The enemy has infiltrated a Long Island school for the teenage daughters of prominent individuals via hypnosis (in the form of Brahm’s Lullaby).  Illya is assigned the task of guarding the young daughter of a Japanese scientist (Victoria Young) whom develops a crush on him (they watch an episode of “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.” together!).  Napoleon gets to go undercover at the school and finds himself surrounded by young ladies.  What I wouldn’t give for either job.  Marianna Osborne plays Solo’s (main) love interest.  Estelle Winwood and Joseph Ruskin are the villains.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Illya nearly spanks Victoria in one scene…to think that was acceptable then.  If I did that in this day and age…not only would I enjoy it, but I’d be arrested for it, too!

After a lengthy pre-credit sequence involving tediously-repetitive music and an actress holding her arms out like someone pretending to sleepwalk (Solo almost shoots himself…along with the audience), we learn that somebody has developed the perfect killing machine: fembots.  Illya is assigned to act as a bank manager…and wouldn’t you know it, a Thrush front is seeking a billion-dollar loan!  Fritz Feld, Jeannine Riley, Pamela Curran, Barry Atwater and Woodrow Parfrey.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Harlan Ellison wrote this episode.

Solo winds up in a hospital after a gondola accident (don’t ask), so Mark Slate (Noel Harrison) steps in for the remainder of this adventure (as to how Mark grew younger and became British is not explained).  Joan Collins goes for the Prince and the Pauper routine as an evil Baroness (and husband to Carl Esmond as the evil Baron) and a Bronx stripper.  Michael St. Clair, Paul Smith and Richard Angarola also guest star.

Luigi’s Useless Information: While Noel Harrison slipped over to the Man series for this episode, Robert Vaughn guest-starred (as Napoleon Solo, of course) on “The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.” - both episodes aired within three days of each other.

The mob has been losing a lot of money since Las Vegas went legit, so Uncle Giuliano (J. Carrol Naish, a personal fave) assigns his less-than-bright nephew Frank (Bernard Fein) to think of a solution.  When Frank learns that Hollywood director Sheldon Veblen (the iconic Shelley Berman) is losing his backing on a modernized epic of Sodom & Gomorrah, Frank fronts the money to finish, using his girlfriend Ginger LaVeer (Carol Wayne) as his excuse.

A new ray gun has been stolen by Thrush and mounted in the St. Thomas Monastery in Switzerland under the command of David J. Stewart (who died shortly after this episode aired).  The first target: The Louvre in Paris!  Cult fave Celeste Yarnell plays the hot chick and John Wengraf plays her uncle, the imprisoned Abbot of the monastery.

Luigi’s Useless Information: The great Henry Calvin (Sgt. Garcia in the 50’s TV hit “Zorro”) plays the lovable Brother Peter.

U.N.C.L.E. learns from a beatnik that Thrush agents are developing a gas capable of making humanity hiccup itself to death (Robert H. Harris plays the bad guy).  A highlight of the episode features Illya improvising a beatnik poem about King Kong in a coffee shop whilst battling a group of thugs (some of whom carry razor sharp skateboards as weapons).  The Wolf Man (1941) director George Waggner lends his unique brand of camp to this one (he would direct several episodes of “Batman” as well).  Sherry Alberoni and Sabrina Scharf guest star as the ladies and Charles Lane makes an appearance, too.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Mr. Waverly assigns Illya to pose as a beatnik due to his “long hair”.  When the original pilot was shown to studio executives, they asked that the “long haired” guy (David McCallum) be replaced, but the producers thought they meant actor Will Kuluva (who played Mr. Allison, the head of U.N.C.L.E), so Kuluva was let go and Leo G. Carroll was brought in.  The “long haired” McCallum stayed.

Bernard Fox returns as an entirely different (although familiar) villain, Brutus Thor - determined to assassinate a Gandhi-like president (Harry Davis) who is trying to rid the world of those pesky nuclear bombs.  Linda Foster plays a woman who intercepts radio transmissions via her tooth when she drinks rum (!) and Arthur Batanides plays Fox’s henchman.  One particularly eerie scene features Illya being attacked by a roomful of dolls (with guns).

Luigi’s Useless Information: British bit player Anthony Eustrel’s character is a butler named Rhett (the credits list him as Rhett - Butler).

