1967
Wednesday, Jan. 18, 1967
“The Venetian Affair,” MGM picture starring Robert Vaughn and Elke
Sommer, opens. Vaughn, working between U.N.C.L.E. seasons, plays
against type as a seedy former CIA agent investigating the bombing
of a Venice peace conference that may involve ex-wife Sommer.
Good cast in a so-so film, including Boris Karloff, Felicia Farr,
Roger C. Carmel, Luciana Paluzzi and Ed Asner.
Thursday, Jan. 19, 1967
Last episode of Jericho airs on CBS.
Thursday, Jan. 19, 1967
“The Spy in the Green Hat,” fifth U.N.C.L.E. feature, opens in London.
Created from “The Concrete Overcoat Affair,” broadcast Nov. 25 and
Dec. 2, 1966, on NBC.
Friday, Jan. 20, 1967
The Avengers returns — now in color — at 10 p.m. on ABC. Number of weekly spy series is down to seven: I Spy, Get Smart and two U.N.C.L.E.s on NBC; Wild Wild West and Mission: Impossible on CBS; and The Avengers on ABC.
Wednesday, Feb. 1, 1967
“Three Bites of the Apple,” MGM picture starring David McCallum, opens. Shot in Italy during hiatus between U.N.C.L.E.’s second and third seasons, at the same time Vaughn was in Italy shooting “The Venetian Affair.” McCallum plays a mild-mannered tour guide whose life is turned upside down after he wins a small fortune at an Italian casino. Tammy Grimes, Sylva Koscina and Harvey Korman co-star.
Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1967
The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. episode “The Fountain of Youth Affair” airs on NBC, containing the first James Bond reference in any U.N.C.L.E. episode: the title of Act IV is “Secret Aging 0070.”
Wednesday, Feb. 8, 1967
Jill Ireland is granted a divorce from David McCallum in Santa Monica Superior Court after testifying that they have been separated since June 15, 1965, and that McCallum inflicted such mental cruelty upon her that she broke out in a rash.
Tuesday, Feb. 14, 1967
The single worst production associated with U.N.C.L.E. in any way appears when NBC broadcasts “The Carpathian Caper Affair,” the most dumbfoundingly idiotic of many idiotic episodes of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. Fans rend their garments and weep in despair.
Friday, Feb. 17, 1967
Shooting starts on “The Five Daughters Affair,” two-parter slated to become the sixth feature film under the title “The Karate Killers.” Jill Ireland is cast at the last minute as one of the five daughters after the actress originally signed, buxom Hammer Films heroine Yvonne Romain, is unable to take the job.
Saturday, Feb. 18, 1967
Stefanie Powers does a walk-on as April Dancer in the “Remember Lake Serene?” episode of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.
Sunday, Feb. 19, 1967
Noel Harrison returns to The Andy Williams Show. Phyllis Diller and Burl Ives are the other guests.
Thursday, Feb. 23, 1967
The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. ends production when shooting finishes on “The Kooky Spook Affair.”
March 1967
NBC firms up 1967-68 schedule that confirms cancellation for The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. and still another change in timeslot for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. — back to Monday nights at 8 where the show originally soared to success and where many at the network thought it should have stayed. CBS announces a fall schedule that includes the surprising cancellation of Gunsmoke after a 12-year run.
March 1967
Seeking a desperately needed change in direction for the series’ fourth season, Felton and Victor let Boris Ingster go and hire Anthony Spinner as the fifth producer of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (or technically the sixth, since associate producer and story editor Irv Pearlberg produced two episodes in February 1967 when Ingster was ill — or maybe even the seventh since Felton produced the pilot).
Sunday, March 12, 1967
A fire on MGM’s Lot 2 destroys many longstanding sets and severely damages the New York street that includes Del Floria’s Tailor Shop, making it impossible to shoot new exteriors of Del Floria’s during U.N.C.L.E.’s fourth season.
Friday, March 17, 1967
Third season of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. ends production when shooting wraps on “The Cap and Gown Affair.”
