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Retro : Nothing Was ‘Impossible’ : MUSEUM OF TELEVISION & RADIO SALUTES EMMY-WINNING SUSPENSE SERIES

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Greg Morris, who played electronics expert Barney Collier on the classic CBS suspense series “Mission: Impossible,” knew the show was going to be a hit as soon as he read the pilot script.

“I could see the excitement in it,” he says. But Morris recalls there were those who had doubts, including a TV writer he met at a press luncheon before “Mission” premiered in September, 1966.

“There was a reporter sitting at my table who said, ‘I saw your pilot. It will never work,’ ” Morris says, chuckling. “I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘It’s too good.’ I just laughed and said, ‘I will bet you a case of beer it will.’ He said, ‘You got a bet.’ ”

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Two years later, “Mission” was a big success. One day Morris was having lunch with his co-stars at a restaurant when a man approached him. It was the reporter. “He said, ‘I owe you a case of beer. Where do you want me to send it?’ I said, ‘Send it to my office.’ Sure enough, a couple of days later a case of beer came to my office. I always believed in the show. I firmly believed it would be a hit, only I didn’t think it would be as gigantic as it was.”

On Friday, the Museum of Television and Radio is paying tribute to the Emmy-winning suspense series, which aired from 1966 to ‘73, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Several of the stars and the creative team will participate. An episode from the series also will be screened.

“Mission: Impossible,” created by the late Bruce Geller, was both a critical and audience hit. Lalo Schifrin’s memorable instrumental theme song was on the Billboard chart for 14 weeks in 1968. Catch phrases such as self-destruct became part of the national slang.

Every week, the Impossible Missions Force, a select group of specialized government agents, would take on top-secret assignments that usually were involved in the activities of small foreign countries who were trying to create problems for America and the Free World. The IMF agents would appear in various disguises to make their elaborate stings work.

Over the seasons, the series starred Morris, Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, Steven Hill, Martin Landau, Peter Lupus, Leonard Nimoy, Sam Elliott, Lesley Ann Warren, Lynda Day George and Barbara Anderson.

“Mission: Impossible” producer Joseph Gantman believes the series caught the public’s imagination because it respected their intelligence. “We were not trying to spell everything out,” he says. “It was an ingenious puzzle that was put together. We knew how it was going to come out; the fun was to see it executed.”

“I think what was appealing was its understatement,” says Bruce Lansbury, who produced the series for three seasons. “Its style was understatement. It was very little character when you analyze it. The characters were all functioning for the puzzle in the plot. The audience loved to see how it worked out, how the moves of the team culminated in the death or the destruction of the enemy.”

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Graves, who played the IMF leader Jim Phelps from 1967 to ’73 and in the 1988-90 ABC remake, says “Mission” clicked because “everybody loves a thief. That is essentially what we were.”

“Mission: Impossible” also was ripe for parody, especially the opening sequence in which Phelps received his assignment on a tape-recorder that would always disintegrate in smoke five seconds after the message was delivered.

“There was a period when Johnny Carson would do something every week,” Graves recalls. “He would go to get a tape in a urinal. That’s fun.”

Morris still gets a lot of fan mail from all over the world. “It always continues to amaze me,” he says.

The tribute to “Mission: Impossible” is Friday at 7 p.m. at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Leo S. Bing Theater, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Tickets are $15; $12 for members of the Museum of Television & Radio, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and students and senior citizens. For information call 213-857-6110.

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