spy. Previous DVD sets were “theme” sets based on location or whathaveyou. My timing couldn’t have been better.

So, once I got the sets I began to watch from the beginning, meaning I watched “Patrick Henry” and “Kindness” again, since the episodes were kinda chopped on YouTube. From there I carried on with “Carry Me Back to Tsing-Tao.”

The episode opens with Kelly charming a lovely lady at a Hong Kong bar until he’s rudely interrupted by a drunken sailor. The interruption turns into an offense and the two men have to take their differences to the back alley to be settled. Turns out, the sailor is a spy like Kelly and he has information for an assignment for him.

It seems Charlie Huan aka “Papa Charlie” (Philip Ahn) wants to meet with Kelly and Scotty the following day (which is gonna put a crimp on Kelly’s plans with the lovely lady he’s been trying to woo for about a week). Kelly’s familiar with the name, as Mr.  Huan ran a lot of not-necessarily-legal stuff on the West Coast of the US. Mr. Huan also knows that Kelly and Scotty are undercover agents.

After getting the information, and being told that the sailor can’t do the meeting because he’s not “one of you cute, glamour boys” the two men realize that one of them has to come out of the alley looking like a loser.

It’s not the glamour boy. Heh…

The next day, Kelly and Scott go to see Papa Charlie, who’s in the middle of his birthday celebration with his daughters and sons-in-law. The sons-in-law, Turkey (David Sheiner), Harold (Bernard Fox) and Morton (Michael Conrad) express an abundance of love and appreciation for Papa Charlie and it’s only for one reason; Papa Charlie is very rich and the three men want his money.

Papa Charlie excuses himself from the festivities to see to Kelly and Scotty (and let me say that Culp looks very dapper in the wine colored jacket and ascot tie). He takes them out of the big house to his quarters, a smaller more modest building on the grounds. Just before getting there he asks for them to follow him single file through the grass and to be careful of  “poison ivy.”

In his quarters, he tells them his situation. He wishes to return to his native village in Formosa (AKA Taiwan) to live out the last few years of his life. However, he owes quite a bit in back taxes to the US government and as such, Formosa, by request of the US, will not grant Charlie a visa. He has discussed the issue with the US government and has agreed to pay $1 million to settle his debt. Once paid, he will be granted his visa.

Before Charlie can give them the money, Kelly and Scotty tell him they need to check with the government first and get instructions. Charlie tells them to do it quickly and warns them about his three sons-in-law how they’re after his money and if they found out what he was up to, they would be very dangerous.

Kelly and Scotty receive a cable back from the US government indicating the offer is acceptable and warns that the three men in question have criminal records. They should use “extreme caution.” Scotty’s not so bothered by extreme caution. He’s wondering where Charlie has all that money hidden!

When Kelly and Scott get back to their hotel room they’re jumped by Turkey, Harold and Mort. (I still can’t get over the fact that one of these guys is named Turkey!). The boys are roughed up a bit and when Kelly wakes up he’s staring straight into the barrel of Harold’s gun. The three men want to know why the two went to see Papa Charlie.

They don’t like Kelly’s first answer about a shark fin and a recipe for soup. Turkey slaps Kelly for that. Scotty tells them he only came along to listen to some old Fats Waller records. He gets a punch from Turkey for that.

Finally they come out and say they were talking a deal for something and were “dickering over a price.” Kelly tosses the explanation to Scotty who, not missing a beat, starts in about that they were con men and had found a piece of land to use in a deal and had asked Charlie if he would finance it for them. (I love the change in Culp’s expression as Scotty’s spinning his yarn. Heh!) Scotty and Kelly also say that Charlie agreed and that they saw his bank book.

Harold tells them that Charlie doesn’t have a bank account in any Hong Kong bank (they’d checked). Before Scotty and Kelly can get roughed up any further, one of Charlie’s daughters – Catherine – suddenly comes into the room and slaps Turkey. Scotty tells her to do it again. She does. She then tosses the three men out of the room.

Kelly and Scott are more than grateful. Kelly even tries to charm Catherine but doesn’t get far. When he tells her that he hurts pretty much all over, she has just the remedy for him: Chicken soup. (Not what he had in mind!)

