THE TANK WAR MISSION [The Classic 1960s Man from W.A.R. Series]

The Rat Patrol

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The listener is reminded, "As always, should you or any of your I.

Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. In some initial episodes, however, self-destructing tapes were created by adding a chemical to the tape and blowing air onto it, forcing the chemical to react by crumbling. This method was abandoned due to cost. There were a handful of exceptions to the "messages from the Secretary. This first occurred in the program's opening season, when a "syndicate" boss kidnaps and threatens to kill the teenage daughter of a friend of Briggs unless he removes a grand jury witness against the mobster from police protective custody.

How this man knew Briggs was capable of such a task was not explained. In a few other cases, a personal matter involving Briggs, Phelps or another IMF operative would result in an "off-book" mission being undertaken. After the first year, an entire season's worth of "tape scenes" were usually filmed all at once prior to production of the rest of the episodes, and the crew never knew which tape scene would appear with which episode until it was broadcast.

Some tape scenes were re-used, with only minor changes to various insert shots and Johnson's recorded voiceover. In the first season, for example, the same tape scene was used for both "Wheels" and "Legacy". The only differences were that the tape gave a different set of instructions in each episode, and there was very briefly a different set of insert shots of the photographs which Briggs is viewing.

The cost-saving practice of recycling tape scenes continued throughout the series run; generally each season reused at least one tape scene. One particular tape scene, of Jim finding a tape in a parking lot attendant's hut, was actually used in three widely scattered episodes: Next would follow what White refers to as the "Dossier Scene". Briggs or Phelps would be shown in a fancy apartment, retrieving an oversized, leather-bound folder from a locked drawer.

According to White, most of the never-chosen dossiers were photographs of various series staffers and their wives, including Mr. In early seasons, the agents selected often included guest stars playing agents with skills not possessed by the usual team. A doctor, particularly a specialist in a condition known to afflict the target, was a common sort of "guest agent". In numerous early episodes, the IMF leader would choose only two or three team members, though at least one of the main credited cast members was always involved.

One episode, "Elena," featured a team consisting of Rollin Hand and Dr. Carlos Enero guest star Barry Atwater ; [19] because of Landau's official status at that point as frequent guest star this meant that technically none of the series' regular players was involved. Almost as often, however, Briggs would choose all of the regulars, plus one, two, or even three others. In later seasons, the team was much more stable, consisting of the regular cast for the season, and the use of guest agents became markedly less frequent.

Numerous dossier scenes from the Peter Graves episodes feature Jim poring through the photographs, only to once again choose the series regulars that had just been shown in the opening credits. By the third season, the dossier scene had been deemed somewhat disposable, appearing only when needed to introduce a guest agent. The first mission submitted by the Secretary that did not have the dossier scene was the last mission of the second season, "The Recovery".

After a period of being seen only occasionally, the dossier scene was seen again frequently in season four, due to the lack of a regular female team member in that season. It was dropped entirely as of season five. In the pilot episode, the recorded message states that the team leaders have unlimited resources and wide discretion in choosing their team.

Who devises the plan is never made clear, although the team leader is often shown writing or making notes. Preparations and the necessary logistics were almost never shown, although they are generally implied by the scenes that depict various steps of the mission. It is implied that only a short period of time elapses from the initial assignment until the team is in the field.

Early episodes occasionally showed more of the preliminaries. In the third segment of the opening act, called the "Apartment Scene" by White, the team would next be shown convening for their final briefing in the leader's apartment. Although the series was shot in color, the apartment had a color scheme composed of black, white, and shades of gray, such that the apartment was sometimes referred to off-camera as the black-and-white room Steven Hill once suggested that an American flag be placed on a wall of Briggs' apartment, but Bruce Geller vetoed it in order to maintain the color scheme [20].

Two exceptions are the first-season episodes, "Operation Rogosh", when the team immediately springs into action to capture their target in a staged auto accident, and the aforementioned episode "Action! The Apartment Scene acted as a teaser. In discussing the plan and their roles in it, the team members would make vague references to preparations necessary for its successful execution while leaving most details undisclosed.

This scene also demonstrated and thereby established credibility for various gadgets or ploys that were key to the plan, such as a TV camera hidden in a brooch, a miniature radio-controlled hovercraft, a chess-playing computer, a "mentalist" or sleight-of-hand act, or a trained animal. In addition, this scene would establish, or at least hint at, the specialties and roles of any guest-star agents.

