The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–68) and Get Smart (1965–70)
While metaphors of cognition are frequently used in Hollywood scripts to make high-speed data processing understandable to nonspecialists, an even more common trope relates to the capacity of these "electronic brains" to store and synthesize quantities of data, far in excess of human memory. In the Hollywood imaginary, it is a surprisingly short leap from imagining a machine capable of storing "all human knowledge" to imagining one that is immediately deployable as a weapon for the forces of evil. In both The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–68) and its comedic progeny Get Smart (1965–70), the international crime syndicates T.H.R.U.S.H. and KAOS, respectively, threaten to use the information storing and processing capacity of a "superhuman brain" in pursuit of world domination.
A season two episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., "The Ultimate Computer Affair" (1965), for example, presents a remarkable vision of the capacity of supercomputers to transform historical knowledge into a system for planning world domination. In the hands of T.H.R.U.S.H., the ultimate computer promises to make "all the knowledge of the world" available with "the push of a button." Although T.H.R.U.S.H. was carefully framed by the show's creators via the partnership between the American Napolean Solo (Robert Vaughn) and the Soviet Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) to stand outside of traditional Cold War binaries, resonances between the goals of world domination associated with the crime syndicate and the Warsaw Pact spies of Ian Fleming's James Bond series are unmistakable.
T.H.R.U.S.H.'s deployment of the "ultimate" computer as a weapon is also framed in terms of a now-familiar generational conflict in which an older generation commander laments the loss of humanity represented by the computer, comparing the fetishization of computers with the worship of idols, while a younger T.H.R.U.S.H. operative (Roger C. Carmel) gloats over the machine's ability to eliminate "subjective error" and "human frailty." Ironically, the source of the computer's purported wisdom is derived from scanning all the great books in the British National Museum and Southern California's Huntington Library. Agent Solo describes the T.H.R.U.S.H. ultimate computer as "a mechanical brain with a memory bank that has every tidbit, every fact, every bit of knowledge that T.H.R.U.S.H. will ever need against us." Once operational, the computer would make it so that "all T.H.R.U.S.H. has to do is push a little button to have their policies mathematically computed and their battle tactics perfectly planned." After U.N.C.L.E. agents succeed in destroying a computer (which turns out to be a decoy), it is revealed that a second computer is actually operational in a Latin American prison, where the final book scans are being relayed from around the world. U.N.C.L.E. agents succeed in infiltrating a demonstration intended to prove "how thoroughly the computer has replaced the need for human intelligence." A second explosive charge is planted and the real computer is destroyed, thereby restoring the primacy of humans as agents in the struggle for world domination.
In addition to its uncritical reproduction of thinly veiled Cold War political ideology, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. indulges in campy sexism that is presumably meant to be forgiven because of its superficial relation to the James Bond franchise (Bond creator Ian Fleming also contributed to the show's original concept). Robert Vaughn's Solo is a low-rent version of Bond, fondling and leering at female coworkers while still managing to deliver pedantic but nonsensical lectures on the dangers of computational power in the hands of the enemy. In spite of its occasionally cartoonish tone, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. contrasted sharply with the structurally similar Get Smart (1965–70) series, which was overtly comedic in intent. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart pitted agents of the presumptively governmental organization for good "CONTROL" against those of the international crime syndicate "KAOS," played for camp in a televisually common but still bizarre conflation of Nazism and Communism.
Technology and its critique are not a central focus of Get Smart, but as a mid-1960s crime fighting organization, computers, robots and various spy paraphernalia make regular appearances in the arsenal of CONTROL. In a fourth season episode of Get Smart titled "Leadside," CONTROL's "superhuman brain" ARDVARC (Automated Reciprocal Data Verifier and Reaction Computer) is revealed to occupy a prominent place in a sliding wall behind the Chief's desk. Described as "the brains of CONTROL," ARDVARC is significantly ahead of its time relative to real-world supercomputing technologies, including the use of voice synthesis and its ability to process natural language queries. Like many prop computers manufactured by Hollywood, ARDVARC is a concatenation of nonspecific technological signifiers, including an oscilloscope-style screen, a microphone and keyboard for input and a voice synthesizer for output.
