One of the stars of the old spy show, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and more recently, a cast member of NCIS, David McCallum, has died at the age of 90.
Many will also remember McCallum as the subject of an evolutionary experiment that goes horribly wrong in the "The Sixth Finger", one of the best episodes of the old Outer Limits television series.
Gregory over at The mind is an unexplored country has put together a little spoof video of a scene from The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
RIP, David McCallum.
ReplyDeleteI was a member of the Man from Uncle Fan Club. I got all kinds of neat stuff from them. It was so neat that I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was neat stuff.
But, I do remember "The Sixth Finger". The unanswered question I always had was: Why a sixth finger? What will we need it for in the future? And what will happen to the current 'middle finger salute'?
I never saw that particular Outer Limits episode but I remember McCallum from The Man From Uncle and of course NCIS. I had a crush on him in my (and his) younger days, but Ducky from NCIS was my favorite character because of that dry Scottish wit and his tendency to have conversations with the dead. RIP, sir, you'll be missed.
ReplyDeleteR-man: Sounds pretty cool. As a little fellow, I was a member of the Huckleberry Hound fan club, and the Ranger Rick club (Ranger Rick is a raccoon character that serves as the mascot of the National Wildlife Federation). I had a Ranger Rick book which was hollowed out in the middle to hold a plastic or rubber figure of Ranger Rick. There was a small crank on the bottom of the book you could turn to make Rick wave. Wish I still had it; probably worth some money, now.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm not sure what the sixth finger would have been for. Strangely, The Outer Limits overlooked the dilemma of the absence of a middle finger.
Rebecca: Somehow, I have managed to miss that program completely (although I am aware of it). I'll have to give it a try, sometime.
'Ilya Kuryakin' - I didn't look that up but I remember it from the 1960s.
ReplyDeletePaco, if you catch the 'procedural' TV crime bug NCIS is pretty good for feeding the habit. In the lockdown years I got hooked on 'Bull' with Micheal Weatherly and he's also a star in NCIS. love him or hate him. I read that Pauley Perette was scared of Mark Hamon's actual pet dog which he brought to the NCIS studio, but despite her claims they have a special kind of father-daughter chemistry in the show. I like Sean Murray's character too.
McCallum will be missed, but he sure had a good career.
Oh, and in early seasons of NCIS their boss was the New Zealand actor Alan Dale who is an adopted Australian like many from NZ (and boy do they hate it!), and I'm glad they got rid of him as I can't take him seriously.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about NCIS is they're kind of underdogs in the hierarchy, which makes for more interesting drama.
I'm a fan of David McCallum from the days of Man From U.N.C.L.E, so much so that I had a black turtleneck sweater, a brief case, a Ilya Kuryakin action figure, and fantasies of being a spy. My Mom was against the sweater because young ladies didn't wear such things, but I prevailed. I watched whatever Mr. McCallum was in. He is missed. Thankfully we have his rich legacy.
ReplyDeleteDeborah - there's a moment from Laugh-In that I realised years later might be a reference to The Man From UNCLE. Henry Gibson as The Preacher says 'I was wearing turtlnecks before they were fashionable.'
ReplyDeleteIf I remember my trivia history correctly, UNCLE was booted from the schedule and was replaced by Laugh-In.
Thanks for the link, Paco. There's more Kuryakin fans still around than I realised!
Beatniks wore turtle-necks, like Rod McKuen who wore one a lot:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/For0Bg-Hd4w
Yes Deborah, nice young ladies did not associate with Beatniks. Aah the brief-case, thanks for reminding us. We played M f Uncle as kids and fought over who'd be Napoleon Solo or Kuryakin.