Mission: Impossible
This article is about the American television series which aired from 1966 to 1973, as well as the revival series that aired during the late 1980s.For the movies of the same name, see Mission: Impossible (film).For the games based on the franchise, see Mission: Impossible (video game).Mission: Impossible was an
American television series which aired on the
CBS network from September
1966 to September
1973. It returned to television for three seasons from
1988 to
1990.
The series was written, created, and produced by
Bruce Geller. It featured stories about the
Impossible Mission Force (IMF), a team of secret agents employed by the
United States government. The team is sent on covert missions to fight
dictators, evil organizations, and crime lords.
Although a
Cold War element was present throughout the series, the actual "Cold War" between the United States and the
Soviet Union was not directly mentioned over the course of the series. However, in the early years many of the targets appeared to be the leaders of
Slavic or
Baltic countries; major named enemy countries included the "European People's Republic" and the "Eastern European Republic". Additionally, fictitious, Slavic-seeming languages were used;
police vehicles were often labelled as such with words such as "polǐiçia"; and "pőĮįia". Uniforms of the target regime frequently included peaked caps,
jackboots, and
Sam Browne belts, hinting at connections with
Nazi Germany or the
Warsaw Pact.
The IMF was also assigned to bring down corrupt politicians and dictators of
Third World countries unrelated to the Cold War, such as a particularly brutal practitioner of
apartheid or corrupt
Central or
South American nations, as well as organized crime figures, corrupt businessmen and politicians in the U.S.
It followed the adventures of Dan Briggs (Season 1) and
Jim Phelps (Seasons 2-7) and the team of agents they led on various missions. Each episode of the series began with the team leader receiving a secret, pre-recorded message containing his mission. These recordings were always placed in an inconspicuous, secret place. Each message would then
self-destruct, usually by
spontaneous combustion, in order to leave no evidence of the mission. However, in some cases the team leader was asked to destroy the tape himself in "the usual manner".
During the original 1966-1973 run, Briggs/Phelps would receive orders on everything from phonograph records to slide-tape projectors. The
1980s revival series used miniature compact discs almost exclusively. There were a handful of exceptions to the "message from the Secretary" - in a couple of cases the mission was already underway and something went wrong; in others it was a personal matter where a teammember asked his colleagues for unofficial assistance.
Peter Graves, (who played the role of Jim Phelps) once said the entire season's worth of "tape scenes" were usually filmed all at once prior to production of the rest of the episodes, and that he never knew which tape scene would appear with which episode until broadcast. The show was in color, but when the Mission:Impossible team would convene for their briefing at the beginning of the mission, the set and the costumes - everything in frame - would be black or white (or varying shades of gray). It was sometimes referred to off-camera as the black and white room.
In the first few seasons, Briggs or Phelps would then choose his teammates for the mission from a group of candidates' photographs and bios. In addition to the regular cast members, the early episodes frequently included guest stars playing other IMF agents. However, these scenes were eventually dropped after the show trimmed down the
casting of each episode, and it became apparent that Phelps kept on picking the same people.
Certain team members were masters of disguise and were able to replace a member of the target's staff, sometimes even the target himself, by donning an elaborate latex mask and makeup.
*Mission: Impossible,
Golden Globe award, best show, 1968
*Barbara Bain,
Emmy Award, best actress, 1967
*Barbara Bain, Emmy Award, best actress, 1968
*Barbara Bain, Emmy Award, best actress, 1969
*Bruce Geller, Emmy Award, best writer, best producer, 1967
*Peter Graves, Golden Globe award, best actor, 1971
*Martin Landau, Golden Globe award, best actor, 1968
A key inspiration for Geller in creating the series was the 1964
Jules Dassin film
Topkapi (film), innovative for its coolly
existential depiction of an elaborate heist. Geller switched the story away from the criminals of Topkapi to the "good guys" of the IMF, but kept Dassin's style of minimal dialogue, prominent music scoring and clockwork-precision plots executed by a team of diverse specialists.
Mission: Impossible is still recognized for its innovative use of music. Composer
Lalo Schifrin wrote several distinctive pieces for the series. The main
title sequence provided previews of key scenes from the episode (this in itself was a first for U.S. television), with the cuts timed to the beats and measures of the
theme tune, while an animated burning fuse moved across the screen. Most episodes included fairly long dialog-free sequences showing the team members"particularly electronics expert Barney Collier"making technical preparations for the mission, to the accompaniment of another easily"recognizable tune called "The Plot." Lalo Schifrin also wrote a theme piece for each main character and the sound track for each episode incorporated variations of these throughout. The series had great impact on film and TV music. Before
Mission: Impossible, a common compliment for film and TV music was "it worked very well but never got in the way or called attention to itself."