Miranda Bryant (Diana Hyland), the wife of a Presidential Candidate (Richard Anderson) is kidnapped right from under Solo’s nose and promptly replaced with a double.  The doppelganger, Irina (also Hyland) has been programmed with every shred of information on the Bryants and has no idea that she isn’t who she thinks she is!  Than Wyenn plays the villainous scientist who made the switch (he’s constantly holding a glass of champagne).  Larry D. Mann and Anna-Lisa co-star.

The lovely Danielle De Metz makes another appearance in U.N.C.L.E. as Janine, a bistro owner in Algiers whose wannabe boyfriend, Pierrot La Mouche (Pat Harrington, Jr.) has stolen a codebook from local Thrush agent Colonel Hamid (Jacques Aubuchon) and is trying to sell it to U.N.C.L.E.  Wolfe Barzell (the evil gardener/assistant of Dr. Frank in Frankenstein’s Daughter) plays a ‘blind’ beggar and Abbe Lane (who reminds me of Pat Barrington in Orgy Of The Dead) plays a dancer (hmmm…Pat Harrington, Pat Barrington…ah, the circle is now complete!).  Sadly, no one rocks the Casbah.  Milton Parsons and Camille Grant have some bit parts.

Thrush has somehow tapped into U.N.C.L.E.’s new computer (there were hackers in the 60s?), and a young stage starlet is murdered when she finds out too much.  Leon Askin returns as Thrush agent David X. Machina (get it?), who purchases every ticket for an Off-Broadway flop and brings in his own new star (Joan Huntington) so he can keep stealing vital information from his secret subterranean lair. Dick Crockett is in here, too.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Shari Lewis guest stars as the leading-lady’s understudy.  It’s impossible to fathom that this once smoking’-hot woman would later gain fame for slapping on a hand puppet and striking fear into the hearts of children everywhere (much like her co-star in this episode, “Police Woman” regular Charles Dierkop, would later do as the killer Santa in 1984 cult classick Silent Night, Deadly Night).

Although it is very campy, this is an enjoyable two-parter - mainly due to its ensemble.  While spying on the seemingly gynophobic wine tycoon Louis Sprago (Jack Palance), our heroes discover that Sprago and Thrush have conspired with an aging Nazi scientist (Ludwig Donath) to create a new home: Thrushland.   But, in order to make that a reality, they must first place a number of nuclear missiles throughout the gulf stream, thereby sending the warmer winds to Greenland - alas, Thrushland.  As neat as this sounds, however, it will turn the rest of the Northern Hemisphere into a polar wasteland.  To make matters worse, a group of old-school prohibition-era Chicago gangsters are looking for Solo, intent on forcing him to marry their young niece (Letícia Román) whom they believe he slept with (oddly enough, he kept it in his pants for once).  Janet Leigh shines as Palance’s sadomasochistic assistant who really enjoys her work.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Not only is there a lot going on in these two episodes, but the list of guest stars tops all the action combined: Eduardo Ciannelli, Allen Jenkins, Jack La Rue, Penny Santon, Maxie Rosenbloom, Vince Barnett, Joan Blondell, Elisha Cook Jr., and even Will Kuluva (the original head of U.N.C.L.E.) in a funny bit of casting as the thrilled Thrush superior who is eventually killed by Illya (which makes it even funnier - see the Useless Information for Episode 3.6).

While on assignment in Ghupat, Illya dons a bad-looking yeti costume and is promptly wounded by Calamity Rogers (Ann Jeffreys), a former western movie star that now hunts the dreaded beast that killed her husband (bad timing, Illya).  David Sheiner makes his final U.N.C.L.E. appearance as the Ghupat Prime Minister (with eye pieces to make him look Asian) that plans to place his own son on the High Lama’s throne.  Pilar Seurat, Philip Ahn, Fuji and “#2 Son” Victor Sen Yung  co-star.  Camera equipment is visible several times throughout this episode.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Anne Jeffreys co-starred with Leo G. Carroll in the television series “Topper”.

