The Avengers: Still Cool
From the Flintstones to capri pants, the 60s isn't just retro, it's uber-cool. One of my favorite 60s TV programs - The Avengers - is now available on DVD. What could be more cool?
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In the year of my birth, 1961, BBC TV launched a hugely successful series called The Avengers that would go on to gain a huge following in the US when ABC began carrying it on prime time. Aired in 120 countries, a total of 161 episodes were produced between 1961 until the show's cancellation in 1969. It reached its peak in 1965-1967 with the introduction of Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel to join the ultra-debonair Mr. Steed, the man who could inflict more damage with a bowler hat and umbrella than a Navy Seal with a napalm grenade.
I don't recall seeing the original series when it aired on network TV in the 60s - I doubt my parents would have let a tender adolescent watch it anyway. It wasn't until at least a decade later when we got cable and the reruns showed up on late-night TV that my dad introduced me to the program and got me hooked. I'm sure I wasn't the first high-schooler to fall in love with Mrs. Emma Peel, she of the karate chopping, leather-clad, sports car driving, alluring and aloof variety of British espionage agents.
A visit to my parents house several months ago and a browse through their video collection yielded a few VHS tapes with several episodes of The Avengers. I decided to navigate to the website advertised on the tape, originalavengers.com, and was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the episodes with the exception of the 1961 and 1969 seasons have made it to DVD for the North American market. Too cheap to shell out the $400+ dollars that the entire collection would entail, I opted for the less-expensive alternative: Blockbuster.com and my $9.99/mo online rental agreement.
I'm slowly working my way through the episodes and enjoying every black & white moment of it. Yeah the plots are cheesy. Yeah the sets are antiseptic looking and they have these comical little signs that label everything like "bomb deployment lever" - as if the evil genius would forget. It's totally campy. Totally unrealistic.
And totally cool.
There are quite a few fan sites on the web. Some, such as The Avengers Forever, have so much trivia and factoids that I have to seriously wonder about the people who actually have time to research, collect, and post all this stuff. Do they have a life? It's mind-boggling. The wikipedia site is quite informative as well, along with the show's listing on the Museum of Broadcast Communications. You can even download Laurie Johnson's original theme song from the series at iTunes or listen to it on amazon.com using Windows Media Player.
But heck, why just read about it when you can watch it? My next disc in the series is slated to arrive any minute via the post office. I think I'll go have some lunch, enjoy another episode, and remember once again why I fell in love with Emma Peel.