Mission: Impossible was largely responsible for changing that.
Mission: Impossible is the longest-running espionage television series ever produced for U.S. television.
Reruns of the episodes are still shown daily on some TV stations.
Paramount Pictures announced in 2004 that it planned to release the TV series on DVD in North America in conjunction with the release of the third feature film, but this was ultimately delayed. An announcement from Paramount stated that first season would be released on September 12, 2006. However, once again, the DVD release has been delayed until later this year. [
1]
In
1980, media reports indicated that a reunion of the original cast was in the planning stages, for a project to be called
Mission: Impossible '81. Ultimately this project was delayed into
1982 and
1983 (with the working title suitably updated) before being cancelled altogether.
In
1988, the American fall television season was negatively affected by a writers' strike that prevented the commissioning of new scripts. Producers, anxious to provide new product for viewers but with the prospect of a lengthy strike, went into the vaults for previously written material.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, for example, used scripts written for an aborted
Star Trek series proposed for the
1970s. The
ABC network decided to launch a new
Mission: Impossible series, with a mostly new cast (except for Peter Graves who would return as Phelps), but using scripts from the original series, suitably updated. To save even more on production costs, the series was filmed in
Australia; the first series in
Queensland, and the second series of episodes in
Melbourne. Costs were, at that time, some 20 percent lower in Australia compared with
Hollywood. The new
Mission: Impossible was one of the first American commercial network programs to be filmed in Australia.
The new series was not a hit, but it was produced cheaply enough to keep it on the ABC schedule where it could be thrown against the popular "Cosby" show as a sacrificial lamb. The new "M:I" ultimately lasted for two years; the writers' strike was resolved quickly enough that only a few episodes were actual remakes. Many believe the new series was one of the better remakes, for most part staying true to the original ideas of the series (in stark contrast to the Tom Cruise movies) and being a continuation as much as it was a remake.
In one episode of the original series, one mistake caused Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain) to be exposed and captured by the villains, and Jim Phelps prepared a plan to rescue her. Another episode had Willie caught by the 'bad guys' at the beginning and the episode revolved around how to rescue him. But in most episodes, his schemes worked to perfection. This formula was largely repeated in the second
Mission: Impossible series of the 1980s, though the writers took some liberties and tried to stretch the rules somewhat. One episode of the later series featured the only occasion in which a regular IMF agent was killed on a mission and subsequently disavowed. The 1980s series also had IMF agents using technology that nearly pushed the series into the realm of
science fiction, such as one gadget that could record dreams.
The revived series included special appearances by several 1960s–70s IMF veterans, including an appearance by
Greg Morris as Barney; Morris' son,
Phil Morris, played Barney's son in the new series.
[[Image:Mission-Impossible-book.jpg|thumb|right|250px{{Peter Lupus}}, {{Barbara Bain}}, {{Peter Graves (actor)|Peter Graves}}, {{Martin Landau}} and {{Greg Morris}}
Mission: Impossible Dossier (book cover}]]
In alphabetical order:*
Barbara Anderson as Mimi Davis (Season 7)
*
Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter (Seasons 1–3)
*
Sam Elliott as Dr. Doug Robert a.k.a. Lang (Season 5)
*
Lynda Day George as Casey (Seasons 6–7)
*
Peter Graves as Team Leader Jim Phelps (Seasons 2–7)
*
Steven Hill as Team Leader Dan Briggs (Season 1)
*
Bob Johnson as the Voice on Tape (uncredited, voice only)
*
Martin Landau as Rollin Hand (Seasons 1–3)
*
Peter Lupus as Willy Armitage
*
Greg Morris as Barney Collier
*
Leonard Nimoy as the Amazing Paris (Seasons 4–5)
*
Lesley Ann Warren as Dana Lambert (Season 5)
Note: The cast changed considerably throughout the program's seven-year run, so not all of the characters listed above appeared at the same time, and even regular cast members did not always appear in every episode, depending upon the mission. The most enduring cast members were Morris and Lupus who appeared in all seasons, while Graves appeared in all but the first season.