The following season, in an episode titled "The Girls from KAOS" (1967), Asian stereotypes are remediated through computerized facial recognition. Equating the computer's inability (even via a fictional technofuturistic conceit) to distinguish among Asian facial features with that of (normative, i.e., white) humans. When the Chief enigmatically explains that, "the computer's only human, after all," Max responds, "To the computer, they all look alike."
A season two episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., "The Ultimate Computer Affair" (1965), for example, presents a remarkable vision of the capacity of supercomputers to transform historical knowledge into a system for planning world domination. In the hands of T.H.R.U.S.H., the ultimate computer promises to make "all the knowledge of the world" available with "the push of a button." Although T.H.R.U.S.H. was carefully framed by the show's creators via the partnership between the American Napolean Solo (Robert Vaughn) and the Soviet Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) to stand outside of traditional Cold War binaries, resonances between the goals of world domination associated with the crime syndicate and the Warsaw Pact spies of Ian Fleming's James Bond series are unmistakable.
T.H.R.U.S.H.'s deployment of the "ultimate" computer as a weapon is also framed in terms of a now-familiar generational conflict in which an older generation commander laments the loss of humanity represented by the computer, comparing the fetishization of computers with the worship of idols, while a younger T.H.R.U.S.H. operative (Roger C. Carmel) gloats over the machine's ability to eliminate "subjective error" and "human frailty." Ironically, the source of the computer's purported wisdom is derived from scanning all the great books in the British National Museum and Southern California's Huntington Library. Agent Solo describes the T.H.R.U.S.H. ultimate computer as "a mechanical brain with a memory bank that has every tidbit, every fact, every bit of knowledge that T.H.R.U.S.H. will ever need against us." Once operational, the computer would make it so that "all T.H.R.U.S.H. has to do is push a little button to have their policies mathematically computed and their battle tactics perfectly planned." After U.N.C.L.E. agents succeed in destroying a computer (which turns out to be a decoy), it is revealed that a second computer is actually operational in a Latin American prison, where the final book scans are being relayed from around the world. U.N.C.L.E. agents succeed in infiltrating a demonstration intended to prove "how thoroughly the computer has replaced the need for human intelligence." A second explosive charge is planted and the real computer is destroyed, thereby restoring the primacy of humans as agents in the struggle for world domination.
In addition to its uncritical reproduction of thinly veiled Cold War political ideology, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. indulges in campy sexism that is presumably meant to be forgiven because of its superficial relation to the James Bond franchise (Bond creator Ian Fleming also contributed to the show's original concept). Robert Vaughn's Solo is a low-rent version of Bond, fondling and leering at female coworkers while still managing to deliver pedantic but nonsensical lectures on the dangers of computational power in the hands of the enemy. In spite of its occasionally cartoonish tone, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. contrasted sharply with the structurally similar Get Smart (1965–70) series, which was overtly comedic in intent. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart pitted agents of the presumptively governmental organization for good "CONTROL" against those of the international crime syndicate "KAOS," played for camp in a televisually common but still bizarre conflation of Nazism and Communism.
Technology and its critique are not a central focus of Get Smart, but as a mid-1960s crime fighting organization, computers, robots and various spy paraphernalia make regular appearances in the arsenal of CONTROL. In a fourth season episode of Get Smart titled "Leadside," CONTROL's "superhuman brain" ARDVARC (Automated Reciprocal Data Verifier and Reaction Computer) is revealed to occupy a prominent place in a sliding wall behind the Chief's desk. Described as "the brains of CONTROL," ARDVARC is significantly ahead of its time relative to real-world supercomputing technologies, including the use of voice synthesis and its ability to process natural language queries. Like many prop computers manufactured by Hollywood, ARDVARC is a concatenation of nonspecific technological signifiers, including an oscilloscope-style screen, a microphone and keyboard for input and a voice synthesizer for output.
The following season, in an episode titled "The Girls from KAOS" (1967), Asian stereotypes are remediated through computerized facial recognition. Equating the computer's inability (even via a fictional technofuturistic conceit) to distinguish among Asian facial features with that of (normative, i.e., white) humans. When the Chief enigmatically explains that, "the computer's only human, after all," Max responds, "To the computer, they all look alike."
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