Team members posing questions about aspects of the plan or why an alternative was not considered provided the writers with an opportunity to offer explanations for what otherwise might have seemed plot holes. When summing up, Phelps would often stress the difficulties in the action they were about to undertake or some key element of the plan vital to its success, such as a deadline by which the mission had to be completed. During the fifth season, the producers decided to drop the dossier scene and phase out the tape and apartment scenes.

The s revival reinstated the "dossier scene" in the first episode, when Phelps selects his new team, but since he keeps the same team in subsequent episodes, no subsequent dossier scenes were made. The episode then depicted the plan being put into action. This almost always involved very elaborate deceptions, usually several at the same time. Facilitating this, certain team members are masters of disguise, able to impersonate someone connected to the target or even the target himself.

This is accomplished with realistic latex face masks and make-up. Some impersonations are done with the explicit cooperation of the one being impersonated.

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Also bona fides would be arranged to aid infiltrating the target organization. In some cases, the actor playing the IMF agent also portrayed the person to be impersonated this most frequently occurred during Martin Landau's tenure on the series, notably in the pilot or the voice of the person being impersonated was dubbed. In other cases, a guest star would play the dual role of both the original and the imposter Rollin, Paris, or Casey. Sometimes one or more IMF team members would allow themselves to be captured in order to gain more access to or knowledge of the organization they are infiltrating, either by conversing with the target or being held in a jail cell and hatching their plan there.

A few episodes of the early seasons showed the painstaking creation and application of these masks, usually by disguise and make-up expert Rollin Hand. This was later omitted as the series progressed and the audience presumably became familiar with the mechanics of the team's methods. In the s revival, the mask-making process involved a digital camera and computer and was mostly automatic.

Most episodes included a dramatic "reveal" also referred to as the "peel-off" near the end of the episode in which the team member would remove the mask. Various other technological methods are commonly used as well. The team would often re-route telephone or radio calls so these could be answered by their own members. Faked radio or television broadcasts are common, as are elevators placed under the team's control. In some missions, a very extensive simulated setting is created, such as a faked train or plane journey, submarine voyage, aftermath of a major disaster, or even the taking over of the United States by a foreign government.

A particularly elaborate ploy, used on more than one occasion, sees the IMF working to convince their target that several years had passed while the target was in a coma or suffering from amnesia. In one episode, the IMF even convince their target an aging mobster played by William Shatner that time has somehow been turned back more than thirty years and he is a young man again. The team would usually arrange for some situation to arise with which the target would have to deal in a predictable way, and the team would then arrange the circumstances to guide the outcome to the desired end.

Often the plans turn on elaborate psychology, such as exploiting rivalries or an interest in the supernatural. Many plans simply cause the target to become confused or erratic or irrational, lose self-assurance, lose trust in subordinates or partners, etc. These various ploys would usually result in either information being revealed to the team, or the target's disgrace and discrediting, or both.

In many early episodes, the mission was to "neutralize" the target and it was made clear that the target is ultimately shot by his superiors, staff, or rivals, though this was usually not shown on screen. In later seasons, where the targets were usually organized-crime figures or similar, the goal of the mission is often simply to collect incriminating evidence not obtainable by "conventional law-enforcement agencies.

Dramatic tension was provided by situations in which team members appear to be in danger of being discovered especially before commercial breaks. Sometimes unexpected events occur that force the team to improvise. On occasion, an outside party or one of the targets realize what is happening and put the plan at risk. William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter served as story consultants for the first two seasons. Maurer, for their inspiration. Woodfield and Balter later became producers of the third season.

They did not last long and were dismissed for believing that executive producer Geller had no authority over them. The original series was filmed almost exclusively around Hollywood and the Los Angeles Basin. The pilot episode was filmed at Mount St. Several times the series deviated from the standard format.

In one episode of the original series, a gangster kidnaps the daughter of a friend of Dan Briggs and forces him to abduct a witness against him. In another, a mistake causes Cinnamon Carter to be exposed and captured by the villains, and Jim Phelps has to prepare a plan to rescue her. Another episode featured Phelps on a personal mission, when he returns to his small hometown for a visit and finds a series of murders among his childhood acquaintances, which the local law enforcement chief is unqualified to cope with. In one episode, a friend of Jim Phelps is framed for murder, giving Jim only 24 hours to find the real killer, prove his friend's innocence and save his life.

On two occasions, he is captured and the team has to rescue him. In Cat's Paw , team members volunteer to go against the organization responsible for murdering Barney's brother. Willy is shot and captured in one episode, and captured and tortured by a drug kingpin in another.

