The acronym (which really isn’t) that won’t go away

Image from Batman ’66 Meets The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

On The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Thrush was never an acronym. But the notion that is is survives almost a half-century after the show ended its original run.

The comic book miniseries Batman ’66 Meets The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which is wrapping up its six-issue run, spells it as “T.H.R.U.S.H.”

Separately, the book Some Kind of Hero: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films, published in late 2015, has a chapter about “Bondmania” of the 1960s which references U.N.C.L.E. Authors Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury write that agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin “were usually pitted against agents of T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humankind).”

We’ve referenced this before, but the idea of Thrush as an acronym was created by writer David McDaniel, author of a 1960s licensed U.N.C.L.E. paperback, The Dagger Affair.

McDaniel envisioned Thrush as having been created by Sherlock Holmes villain Professor Moriarty. McDaniel’s acronym had “Humanity” instead of “Humankind.” Regardless, it was very clever and McDaniel is credited by many U.N.C.L.E. fans as the best writer of the paperback tie-in novels.

David McDaniel’s The Dagger Affair

However, the 1964-68 series presented its own origin for Thrush in the second-season episode The Adriatic Express Affair. In that installment, written by Robert Hill, Madame Nemirovitch (Jessie Royce Landis) reveals herself to be the founder of Thrush.

In real life, the production team had a devil of a time coming up with a name for the villainous organization. It was Thrush when the pilot was filmed in late 1963. But NBC, the network that ordered up the show, had its doubts.

At one point, the name was going to be “Wasp.” In fact, in the movie version of the pilot, To Trap a Spy, “Wasp” was dubbed when actors said “Thrush.” However, Wasp was dropped, apparently in part, because the upcoming Gerry Anderson series Stringray was going to have W.A.S.P. being the organization of the heroes.

Another U.N.C.L.E. possibility was MAGGOT. In fact, the first draft script of The Double Affair (which would be turned into the U.N.C.L.E. movie The Spy With My Face), dated May 1964, uses MAGGOT as the name.

Eventually, everybody went back to Thrush. And so it stayed for the 105 episodes of the series, as well as the 29 episodes of the spinoff show The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.

Still, over the years, the McDaniel version has won out even though it wasn’t official canon. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend, as the saying goes.

Batman ’66 to feature team up with (TV) Avengers

DC Comics illustration evoking one version of The Avengers’ main titles.

DC Comics’ Batman ’66, based on the Adam West television show, will feature a team up with the British TV version of The Avengers, DC announced April 15.

The official title of the mini series is “Batman ’66 Meets Steed and Mrs. Peel.” While The Avengers television series started in 1961, it didn’t reach American audiences until a few years later. Meanwhile, in 1963, Marvel Comics started its The Avengers title.

The mini series “will feature Batman and Robin coming face-to-face for the first time with the other (and English) dynamic duo John Steed and Mrs. Peel – characters from the hit ’60s British TV series The Avengers starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg,” according to DC’s press release.

Here’s DC’s plot summary.

As Bruce Wayne shows the beautiful head of a UK electronics company the sights of Gotham, they are interrupted by the felonious feline Catwoman! Unwilling to leave Miss Michaela Gough unprotected, Bruce resigns himself to the fact that Batman cannot save the day. But some new players have arrived in town – though even as the lovely, catsuit-clad Mrs. Peel and her comrade John Steed take control of the situation, nefarious plots continue apace!

As an aside, character actor Michael Gough (1916-2011) played Alfred the Butler in four Batman movies from 1989 to 1997. He also appeared in two episodes of The Avengers, including The Cybernauts.

DC last year canceled the regular Batman ’66 title. It is being replaced with a series of mini-series. The first, still underway, is a crossover with The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The Avengers crossover story will become available digitally on June 8 (99 cents for a download) while the print version is scheduled to go on sale on July 6 for $3.99. The digital version is broken up into 12, bi-weekly installments while the print version consists of six monthly issues.

 

About that Batman ’66-U.N.C.L.E. comics crossover

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Batman television series, which coincides with the second issue of DC Comics crossover of Batman ’66 (a comic book version of the Adam West/Burt Ward series) and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The TV series debuted on Jan. 12 and Jan. 13, 1966. It was an instant hit, and its style affected other shows, including The Man From U.N.C.L.E., as producers sought to emulate what made Batman so popular (even if it was for a short time).

The first issue of the comic book came out in December. On social media, we’ve seen some fans of the original U.N.C.L.E. series decry the new comic book and the Batman TV show.

Some original U.N.C.L.E. fans say Batman contributed to U.N.C.L.E.’s eventual demise. That overlooks how nobody forced the U.N.C.L.E. creative team to adopt a similar tone as the Batman show.

Other U.N.C.L.E. fans have complained the Solo and Kuryakin characters in the comic book don’t closely resemble the Robert vaughn and David McCallum versions from the original 1964-68 television series.

According to THIS REVIEW the second issue of the comic book, there were “legal reasons” why exact likenesses of Vaughn and McCallum couldn’t be used.

Regardless, despite the disappointing box office of 2015’s movie version of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the international spy organization is hanging in there at the start of 2016.

For what it’s worth, the first issue of the comic book evoked scenes from U.N.C.L.E. episodes and it’s apparent the creative team of the comic book has done research into the U.N.C.L.E. series.

U.N.C.L.E.-Batman comic book scheduled

A comic book story featuring a crossover between The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Batman has been scheduled, NEWSARAMA.COM REPORTED.

This is part of the Batman ’66 title published by DC Comics.

How is this possible? DC has long been a corporate cousin of Warner Bros. DC now is part of Warners, even moving from its long-time home in New York to Burkbank, California, home base of Warner Bros.

That move reflects how Warners is ramping up its output of films based on DC characters. The studio also controls The Man From U.N.C.L.E. original series, which ran from 1964 to 1968.

Batman ’66 is based on the 1966-68 series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. The comic uses the likenesses of the actors. DC has published crossover stories with The Green Hornet, mimicking a teamup from the original Batman show. The comic even published a story based on a rejected script plot by Harlan Ellison for the Batman series.

According to Newsrama.com, the U.N.C.L.E. crossover will be published in December.

“The deadly organization known as T.H.R.U.S.H. has a new twist in their plans for world conquest—they’re recruiting some of Gotham City’s most infamous villains!,” according to a description published by Newsrama.com. “Agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin bring this information to the one man who knows everything about these new enemies: Batman. Before you can say ‘Open channel D,”’the Dynamic Duo and the Men from U.N.C.L.E. are jetting off to Europe to thwart the schemes of this deadly criminal cartel.”

In real life, the U.N.C.L.E. television series was influenced by the Batman show. In U.N.C.L.E.’s VERY LIGHT THIRD SEASON, two regular Batman writers, Stanford Sherman and Stanley Ralph Ross, were hired to contribute scripts. Ross even worked THE SAME JOKE into both series.

UPDATE: If you CLICK HERE, you can read a 2013 Den of Geek story about the rejected Harlan Ellison story for the Batman television series, which featured Two Face as the villain.