Tuesday, September 01, 2015

Man from U.N.C.L.E. Cards -- Then and Later



One of the accoutrements of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was the toys and other items that we kids wanted.  And of course, it fell to toy makers and folks in the show’s publicity department to create stuff for us to crave!  Around my grade school, a “Man from U.N.C.L.E. card” became one of those items.

On the show …

In the Second Season’s “The Nowhere Affair,” U.N.C.L.E. agent Napoleon Solo takes a temporary-amnesia pill as he’s being captured by Thrush agents.  While under its influence, he checks his wallet and finds these clues to his identity:



And here are my reproduction of the calling card:



My  reproduction of his ID, with and without his name:







I always thought it was embarrassingly cheesy for a multinational spy organization to use a Dymo label maker for its agents’ IDs.  Of course, with our grown-up brains we realize that the cheesy party was MGM-Arena’s props budgeteer.




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If you bought one of the “TV Action Figures” from Gilbert Toys (of Erector set fame), it came with its own ID card:



 Here’s a close-up of the card, and my own reproduction:





Ideal Toys had the license for U.N.C.L.E. Guns.  They were pretty cool!


 
Here is a close-up of the gun set card’s front and rear:





Those who wrote in to the studio or network with fan letters got a special treat.  You guessed it, it was an U.N.C.L.E. card!



Here are my own reproductions of front and back:







But the last item is perhaps the U.N.C.L.E. ID card I worked the hardest over.  I made it in about 1983 -- on my Commodore 64 -- one dot at a time!



Fellow agents, your current assignment is to go see the movie again!

See you next time.

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:40 PM

    'Fellow agents, your current assignment is to go see the movie again!'



    Which one of the eight are you talking about Mark?

    ReplyDelete
  2. if it is the return one (do not waist the time it sucks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. if it is the return one (do not waist the time it sucks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. great post on the cards

    ReplyDelete
  5. But at least in "Return," we got to see our two heroes together again!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for your comments, John.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous3:53 PM

    FYI the card I received from NBC was powder blue like Ideal one but had the section breakdown on back.

    ReplyDelete
  8. These are so cool. Now I can dress-up as April Dancer for Halloween!
    Thanx!

    ReplyDelete

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