Notable guest stars
*
Edward Asner as George Simpson (1 episode)
*
Carl Betz as General Yuri Kozani (1 episode, Season 4) and Dutch Krebbs (1 episode, Season 7)
*
Eric Braeden as Andrei Fetyakov (1 episode, Season 1) and Colonel Markus von Frank (1 episode, Season 2), both credited as "Hans Gudegast"
*
Lloyd Bridges as Anastas Poltroni alias Ted Carson (1 episode)
*
Joseph Campanella as Dr. Helmut Cherlotov (1 episode, Season 1) and Captain Miklos Cherno (1 episode, Season 2)
*
Joan Collins as Nicole Vedette (1 episode)
*
Wally Cox as Terry Targo (
pilot)
*
Bradford Dillman as Paul Shipherd (1 episode, Season 2) and Larry Edison (1 episode, Season 6)
*
Anne Francis as Gillian Colbee (1 episode)
*
Don Francks as Nicholas Groat (1 episode, Season 2) and Major Alex Denesch (1 episode, Season 4)
*
Vincent Gardenia as Vito Lugana (2 episodes, Season 2) and Lewis George Parma (1 episode, Season 3)
*
Arthur Hill as Janos Passik (1 episode)
*
Pat Hingle as R.J. McMillan (1 episode)
*
Steve Ihnat as Stefan Miklos (1 episode) and Colonel Alex Stahl (1 episode)
*
Eartha Kitt (1 episode, season 1)
*
Fernando Lamas as Roger Toland (1 episode, Season 3) and Ramón Prado (1 episode, Season 4)
*
Mark Lenard as Felipe Mora (1 episode, Season 1); Colonel Luis Cardoza (1 episode, Season 2); Aristo Skora (1 episode, Season 3) and Colonel Barkram (1 episode, Season 5)
*
Larry Linville as Captain Gulka (1 episode, Season 3); Alexi Silensky (1 episode, Season 4) and Colonel Leo Orlov (1 episode, Season 5)
*
Peter Lorre Jr. as Kadi (2 episodes)
*
Monte Markham as Tosk (2 episodes)
*
Darren McGavin as J. Richard Taggart (1 episode)
*
Lee Meriwether as Anna rojak (2 episodes, Season 3) and "Tracey" (6 episodes, Season 4)
*
Ricardo Montalban as Gerard Sefra (1 episode)
*
Edmond O'Brien as Raymond Halder (1 episode)
*
Simon Oakland as Jack Wellman (1 episode)
*
Vic Perrin as Dr. Ira Drake (1 episode, Season 1); Cheever (2 episodes, Season 2); the owner (1 episode, Season 3); Anton Massik (1 episode, Season 4) and the voice of Peter Stone
*
Pernell Roberts as Chief Manuel Corba (1 episode, Season 4) and Boomer (1 episode, Season 7)
*
Sugar Ray Robinson as Wesley (1 episode)
*
William Shatner (2 episodes)
*
Bo Svenson as Karl (1 episode)
*
George Takei as Roger Lee (1 episode)
*
Vic Tayback as Man in Car (1 episode, uncredited, Season 1); Sergeant Gorte (1 episode, Season 3)
*
Malachi Throne as Ambassador Brazneck (1 episode, Season 1) and deputy premier Gregor Kamirov (1 episode, Season 4)
*
Cicely Tyson as Alma Ross (1 episode)
*
Fritz Weaver as Imry Rogosh (1 episode, Season 1); Erik Hagar (1 episode, Season 2); Emil Skarbeck (1 episode, Season 3) and George Berlinger (1 episode, Season 6)
*
William Windom as Deputy Premier Milos Pavel (1 episode, Season 1); Alex Cresnic (1 episode, Season 2); Stu Gorman (1 episode, Season 6) and Paul Mitchell (1 episode, Season 7)
*
Paul Winfield as Klaus (1 episode)
*
Anthony Zerbe as David Redding (1 episode, Season 2); Colonel Helmut Kellerman (1 episode, Season 3); Colonel Alex Vorda (1 episode, Season 4); Erik Schilling (1 episode, Season 5) and Reese Dolan (1 episode, Season 6)
Revival cast
*
Peter Graves as Jim Phelps
*
Thaao Penghlis as Nicholas Black
*
Antony Hamilton as Max Harte (credited as Tony Hamilton)
*
Phil Morris as Grant Collier
*
Terry Markwell as Casey Randall (1988–1989 season)
*
Jane Badler as Shannon Reed (1989–1990 season)
*
Bob Johnson as Voice on Disc (voice only)
The mission briefing heard at the start of every episode would usually begin with "Good morning/afternoon, Mr. Phelps" (or "Mr. Briggs" in the first season), followed by a brief description of the situation. (By the 1988 revival, the briefer was on a first-name basis with Phelps, opening his recordings with "Good morning, Jim.") The message usually ended with, "Your mission, should you decide to accept it..." followed by the mission goal(s) described as briefly as possible. The recording then ends with: "As always, should you or any of your I. M. Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions." Depending upon the method of message delivery (
phonograph record,
compact disc,
filmstrip projector, trick
telescope, etc.), the voice would advise that the recording was about to self destruct, usually within five or ten seconds.