When Catherine takes them to see Charlie, they find out why they have to walk single file through the grass. The whole area has been mined with anti-personnel mines.

They tell Charlie that the government accepts the deal. He then reveals to them his $1 million…a solid gold stove. They load the stove into an old truck and off they go to deliver it to the IRS.

I love the conversation Kelly and Scott have as they drive, talking about a few pounds of the stove for themselves (gold going for about $60 an ounce, black market. Gold prices at the time of this post is around $1600 per ounce. “A couple of one way tickets to Tahiti would hardly put a dent in it!”). Of course, they don’t do this knowing that if they did, they would lose their jobs and probably any sense of self-respect. (And medical benefits – who doesn’t love plaster of paris?)

It’s not long before Turkey, Harold and Mort catch up to Kelly and Scott and run them off the road. Both are thrown from the truck and a little worse for wear. While out cold, Turkey, Harold and Morton load up the stove into their car. (Okay, Turkey drags the stove, Harold gives commands and Mort stands over unconcious Kelly and Scotty with a gun.)  The boys come to just before the three take off and try to fight them to no avail. Kelly ends up with his already cut face planted in the dirt.

I loved Kellys line to Scotty as Scotty’s picking him up off the ground. “You look terrible.” To which Scotty replies with a bit of chuckle, “Sorry about that.”

Turkey, Harold and Mort take the stove into town to have it looked at and determine a value for the gold. Only to find out that the stove isn’t gold at all. It’s cast iron with gold leaf paint… (and if you think they weren’t happy…)

Papa Charlie, meantime, with his visa to Formosa, packs up his meager belongings for his trip. Catherine, however, has discovered that the stove was a farce too. He tells her that there is no gold, that he did not have the money all along.

Back at the hotel, Scotty helps tape up Kelly’s ribs. (Yes, folks we’re on the 3rd episode of the series and 30 minutes into it and Culp has his shirt off!). He notices a scar on Kelly’s shoulder and Kelly tells about how he got it (the short version, he was bit by a dog). They then get a message that a stove can be bought at a shop in town.

They figure it’s a trap but they go to check it out anyway. At the shop, they speak to the proprietor about the stove and they find out about it not being gold at all. They realize they’ve been had by Papa Charlie. They figure the note came from Turkey, Harold and Mort and they go to the back alley of the store to find “The Rover Boys” waiting for them. Kelly and Scott get their just deserts and clean the alley with all three men.

Back at their hotel room, they try to track down Papa Charlie, only to find out he has already passed through immigration and into Formosa.

“Into each life, some goofs must fall,” Scotty philosophies.

“Yeah, but so many in ours?” Kelly replies.

They ponder how they can find Charlie on Formosa and then realize they could probably get their answer from Catherine.

They tell her that they realize they were used in order for Charlie to get his sons-in-law off his back. But they warn her that once the three men figure out where Charlie went, they would go looking for him and they would kill him for his money. She tells Kelly and Scott that there is no money, no gold, nothing. They would believe her, if she’ll tell them where in Formosa Charlie is.

They promise that if she tells them, they can have the three men sent back to the US and denied any passports or visas, which would prevent them from leaving the US and finding Charlie. Catherine, however, wants a different kind of assurance and gurantee. She suddenly runs out of her father’s quarters, yelling for Turkey, Harold and Mort, who come running and set off one of the land mines. The explosion kills Turkey. Kelly yells for Harold and Mort to stay put, otherwise, they’d be killed too. And he knows that once she was through with them, she’d find something for Kelly and Scott too.

So Kelly counters with a threat of his own. He’d turn Catherine over to Harold and Mort. Catherine chooses her sides more carefully.

Kelly, Scott and Catherine fly to Formosa and ask around for where to find Charlie. What they learn is very surprising. Papa Charlie is conducting business as usual. The meager housewares Catherine had helped him pack up, were actually made out of platinum and he is trading these pieces for diamonds and jewels and other mediums of exchange. Kelly quietly interrupts Charlie’s business day, tells him to send everyone home and then asks him to count out $1 million in the platinum pieces.