Paris is kidnapped and brainwashed in an attempt to get him to kill Phelps. Jim and Rollin are on a hunting trip when Jim is taken mysteriously ill. It turns out the residents of a " Norman Rockwell " town are hired assassins, who attempt to poison Phelps when he stumbles on their secret. In most cases, the action lasted right up to the final seconds, with the episode ending in a freeze frame as the IMF team make their escape, another successful mission concluded. Most often they leave in a nondescript panel truck. A dramatic device frequently used at the end was the sound of a gunshot or a scream in the distance as the target is killed by his associates, while the IMF team make their getaway.

On one particular episode, the team escape in a van after leaving a secret underground enemy base that is being destroyed by a series of explosions. In the s revival, this format was altered with the addition of a tag scene showing the IMF team regrouping often still in disguise and walking away. From the middle of the second season onwards, Jim Phelps often makes a quip. Aside from the now iconic main theme, as well as the motif called "The Plot", which usually accompanied scenes of the team members carrying out the mission, the background music would incorporate minimalist innovations of percussion such as simply a snare drum and cymbals to build tension during the more "sneaky" moments of the episodes sometimes accompanied by a bass flute playing.

These quieter passages would greatly contrast the more bombastic fanfares when a mission member is at risk of getting caught just prior to a commercial break.

The main theme was composed by Argentine composer, pianist, and conductor Lalo Schifrin and is noted for being in 5 4 time. About the unusual time signature , Schifrin declared that "things are in 2 4 or 4 4 because people dance with two legs. I did it for people from outer space who have five legs. Gerald Fried worked on Mission: Impossible concurrently while working on the Star Trek television series and re-used the infamous "Star Trek fight music" in several Mission: Although two albums of re-recorded music from the original series had previously been released under Schifrin's name, Music from Mission: Impossible Dot, and More Mission: Davis for the revival Schifrin also scored three episodes of the revival, including the premiere, but none were included.

An electronic dance version of the theme by U2 bandmates Larry Mullen, Jr. A key inspiration for Geller in creating the series was the Jules Dassin film Topkapi , 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.

Several episodes in fact show close-up shots of an agent's wristwatch to convey the suspense of working on a deadline.

One of the more controversial points of Geller's was his insistence on minimizing character development. This was done intentionally both because he felt that seeing the characters as tabulae rasae would make them more convincing in undercover work, and because he wanted to keep the focus on the caper and off the characters themselves. Geller would even veto the writers' attempts to develop the characters in the episodes. This is why, even after Geller was removed from the show, the IMF agents would only have one scene at Jim's apartment where they interacted, and they were rarely if ever seen in their "real" lives.

As a side effect of this, cast turnover was never once explained on the show. None of the main characters ever died or were disavowed in the original series, but a character could disappear between episodes without mention or acknowledgment. The s revival, however, did kill off a main character on screen. Mimi Davis is the only character whose recruitment as an IMF agent was shown on screen, although such a scene was filmed for Dana Lambert Lesley Ann Warren and discarded.

The producers of Mission: The suit was settled out of court. Geller claimed never to have seen the earlier show; Beacon Street's story editor and pilot scripter, Laurence Heath, would later write several episodes of Mission: Writer William Read Woodfield was a fan of David Maurer's nonfiction book about con artists, The Big Con also an unofficial inspiration for The Sting , and many episodes are strikingly similar to cons described in the book.

The tape scene is very similar to one described in the Nick Carter-Killmaster novel Saigon , published in December and repeated in the novel Danger Key copyright registered in February In the novels, secret agent Carter receives a package from his boss which, when activated, plays a tape-recorded message that self-destructs after playing once.

Part of each episode's title sequence was highly unusual, as it was composed of a number of very short clips of key scenes from the subject episode. This was, and remains, very rare for series television. However, it was already being done as of the previous season on I Spy , which like Mission had the lighting of a fuse leading to it.

The hand with the match was, until sometime in the sixth season, that of creator Bruce Geller; in the revival series , the hand belonged to Peter Graves, who was shown holding the match. Several British teleseries produced by Gerry Anderson and his then wife Sylvia Anderson , the contemporaneous Thunderbirds made in and the mids Space: Impossible alumni Martin Landau and Barbara Bain amongst them, also showed clips in the opening sequence.

The reimagined Battlestar Galactica TV series also used this device. The clips in the opening sequence were chosen to showcase dramatic moments in the upcoming mission, such as moments of surprise, moments of violence, or equipment in use. For the first two seasons, the closing credits showed clips from that mission in freeze frame. At the start of , when Paramount took over from Desilu, the same clips were shown during the closing credits across episodes; later seasons eschewed that approach, featuring a freeze frame of the hand lighting the fuse.