In the first season episode entitled "Action," Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain) receives the recorded briefing, as the episode was filming during a period when Steven Hill was in the process of having his appearances as Briggs scaled back in preparation for his departure from the series at the end of the first year.
By the show's second series, the use of a self-destructing tape recorder had become the most commonly used (and best known) method of providing the briefings. In the 1980s revival, this was replaced by a miniature
compact disc.
These briefings were read by voice actor
Bob Johnson in the original series and the 1988 revival, but the identity of the character was never revealed, nor was his face ever shown. Johnson died in 1994. The film
Mission: Impossible revealed the name of the person behind the messages in the film as Eugene Kittridge, played by
Henry Czerny. In the second film, the voice behind the messages was given the name Swanbeck and was played by
Anthony Hopkins (who did not appear in the credits). The voice in the third film is that of IMF agent Ethan Hunt's superior, played by
Billy Crudup. It is not known if any of the film characters correspond to the TV version.
A number of original novels based upon the series were published in the late 1960s.
Popular Library published the following between 1967 and 1969:
#
Mission: Impossible by
John Tiger (1967)#
Code Name: Judas by
Max Walker (1968)#
Code Name: Rapier by Walker (1968)#
Code Name: Little Ivan by Tiger (1969)
In addition, two hardback novels for young readers were published by
Whitman Books, both by
Talmage Powell:
#
The Priceless Particle (1969)#
The Money Explosion (1970)
Dell Comics published a
comic book on a sporadic schedule that lasted from the mid-1960s to the early
1970s, although only 5 issues were actually published.
In 1979,
Scott Adams released
Mission Impossible, a
text adventure game that placed the player in the role of a secret agent trying to save the world. Evidently Adams did not have the rights to the name as the game was quickly reissued under the modified name
Impossible Mission and later
Secret Mission.[
2] Beyond the title, the game had no overt connection to the TV series.
In
1991,
video game designer
Konami created a
Nintendo Entertainment System game called Mission: Impossible, based on the revived series. The game is considered quite well-crafted and challenging. After the
1996 movie, several other games bearing the series name have also appeared, but the general
consensus is that their quality is somewhat low, as if the games were made to quickly capitalize on the renewed
franchise without delving into scenario possibilities presented by the series. For all the games, see
Mission: Impossible (video game).
So far, the television series has also spawned three films, starring and produced by
Tom Cruise:
*
Mission: Impossible (directed by
Brian De Palma, 1996)
*
Mission: Impossible II (directed by
John Woo, 2000)
*
Mission: Impossible III (directed by
J. J. Abrams, 2006)
Though these films were very profitable, many fans felt they ignored the elaborate plotting that was a significant feature of the TV series, and that they focused too much on star Tom Cruise rather than on the team aspect of the series. However, the first movie was far closer to the spirit of the original series than the second one, and the third film is somewhere in between. Reversing the idea of the series, the movies' villains tended to know the whole plan, rather than the IMF; indeed, the villains in the first two films were rogue or former members of IMF, with an "insider" plot in the third movie. Fans were also upset that Jim Phelps, team leader in the TV series, became a traitor in the first movie, selling the details of government agents to an arms dealer. (As a result, several actors from the original TV series declined invitations to make
cameo appearances in the films - the role of Jim Phelps went to
Jon Voight, while no other characters from the series appeared in the final version).
*
Encylopedia of Television*
Infos about Memorabilia of the show, such as Dell Comics, Toys, Posters etc.*
Database and cover gallery for the Dell comic book series