If Lionel Stander were to review this episode, he would probably point out that this episode officially breaks the goofy meter.  Illya is captured trying to find a deranged professor (Arthur Malet, resembling a demented cross between Mark Twain and William Hickey and brought to life by Dave Thomas on “SCTV”) who is turning natives into supermen (against their will, naturally) in a surprisingly jungle-esque Africa.  Solo picks up on his trail and meets a jungle girl named Girl (Vitina Marcus) along the way (she has a pet gorilla named Baby played by none other than George Barrows of Robot Monster fame!).  The great Alan Mowbray makes one of his final appearances as a safari hunter.  Joyce Jillson, Percy Rodrigues and Blaxploitation icon Raymond St. Jacques guest star in this ridiculous and oft-offensive chapter in the U.N.C.L.E. series.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Alan Mowbray was one of the original founders of the Screen Actors Guild.  He also played the baffled butler in the first two Topper movies (not the television series with Leo G. Carroll).
Special Note: This episode includes an optional (audio) Station Break with June Foray.

I have to give writer William Fay credit with his opening, in which Georgi Koz (Akim Tamiroff), the visiting Chairman of a Russian-like country and his Chief of Security Maxim Radish (the very Jonathan Pryce-looking Leon Belasco) refer to the Christmas shopping season as the time of year when the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer”.  Apart from the wonderful anti-Christmas commercialism message (of which I heartily approve), there’s a bit of a plot to assassinate Koz.  Humphrey Bogart’s old drinking buddy Leonid Kinskey plays the would-be assassin.  Co-starring Elen Willard, Kent Smith, and J. Pat O’Malley (as a drunk Irishman, naturally).

Luigi’s Useless Information: Any resemblance between the fictitious Georgi Koz and the real-life Nikita Khrushchev is purely coincidental…but it’s nice to see actual Russian-born actors playing Russians in a television show broadcast during the Cold War (even though the characters are never actually referred to as Russians…we don’t want kids thinking Commies are hip, after all!).

Seasoned television vet Woodrow Parfrey makes his fifth and final U.N.C.L.E. appearance as Dr. Adrian Cool, who informs his old friend Mr. Waverly about a mysterious object in outer space that is on a collision course with the Earth!  Upon arriving on Cool’s island, Illya is kidnapped along with Cool’s bikini-clad daughter Coco (Nancy Sinatra - he doesn’t complain either…can you blame him?) and industrialist Simon Sparrow (Paul Lambert) is behind it all (note how Sparrow Dynamics looks suspiciously like the NBC studio lot).  Whitney Blake plays Sparrow’s fiancée (she gets a rather Honey Blake-esque introduction) and James Griffith (The Amazing Transparent Man) guest stars as Sparrow’s assistant, Dr. Trebush.  Look for Kam Tong as an Asian Ambassador.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Illya starts to play the guitar while imprisoned with Coco and yes, they sing together (unless you’re a complete idiot, you probably already know that Nancy Sinatra had a singing career - David McCallum also had something of a vocal vocation and had hit #117 on the Billboard Singles Charts earlier that same year with “Communication”).  He also has a shoe that turns into a mini jackhammer (!).  Solo gets to drive a groovy looking little automobile (lucky bastard).

Solo and Illya masquerade as swinging bachelors (yeah, I know, big stretch, eh?) and move into suburbia, hoping to find a missing Danish scientist named Rutter.  A local music teacher named Willoughby (Victor Borge) fit’s the description.  Upon settling in, they are bombed by King Moody (as an evil milkman - are there any other kind?) working for Mrs. Witherspoon (Reta Shaw) and assaulted by their seemingly-friendly neighbor (Beth Brickell) when Solo turns the lights on.  As it turns out, Mrs. Witherspoon and the local pharmacist (Herbert Anderson) are driving the residents of suburbia crazy with scientifically-altered light bulbs in an attempt to flush Rutter/Willoughby out because of his Humboldt’s Syndrome (don’t ask, just watch).  Highlights include an ice-cream truck chase scene and the roommate-sitcom-like bickering between our main characters over a soufflé.

Luigi’s Useless Information: I was always a big fan of the late great Victor Borge had the pleasure of seeing him live in the mid-90s.  Nyah, nyah.

Both U.N.C.L.E. and Thrush are after a suspended animation device, the invention of Dr. A.C. Nillson (Peter Brocco, who played Krog in Republic’s Serial Radar Men From The Moon).  Nillson’s daughter Neila (Lynn Loring) and two Thrush agents (Robert Emhardt and Pamela Curran) become involved in this Illya-less episode.