Charlie does so but says he will be left penniless now. Kelly doesn’t buy it. Kelly also doesn’t have very good luck charming any of the Asian women in this episode. Catherine pretty much ignored him as does one of Charlie’s assistants, who simply walks away from Kelly when he says hello.

Later an IRS agent shows up at the boys hotel room because the payment was short. Four ounces short as a matter of fact. (Interesting to note that platinum in 1965 was $140 an ounce. At the time of this post, it’s around $1400 an ounce.). Kelly and Scott knew the man would be coming and as he’s telling them about the shortage, Kelly is polishing off a platinum fork. They then show him the fork, along with a matching fork, and the box that they were going to ship the forks back to the IRS with. The agent doesn’t understand until Kelly explains that they have a friend who boasted once about eating fettuccine with a golden spoon. Now they can say they ate Chinese with platinum forks.

The IRS agent thinks about this for a moment and then asks to pass the moo goo gai pan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I first saw this episode, I thought “Huh…this looks familiar…”

I know the rib wrap would show up in another TGAH ep later (“Lilacs, Mr. Maxwell”) and subsequent I Spy eps, but the bandaid on the face, on the same side no less, was a hoot.

And even this felt familiar!

That’s what I get for watching these shows back and forth.

Anyway, “Carry Me Back…” was a fun episode. Where “Patrick Henry” was fairly serious, “Kindness” mixed serious with humor, “Carry Me Back…” also had a good mix of serious and humor but was pretty much an adventure in mishaps. I thought the plot stretched things just a tad (how would Charlie have ever, ever, known that Kelly was a undercover agent??) and was constructed purposely so that Kelly and Scotty’s mishaps would take place (seriously, wouldn ‘t the US government have waited for the back tax money to be delivered in hand to the IRS before issuing the visa? We’re talking a million bucks here!). Nonetheless, the episode offered some great banter and some classic lines.

Kelly and Scotty’s adversaries included…

– Bernard Fox, who was seen several times on the sitcom Bewitched as Dr. Bombay, played it straight here but would show up later on Hogan’s Heroes as the memorable, hapless and bombastic Colonel Crittenden.

 

 

 

– Michael Conrad, a frequent face seen on television through the 60s and 70s and best known as Sgt Phil Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues in the early 80s.

 

 

 

 

– David Sheiner, another frequent face on television during the 60s and through the 80s, doing multiple guest spots on shows such as The Man from UNCLE, Mission Impossible, and The Fugitive. He also was one of Oscar’s poker buddies in the 1968 movie The Odd Couple. He may have been hard to recognize here as he either shaved his head or wore a skull cap for the role.

 

 

– Philip Ahn, sly old fox “Papa Charlie,” was born in the US of Korean descent. A veteran character actor playing various Asian characters in film and television he had a long career spanning from the 1930s until his death in 1978. He is probably most known for his role as Master Kan in the David Carradine tv series Kung Fu.

 

Conrad, Sheiner and Ahn would each return for a second time on other I Spy episodes.

Also of note is George Murdock, the drunken sailor at the beginning of the episode who gives Kelly the assignment. Another veteran character actor who made a career out of playing judges, cops and bad guys, he appeared on numerous television shows and in films, incuding frequent guest appearances on shows such as Banacek, Ironside, Barney Miller, and Battlestar Gallatica.

Kelly and Scotty’s discussion about the gold stove and taking a piece or two for themselves is listed in the Memorable Quotes section for I Spy on the IMDB.

And one final programming note…it’s a good thing this episode of I Spy didn’t air on Monday, October 4th, 1965 because it never would have been seen. NBC dropped all of it’s regular daytime and nighttime programming to allow wall-to-wall coverage of Pope Paul VI’s visit to the US (the first such visit to the US by a Pope). ABC and CBS also provided wall-to-wall coverage but with a few exceptions here and there. ABC was in the particularly sticky situation of having to choose between coverage of the papal visit and airing the National League baseball pennant game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants (if it was so needed…and good Lord man, life does have it’s priorities!).  Fortunately, the Dodgers saved them from such a decision by clinching the pennant over the weekend.

The first season of I Spy, of course, is available at Amazon.com.