leeper@ahutb.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (03/26/85)
From my mailbox, but of general interest: >The series here in England preceding the Prisoner was called >Danger Man. I am assuming that this is the same programme >as Secret Agent. The prisoner IS a follow on from Danger >Man as the opening credits for Prisoner show Danger Mans >London flat and his Lotus car. In the last episode of >Danger Man John Drake resigns and refuses to give any >reasons for his resignation. He is drugged at his flat and >taken to the village, given the number 6 and a whole new >series was born. You can take this as correct as i was a >fan of the prisoner when it was first shown here in 1968. > In the US there were three not-very-distinct series. We got a program called DANGER MAN. It was a half-hour tv series and it introduced the character John Drake. I believe it ran on Saturday nights on CBS. The series was replaced by SECRET AGENT. This was a more lavish version of the same series and the episodes were an hour in length. Reportedly at this time the idea was to turn Drake into a womanizing copy of James Bond but McGoohan himself rebelled. It may well be that it was considered one series called DANGER MAN in England, however. Here it was introduced each week with a specially written musical theme by Johnny Rivers "Secret Agent Man." The song became popular on the radio, incidently. Since Rivers is an American, I think, it is possible that the American version was repackaged with a different title. Somehow I find it surprising that there was not a British series called SECRET AGENT. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!ahutb!leeper