I Spy (1965 TV Series) - Reunions and Remakes

Reunions and Remakes

Four years after the series ended its three-year run in 1968, Culp asked Cosby to co-star with him in the film Hickey & Boggs (1972), a downbeat and violent detective story written by Walter Hill. Culp was also the director.

Culp made a guest appearance on The Cosby Show on April 9, 1987, in an episode titled "Bald and Beautiful" in which he plays an old friend of Dr. Huxtable's named "Scott Kelly," a combination of the names of their I Spy characters, Alexander Scott and Kelly Robinson.

In I Spy Returns (1994), a nostalgic television movie, Culp and Cosby reprised their roles as Robinson and Scott for the first time since 1968. The original opening title sequence is reused with no changes other than the addition of the word 'Returns' beneath 'I Spy' and a new arrangement of the theme music. Cosby was the executive producer. Here the aging agents have to leap into action once again to rescue their children, Bennett Robinson (George Newbern) and Nicole Scott (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) who are now operatives for their fathers' agency. This was shown as a "CBS Movie Special" on February 3, 1994.

Culp again reprised the role of Kelly Robinson during a dream sequence in a 1999 episode of Bill Cosby's series, Cosby, entitled "My Spy." Cosby's character falls asleep while watching I Spy on television and dreams he's caught up in an espionage adventure. With Cosby's name replaced with that of his character here, Hilton Lucas, the old title sequence was again faithfully recreated.

The duo also reunited once more for an appearance at a TV special marking the 75th anniversary of the NBC television network in 2002. Cosby was actually on stage with his Cosby Show co-stars at the time in reference to that sitcom. However, he called on Culp (who was in the audience) to join him as well and both men received a round of applause and cheers when they donned their sunglasses and tossed off a few wisecracks in a nod to their secret agent characters.

A movie remake, also titled I Spy, followed in 2002 with Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson. In this iteration, the character names are reversed, so Alexander Scott (Wilson) is now the white secret agent and Kelly Robinson (Murphy) the black athlete, now a boxer. The film was initially a commercial and critical failure. In his 2009 Movie Guide, film critic Leonard Maltin describes the film as an "In-name-only reincarnation of the smart 1960s TV show.... An object lesson in bad screenwriting, with an incoherent story, and characters that make no sense."

The original television series and the 1994 reunion movie are both available on DVD. Episodes 1-25 of the first season of the television series are also available on Joost and all 82 episodes are available on Videosurf, from the DMGI Classics channel.