Tuesday, March 21, 1967
NBC airs The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. episode “The Double-0-Nothing Affair,” whose title is the most overt Bond reference in any U.N.C.L.E. episode.
Saturday, March 25, 1967
Noel Harrison and Sally Field co-host the second annual Miss Teen International Pageant on ABC.
April 1967
CBS confirms that Gunsmoke will be renewed after all due to “popular demand,” much of it coming from CBS Chairman William S. Paley. Since Gunsmoke’s traditional Saturday-night spot has been filled with a new detective series titled Mannix, network programmers work Gunsmoke into the Monday night schedule at 7:30.
Tuesday, April 4, 1967
In tonight’s episode of The Fugitive, ”The Walls of Night,” Dr. Richard Kimble is clearly seen walking past Del Floria’s Tailor Shop in the show’s tag scene, obviously shot on the MGM lot before the March 12 fire. (Even funnier to contemplate is how Kimble got to a street in the East Forties in the tag when he had just escaped from the police in Portland, Oregon, at the end of act four.)
Tuesday, April 18, 1967
Family vampire Barnabas Collins appears for the first time on Dark Shadows. The show’s move from Gothic romance to overtly supernatural storylines and especially the introduction of Barnabas as a reluctant, angst-ridden vampire, soon transform the low-rated serial into the third 1960s TV pop-culture phenomenon embraced by the viewing public and more permanently by fandom. U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek fans are quick to note the characteristics and viewer appeal shared by Illya Kuryakin, Mr. Spock and Barnabas.
Friday, April 28, 1967
“Casino Royale,” movie allegedly based on the first James Bond novel, opens in the United States. Producer Charles K. Feldman bought rights from Gregory Ratoff’s estate and, after rebuff from Saltzman and Broccoli on co-production proposal, set out to make the ultimate superspy spoof. Universally derided result, product of five directors and uncounted writers, is a witless debacle on all fronts. Some fans believe the blond extra standing at the bar with George Raft in the free-for-all finale is meant to resemble Illya Kuryakin.
Tuesday, May 9, 1967
Gerald Fried records his score for “The Karate Killers.”
June 1967 / circa
Tom and Jerry cartoon “The Mouse From H.U.N.G.E.R.” is released to movie theaters. One of the last half-dozen cartoons made before MGM permanently shuttered its animation studio has secret agent Jerry Akin pursuing evil Tom Thrush.
June 1967
David Victor leaves Arena Productions to produce Dundee and the Culhane, new CBS western series created by Sam Rolfe.
Friday, June 2, 1967
“Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond,” a special plugging the release of “You Only Live Twice,” airs on NBC at 8:30, pre-empting The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Sunday, June 4, 1967
The 19th annual Emmy Awards are presented. For the period covering its third season, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. receives only one nomination, for Leo G. Carroll as supporting actor in a drama. He loses to Eli Wallach for “The Poppy Is Also a Flower,” the Ian Fleming-inspired United Nations special about international drug smuggling.
Wednesday, June 7, 1967
Fourth season starts shooting with “The Deadly Quest Affair.” Scenes set in a supposedly condemned and abandoned area of Manhattan make some practical use of portions of the back lot destroyed by the March fire.
Sunday, June 11, 1967
Noel Harrison appears on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Tom and Dick rib him about The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. being canceled as the three of them sing the Johnny Cash song, “The One on the Right Is on the Left.”
Tuesday, June 13, 1967
“You Only Live Twice,” fifth official entry in the Bond series, opens in New York. In a slap at “Casino Royale,” ads proclaim “Sean Connery IS James Bond” but film has little else to offer, dumping Fleming’s story for a bloated spectacle of fantastical sets and gadgets. Lurching screenplay — essentially a plodding, big-budget remake of “Dr. No” completely lacking the ineffable Fleming touch — also marks the first appearance of the tiresome “only 007 can save the entire world” plot.
Saturday, July 8, 1967
Robert Vaughn appears on William F. Buckley’s syndicated public affairs program Firing Line to debate the Vietnam War with Buckley.