Illya jumps on-board a freighter heading for an unknown destination containing a top-secret tidal wave machine that is part of a grand blackmail scheme. Thrush is behind it all (naturally).  Dan O’Herlihy plays the rum-swigging, poetry-loving captain of the ship.  Character actors Kevin Hagen, Eddie Quillan and Robert DoQui guest star.
Luigi’s Useless Information: O’Herlihy hams it up big time here as he staggers about the boat in a drunken stupor, mumbling incoherently with a soft-spoken English accent.

Good ol’ Joseph Sirola chews up the scenery once again as Malanez, the First Aide of President Tunick (Kurt Kasznar), who is dead-set on replacing his friend and commander while they’re visiting Paris.  Ted Cassidy plays Malanez’ henchman and Mercédès Molinar also co-stars.  Illya gets to drive the fancy car (the AMT Piranha) this time.

Luigi’s Useless Information: The great Fritz Feld plays the man hired by Sirola to heckle the President and gets to play four different parts in the process.

Manolakas, an escaped Greek convict (George Keymas) knocks Illya unconscious and steals some top secret U.N.C.L.E. papers with the intent on selling them to Thrush agent Emile Sauvignon (Jacques Roux).  Manolakas’ wife Kyra (Linda Marsh) is less than thrilled to learn her husband is free and her bandit father Stavros (Harold J. Stone) is determined to kill the bad apple…unfortunately he kidnaps Illya instead.  Actually, the mistaken identity gag is used a total of three times.  Not good.

Luigi’s Useless Information: At the beginning of the episode, Napoleon is seen with a beautiful young brunette who is uncredited.  If anyone knows who she is, please tell me.

U.N.C.L.E. has developed a new M4 explosive that packs quite a wallop and detonates at only 90° Fahrenheit.  Peter and Simon Sweet, a pair of brothers working for Thrush (Pat Harrington, Jr. and Jan Murray), steal the explosive (which is hidden in an ordinary-looking hula doll), kidnap Solo (along with a naïve secretary played by Grace Gaynor) and put U.N.C.L.E. into a state of panic.  Patsy Kelly plays Mama Sweet and Edy Williams (former wife of Russ Meyer) plays the busty U.N.C.L.E. technician and look quick (and low) for cult figure Angelo Rossitto.

Luigi’s Useless Information: The character of Oregano (Sweet’s assistant) is played by Rex Holman who, six years earlier (under the alias Roye Baker) co-starred along with the great Arch Hall, Jr. in The Choppers.

Another Harlan Ellison story is brought to life.  Bestselling author Jacqueline Midcult (Sharon Farrell) has come under close scrutiny from both U.N.C.L.E and Thrush alike - her novel, “Pieces of Fate” depicts many situations and adventures that bear too close a resemblance to actual cases for it not to be a coincidence and Mr. Waverly is convinced she has access to secret Thrush data.  After a Thrush agent opens fire on her during a television broadcast, she is left with a case of temporary amnesia and the men from U.N.C.L.E. have to help her find her memory so she can help them find the source material!  Yep, that has Harlan Ellison written all over it!  Theodore Marcuse, Grayson Hall, Richard Collier and Charles Seel guest star.

Luigi’s Useless Information: The Stationmaster is played by none other than Doodles Weaver, the comical radio and TV personality who committed suicide in 1983.  Doodles was the brother of Pat Weaver, former NBC executive (from 1953-1955) and the uncle of actress Sigourney Weaver.

An informant is killed in Singapore and the film he was selling to U.N.C.L.E. is stolen by a guy named Beirut (Vito Scotti), who works for an art dealer named Backstreet (Oscar Beregi).  The dying man reveals that the other half of the film is in the possession of Martin Klump (Bill Dana), a blithering idiot who lives with his sister Heather (Norma Crane).  It isn’t long before the Backstreet Boys (sorry) and U.N.C.L.E. are at war with one another trying to get to Klump (who knows nothing, naturally).

Luigi’s Useless Information: Klump’s boss in this episode, Kenneth Quartz, is played by veteran character actor Hal Smith.  In addition to bit parts and extensive voiceover work for television, Smith is perhaps best known as Otis on “The Andy Griffith Show”.  He is also credited as the co-writer of It Came From Beneath The Sea.

