Mission: Impossible: This Email Will Self Destruct In 5 Seconds...

The American Spy Franchise Is Still Going Strong After 50 Years

Good morning, Mr. Phelps. Your mission, should you decide to accept it……

Mission: Impossible premiered on the CBS television network way back in 1966. This was the same year creator Gene Roddenberry gave his classic Star Trek starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy to the unsuspecting, although eventual welcoming pop culture world. Both TV shows were produced by DesiLu, the fabled studio owned and operated by the talented Hollywood powerhouse of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball both of legendary I Love Lucy fame.

It’s of real significance to note that both of these 1966 shows are still more than active today. In fact, the two powerhouses pull in more profit and attention than many fresh faced franchises half their age.

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DesiLu Duo

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz came together as a married couple, then a dynamic creative team which impacted the Hollywood community enormously and whose contributions are still being felt today. The pair ran their studio in a kind of 50/50 share the work fashion where Lucy would be expected to do what she did best - perform as one of the most gifted comedians of her own and any other generation. Desi would work mostly behind the scenes as executive producer and business mogul for the ever growing, influential DesiLu entertainment studio.

Being responsible for one mega hit entertainment entity such as Star Trek, DesiLu would be an essential part of the history of broadcast television, yet alone also helping to give birth to the iconic Mission: Impossible as well.

Bruce Geller - Creative Father of Mission: Impossible

Just as writer and producer Gene Roddenberry guided his sci-fi creation, Star Trek, to DesiLu, then onto network NBC, creator Bruce Geller sold his idea for a cutting edge espionage show to DesiLu, which would originally air on CBS from 1966 to 1973.

Geller earned his early writing credits on TV shows such as The Rebel, The Rifleman and Have Gun, Will Travel, the last of which also employed Roddenberry as a scribe. The effort earned him two Emmy Awards - one as producer, another for Outstanding Writing Achievement In Drama. Geller broadened his creative scope by producing and directing the pickpocket feature film, Harry In Your Pocket, starring James Coburn. Sadly, the multi-talented Bruce Geller - also an accomplished lyricist - was killed when the small plane he piloted ran into fog and crashed into Buena Vista, Canyon in California.

Tech Beyond The Times

Roddenberry’s space romp may have been the most obvious sci-fi vehicle between the two, but the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) featured in Gellar’s show employed incredible tech which even Starfleet engineer, Scotty, would be proud to use himself on his beloved Enterprise. Everything from completely deceptive face masks crafted to assume any identity of the team’s choosing, electronic scanning to eavesdrop or jamming devices to interfere in bad guys hardware allowed the IMF to defeat almost every assigned adversary they’d encountered.

The Original IMF Team

Sure, the Tom Cruise star vehicles, also produced by Cruise, feature films have upped the ante on the high tech goodies. It’s much like Spock having a particular tech device during the Enterprise’s five year mission, then later on TNG, Data using updated tools which are far more powerful. For the time though, the high tech toys seen in MI were a veritable wonderland of fun, thrilling gadgets. Even James Bond would have approved of the IMF’s groovy gear.

Theme Music

Today, it’s something of a lost art, but when Mission: Impossible premiered in the 1960’s, a TV show’s theme music acted as an important element of its production. Even today, theme music is not only the distinct calling card for our favorite shows, but it’s a siren call for us to come join the fun whenever our must see TV begins. How many times have you been in the kitchen or even bathroom and heard those familiar notes to bring you in just a little faster so not to miss a program’s start?

Composer Lalo Schifrin gave the working title for the piece, Burning Fuse, which ultimately figured into the show’s iconic opener seeing someone light a fuse which burned throughout the episode opener. Schifrin is no stranger to pounding, dynamic music for movies and TV. He composed music for Cool Hand Luke, Bullitt, Dirty Harry and the Bruce Lee martial arts masterpiece, Enter The Dragon.

Good Morning, Mr. Cruise

In 1996, thirty years after debut of the TV version, superstar Tom Cruise and his production partner, Paula Wagner, took Bruce Geller’s classic espionage series to the big screen. Directed by highly respected filmmaker Brian DePalma (Carrie), the movie wowed audiences as an enormous success. It smashed box office receipts and became the third highest grossing film of the entire year. Cruise plays Ethan Hunt, the brilliant leader of this modern spy fest incarnation.

Five more mega hit movies followed, and the most recent one produced will be released next year in May 2022.

Mission: Impossible thrills both TV and film audiences for over five decades now. It may have not started the espionage thriller genre, but it’s become one of the most popular, profitable and long lasting spy franchises in Hollywood history. Shows like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. or Eye Spy came out earlier, but the potent combination of the IMF team, combined with hypnotic music and something most likely undefinable, in the end, makes our intense love of MI not only possible, but more than probable.