Friday, July 28, 1967
Gerald Fried records his new arrangement of Goldsmith’s theme for use in the show’s fourth season. This radically different version of the theme is rejected, as is Fried’s score for “The Deadly Quest Affair” recorded at the same session.
August 1967
Gold Key publishes fifth and final issue of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. comic book (dated October 1967).
Thursday, Aug. 3, 1967
“The Karate Killers,” the sixth — and certainly the most blatantly comic and inept — U.N.C.L.E. feature opens in London. Made from “The Five Daughters Affair,” seen March 31 and April 7, 1967, on NBC.
Wednesday, Aug. 9, 1967
Shooting starts on “The Prince of Darkness Affair,” two-parter slated to become the seventh feature film.
Monday, Aug. 14, 1967
Richard Shores records his first Man From U.N.C.L.E. score for “The ‘J’ for Judas Affair.”
Tuesday, Aug. 22, 1967
MGM Music Director Robert Armbruster records his new arrangement of Goldsmith’s U.N.C.L.E. theme for the show’s fourth season.
Tuesday, Aug. 29, 1967
Last episode of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. airs on NBC.
Thursday, Aug. 31, 1967
Robert Armbruster re-records the best of Jerry Goldsmith’s first-season music to replace Fried’s rejected score in “The Deadly Quest Affair” and to use in tracking other fourth-season episodes.
September 1967
A clear sign the spy craze has passed its peak: For the first time since 1962 there are no new spy shows on the networks’ fall schedules.
Friday, Sept. 8, 1967
On the eve of the new season, NBC airs a night of busted pilots that includes Arena’s “The Ghostbreaker.”
Saturday, Sept. 9, 1967
Comedy special “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” airs on NBC from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. as lead-in to the Miss America Pageant.
Monday, Sept. 11, 1967
“The Summit-Five Affair” is the fourth season premiere of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., now back at 8 p.m. Mondays.
Saturday, Sept. 16, 1967
McCallum marries Katherine Carpenter, one of the models he and Vaughn met on a photo shoot that appeared in the June 1965 issue of Glamour. Honeymoon that immediately follows requires that Illya be written out of “The Man From Thrush Affair,” shot Sept. 18 through Sept. 25.
Thursday, Sept. 28, 1967
Shooting starts on “The Survival School Affair,” the only episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that Robert Vaughn does not appear in. McCallum returns from his honeymoon in time to take the lead in this one while Vaughn takes a week off to meet requirements of his doctoral studies at the University of Southern California.
October 1967
Nielsen ratings for new season show an astonishing resurgence in popularity for Gunsmoke in its new timeslot. Gunsmoke and other CBS Monday night shows dominate the top 20 and decimate opposition on NBC, including I Spy, The Monkees and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
October 1967
Leo Margulies publishes seventh and last issue of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. Magazine (dated December 1967).
Monday, Oct. 9, 1967
Felton informs Tony Spinner that Noel Harrison would like to do a guest shot as Mark Slate.
Monday, Oct. 16, 1967
Shooting starts on “The Seven Wonders of the World Affair,” two-parter hurriedly put into production to become the eighth feature film.
Wednesday, Nov. 1, 1967
Cut-off date for NBC to pick up the series for remainder of the season. Network asks for extension on decision date.
Wednesday, Nov. 8, 1967
Production ends when shooting wraps on “The Seven Wonders of the World Affair.”
Tuesday, Nov. 14, 1967
NBC informs Felton and MGM executives that the series will not receive a pickup order. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is canceled.
Wednesday, Nov. 15, 1967
Trade papers report NBC has canceled U.N.C.L.E. and will replace it in January with Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.
December 1967
Leo Margulies publishes 24th and last issue of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Magazine (dated January 1968).
Wednesday, Dec. 27, 1967
Richard Shores records his score for “The Seven Wonders of the World Affair,” Part II, the last U.N.C.L.E. score composed and recorded.
