Manic Monday Bonus--Smaller Than Life U.N.C.L.E.!!

Oh, my, how dreamy...

But wait a minute..."Life-Size"??

"Over" 38x50?!? I've never met the man, but I'm willing to wager that David McCallum (not to mention Ilya Kuryakin) was somewhat taller than 4'2". So, not precisely "life-size", right? Or maybe not--maybe it was all movie (and TV) magic.

Still...

How can I complain when he's giving me a look like that?

Oh, Ilya...

Ad appeared in Archie As Pureheart The Powerful #2 (1966)

The Deadlier Secret Agent Of The Species!

Look, if we're going to go to all the trouble of doing a big-screen big-budget remake of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., we might as well go all the way, right?

I'll leave it to you guys to cast who should play April Dancer in 2015...

p.s. Director Guy Ritchie wasn't even alive when Man From U.N.C.L.E. was on the air. Feel old...

Manic Monday Bonus--"Sometimes A Cigar..."

"Mine's bigger, Napoleon."

From The Man From U.N.C.L.E. #4 (1966)

T.A.L.E.S. F.R.O.M. T.H.E. Q.U.A.R.T.E.R. B.I.N.--A.R.C.H.I.E Goes U.N.C.L.E.!

The cover of Life With Archie #54 (1966) takes Archie to a very unusual place:

That's right, Archie is actually going to parody a pop culture phenomenon...in a timely manner!! They're going to mock The Man From  U.N.C.L.E. (and S.H.I.E.L.D., and Bond's S.P.E.C.T.R.E., etc) while those things are still current, ongoing concerns!! That's unbelievably timely for an Archie comic.

However, a closer look will show...

...that anybody expecting a particularly deep satiric commentary--hell, any depth at all!!--is in for a big disappointment.

Because turning every name into an acronym is about this comic's only trick...

And yes, J.U.G.H.E.A.D. makes a brief appearance.

The worst part? There's not a single attempt--not one!--to tell us what these acronyms mean!! I mean, U.N.C.L.E. & S.P.E.C.T.R.E actually stood for something, they were actual acronyms.

Throughout the two stories in this comic, though, author Frank Doyle is content to just put periods inside of every proper name, That's it. Satiric genius!!

There are a couple of points of interest. First as A.R.C.H.I.E. and B.E.T.T.Y. are tied to boards in a piranha-infested river, how do R.E.G.G.I.E. and V.E.R.O.N.I.C.A. save them?

Woo hoo!! OK, that's cool...

And in the Girl From R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. story, we learn that B.E.T.T.Y has a really powerful scream:

Wow.

At the end of this book, I was left kind of like Super Spy:

So, let's have a little contest: whoever comes up with the best explanation of what R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. stands for wins my eternal respect...