The Night of the Night of the Affair Affair

By 1964, James Bond was a big, big deal at the movies. Dr. No had begat From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger was on the way.

American MOVIES weren't quite able to give us an American Bond -- Dean Martin as Matt Helm and James Coburn, somewhat better as Derek Flint -- were really spoofs at heart.

But American television got with the program and fast.

By the 1964-1965 TV season, NBC-TV debuted The Man From UNCLE, which while initially centered on one Bond-like agent (Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo...the name of a minor villain in Goldfinger) eventually became a spy buddy caper (Blond haired Brit David McCallum became one of many "Fifth Beatles" as friendly Russian Illya Kuryakin.)

By the 1965-1966 season the next year, CBS got into the act with a twist -- they put James Bond in the old 1880s West , called him James West(pretty direct copying, I'd say) and called it The Wild Wild West. Whereas Vaughn and McCallum were rather evenly matched heartthrobs(one skewing a little older for ladies, the other a little younger for girls), The Wild Wild West went a different route -- Robert Conrad as James West was more of a violent macho muscleman as the main spy, and Ross Martin became more of the "cerebral older sidekick" -- he could not match Conrad in looks but he could fight some and got pretty girls too. The Wild Wild West posited a fantasy that could match the jocks with the brains among boys and their friends. It was a friendly fantasy for boys of both brawn and brains.

The Man From UNCLE went a season earlier than The Wild Wild West, and established two gimmicks:

ONE: The title of each episode was "The SOMETHING Affair," to wit:

The Vulcan Affair
The Shark Affair
The Deadly Games Affair
The See Paris and Die Affair

...and, for an episode with Eddie Albert as a spy posing as evangelist Brother Love -- "The Love Affair."

A year later, not to be outdone, The Wild Wild West creators settled on their own episode title gimmick: "Night of the SOMETHING."

The Night of the Inferno
The Night of the Deadly Bed
The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth

If both series copycatted James Bond, the second one through the door(Wild, Wild West) rather copied the first (The Man From UNCLE) with its idea of a special kind of title motif.

But that wasn't all.

The Man From UNCLE (first) tended to fade out to each commercial on "blur" and then to fade in on the next scene after commercial with both a freeze frame and a few words from the script of the episode (ie "How do you propose to get out of this one?")

The Wild Wild West went for something more flashy. At the fade out to each commercial the last image of the scene would "freeze frame"(often a villain smiling) and the image would occupy one of four quarters of the credit screen. The final freeze frame of the episode was often -- but not always -- James West's private train chugging away from the foreground (a shot inspired, interestingly enough, by the final shot of John Ford's 1962 Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

The end credits of Season One of The Man From UNCLE brought back freeze framed "highlight shots" from the episode before, but from Season Two on...they just went for a stills of Solo and Illya and their boss(owlish old Leo G. Carroll) and hot chicks from the breasts down.

The end credits of all seasons of The Wild Wild West reviewed the "four freeze frames" of each story, but that presentation changed over time: the first year was in black and white, the second year assigned a bright color to each frame (blue, yellow, red green) , but over time the budget required a fairly simple color drawing of each frame.

Still, BOTH series put a great credits theme over those end credits (four different versions for the four different seasons o The Man From UNCLE) and provided us young fans with exciting weekly memories for years to come...all done, after all, pretty much on minimal budgets on minimal soundstages (our young imaginations filled in the rest.)

Trends die. The spy trend died on TV(while Bond struggled on for awhile and came back at the movies) The Man From UNCLE , which started a season earlier than The Wild Wild West, ended a season earlier(mid-year yet, to be replaced by Laugh-In yet.) UNCLE was gone by 1968. The Wild Wild West, as if on schedule , by 1969. Spy shows died out, and in the 70's the Cop was King (Kojak, Columbo, The Streets of San Francisco, Starsky and Hutch, Police Story) along with the occasional private eye(Rockford, Harry O, elderly Banraby Jones and Corpulent Cannon.)

Times change, but The Man From UNCLE and The Wild Wild West are fabulous markers of a more fanciful and fun time for weekly action series.

PS. One more parallel: Season One of The Man From UNCLE was in black and white; the final three in color. Even with a "one year later" start, Season One of The Wild Wild West was in black and white, the final three in color. "A matched pair."