Impossible is still recognized for its innovative use of music. Composer Lalo Schifrin wrote several distinctive pieces for the series. The visual cuts in the main title sequence were timed to the beats and measures of the theme tune —written in unusual 5 4 time —while an animated burning fuse moved across the screen. Most episodes included fairly long dialogue-free sequences showing the team members—particularly electronics expert Barney Collier—making technical preparations for the mission, usually to the accompaniment of another easily recognizable tune called "The Plot.

Even when an episode's score is credited to some other composer, Desilu's music supervisor Jack Hunsacker would re-edit it, adding Schifrin melodies from the library. Impossible, a common compliment was along the lines of "the score worked very well but never got in the way or called attention to itself. Impossible was praised for the prominence of its music. At episodes, the original version of Mission: Impossible held the record for having the most episodes of any English-language espionage television series for over 35 years about 10 more episodes than its nearest rival, the UK-produced The Avengers.

Its record was broken during the eighth season of 24 in The secret message tape scene has been parodied in other shows. One example is in the animated TV series The Houndcats where after the Chief gives the Houndcats their instructions he warns them that the "message will self-destruct in five seconds" at which point the team panics as it then desperately tries to get rid of the message before it explodes.

In an episode of the early s sitcom , " Temperatures Rising ", the hospital administrator, Dr. Paul Mercy played by Paul Lynde , on being compelled to burn an incriminating reel of film, mentions "I've seen this done on 'Mission Impossible'! During the late s Carling Black Label ran a TV advert which showed a squirrel running an assault course in order to get to a nut whilst the theme tune of the series was being played.

Two owls are witnessing the event. When the squirrel reaches its objective, one owl remarks "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label". In North America, Mission: Impossible received limited VHS format release in the waning days of video cassettes: Impossible," six tapes at a time, in and Twelve episodes were also released on Laserdisc. The episodes of the original series of Mission: The first season of the s revival was released in the fall of , with the second and final season announced for spring On December 11, , Paramount released Mission: The disc collection features all episodes of the series as well as bonus features.

On October 6, , CBS Home Entertainment released a repackaged version of the complete series set, at a lower price. In , media reports indicated that a reunion of the original cast was in the planning stages, for a project to be called Mission: Dietrich contrives to have a German soldier impersonate Major Lansing, be picked up by the Rat Patrol and taken to headquarters, where he is to assassinate an Allied general.

Check out IMDb's Streaming Guide to see what's new on Netflix, find out if your favorite streaming show has been renewed or canceled, and more. Visit our Streaming Guide. The Rat Patrol — Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and his U. With mud-splattered realism, the show The adventures of suave cat burglar Alexander Mundy, who plies his trade for the U. This series chronicled the adventures, in the air and on the ground, of the men of the th Bombardment Group of the U.

First commanded by irascible General Frank A pair of intelligence agents posing as a tennis pro and his coach go on secret missions around the world. The submarine Seaview is commissioned to investigate the mysteries of the seas. Usually it finds more problems than answers Special Agent Eliot Ness and his elite team of incorruptable agents battle organized crime in s Chicago. Two Secret Service Agents, equipped with a wide array of gizmos, work for the government in the Old West.

After the Civil War, nomadic adventurer Cheyenne Bodie roamed the west looking for fights, women, and bad guys to beat up. His job changed from episode to episode.

His keen sense of detail and detecting subtle clues, learned from his experience, enable him to nab unsuspecting criminals despite his unbelieving boss. Armed with jeeps equipped with. Their most common nemesis is Hauptmann Dietrich, though Dietrich and the Rats join forces from time to time against a common enemy. Visually, the DVD set of season 1 that I have looked at is great.

There are several things to note which make the series not as good as it looks.

No matter what plot is being followed, the same action sequence used in an earlier episode pops in. The half hour format this series follows does not allow enough time for character development. The main cast is quite good. Troy as close to being real as you can imagine. His three comrades in support are fine also. The three parter features Claudine Longet several years before her lover Spider Savage died in mystery circumstances. Overall though, not as good as you remember when you were a child as the plots look a little limp to a grown up.

Sometimes, the jeeps suddenly get new equipment when our heroes are nowhere near their own lines. The action theme and fine camera work make this watchable. This makes my view of the series a little more negative than it should be. Start your free trial. Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet!

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