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, enter Sonny & Cher.  Not wanting to risk the paperwork falling into the wrong hands, Thrush had their Five Year Report turned into a dress design (?).  Unfortunately, more than one copy of the exclusive dress was made and everyone - both public and private - is after it!  Sonny Bono plays the dressmaker who has the hots for a fashion model (Cher).  In a grand example of life imitating art, Cher’s character is a total bitch to Sonny’s.  If their on-screen presence alone isn’t enough to make you cringe, their songs underline several scenes.

Luigi’s Useless Information: This episode is very irritating (but nowhere near as bad as “The My Friend The Gorilla Affair”): the incidental kazoo music mocks the viewer, the supporting roles provided by George Tobias and Ned Glass grate on one’s nerves.  The annoying operator that Illya deals with (twice) is played Jane A. Johnston.  Johnston was married to George Wallace (Commando Cody from Radar Men From The Moon) until his death in 2005.

Pursued by Thrush, Solo is forced to slip an important thingy (hidden in a perfume atomizer) onto a tourist in Italy.  The tourist, Darlene Sims (Julie Sommars) soon becomes the most sought-after lady in the land.  Cesare Danova and Peter Falk look-a-like Than Wyenn play the villains and Kathleen Freeman guest stars as Darlene’s traveling companion.  Sid Haig plays a henchman.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Sharyn Hillyer, the actress who plays U.N.C.L.E. technician Wanda, played the same role in at least ten episodes of the series.  Despite her beauty, Sharyn’s career didn’t last very long after the show was canceled.

Holy explosive apples, Napoleon!  No, that’s not a metaphor (or a typo): it’s the plot.  Colonel Picks (Robert Emhardt), owner of the Purple Valley apple orchard, has developed an explosive fruit for Thrush.  Solo and Illya head South into “hillbilly country” (as Mr. Waverly delicately puts it) to put a stop to it.  “Hee Haw” regular Jeannine Riley (as a slutty Southern Belle), Gil Lamb (as Jeannine’s grand-pappy), Dub Taylor (as a preacher), Norman Leavitt and Blaxploitation legend D’Urville Martin (whom Illya shares a Tony Curtis/Sidney Poitier moment with straight out of The Defiant Ones) co-star.

Luigi’s Useless Information: Curiously enough, nobody ever says “How do you like them apples?” in the entire episode.

While it isn’t the best two-parter in the world, “The Five Daughters Affair” does benefit from a superb supporting cast and more action (even if it is silly action).  After a positively You Only Live Twice-like opening (again with the nifty little Piranha car!), our agents rush to meet Dr. True (Jim Boles, who appeared in the series as a different doctor a total of three times) - a scientist has developed a new desalinization process which somehow turns seawater into gold (I’ll take one of those, please).  When Dr. True drops dead of a heart-attack (in real life, Boles would die of a cardiac arrest ten years later), Thrush affiliate Randolph (the oh-so-magnificent Herbert Lom) kills the good doctor’s wife (Joan Crawford) and begins the search for the new desalinization formula.  A zany race across the globe to gather clues from Dr. True’s four stepdaughters follows (all of whom are played by former U.N.C.L.E. girls: Jill Ireland, Diane McBain and Danielle De Metz).  Kim Darby, Curt Jürgens, Telly Savalas and Terry-Thomas also guest star.

Luigi’s Useless Information: The theatrical title for the re-edited two-parter was The Karate Killers, a reference to Herbert Lom’s four henchmen: all of whom are white and tend to dress like casino bartenders…face it, there’s nothing scarier than a guy that says “Uhh, how do you make that?” and proceeds to serve you something that doesn’t even resemble a Manhattan!  Fucking amateurs! at the hands of the Manson Family.

 Thrush is planning on assassinating Mr. Waverly during a visit to Blair University (his old alma mater) and try to get a bunch of those damn hippie protestors to do it.  When Solo and Illya thwart that plan, Thrush has to resort to replacing the Dean (Henry Jones) with a double (also Jones).  Martin Kosleck, Larry D. Mann and Zalman King co-star.

Luigi’s Useless Information: A very uninteresting finale to a disappointing season. Thankfully, Season Four (what there was of it) makes up for it.