Comedian and actor Bill Cosby was recently awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and that reminded me of this comic book in my possession–a memento of one of his earlier public triumphs, as “Scotty” in the 1960s TV series “I Spy.”

A boatload of Bond spinoffs

Bill Cosby was already a huge pop culture star by 1965, when he was tapped–in a loudly trumpeted publicity campaign–for a new TV series to be called “I Spy,” part of the entertainment industry’s frenetic scramble to cash in on the James Bond money machine, which was in full roar by 1965. That was the year Thunderball hit the big screen, and the TV airwaves were filling up with shows like The Man from UNCLE, Wild Wild West, and Mission: Impossible.

Cosby the comic becomes Cosby the actor

By 1965, Cosby had already appeared many times on television as a standup comic, and had released three albums of his comedy routines.  He was rich, famous, and beloved by both black and white audiences and record buyers.  Although known for the hilarious characters he created for his routines in tales drawn largely from his childhood (e.g., “Fat Albert”), he was untried as an actor when he started on “I Spy.” Cosby played Alexander (”Scotty”) Scott, the trainer and buddy of international tennis bum “Kelly Robinson,” played by Robert Culp.   As the inside cover of this comic tells us:  ”Kelly and Scotty don’t like to use guns. Their chief weapons are brains and ingenuity and their camouflaged identities.”

A first for black America

Cosby was the first African-American actor to be cast in a lead role in an dramatic series on television, a fact that took on added urgency and relevance by the time “I Spy” debuted–September 15, 1965, just four weeks after the shocking and brutal riots in the crumbling black neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles.  ”I Spy,” though featuring a black and a white actor in a close, bantering relationship, was notable for pointedly avoiding references to race and racial differences.  Cosby went on to win the Emmy award for best lead dramatic actor three times, in 1966, 1967, and 1968 (each time edging out his co-star).  The series ended in 1968, just about the time this comic was issued–the same year that Cosby pressed three more comedy albums and became America’s top-selling male recording artist.

Scotty and Kelly take on guerillas–and win, of course.

I know I watched “I Spy” devotedly, but I can’t for the life of me remember a single episode or moment.  I vaguely remember exotic locales and jocular dialogue, and that’s about it.  I didn’t expect much from the story in this comic, but it is interesting in at least one respect.  It features “the guys” on a mission that takes them to Brazil and Venezuela, which are beset by terrorist raids by Communist (though that word is never used) guerillas, using weapons smuggled in from “Iron Curtain” countries.  The leader is a man known as “K. Warra,” who bears more than a passing resemblance to Che Guevara, wearing a beret and sporting a scraggly beard.  He’s actually an American, “Clarence Copperfield,” trained by the Green Berets, who has now joined the “movement to overthrow the people’s oppressors.”   When captured, he dismisses Kelly and Scotty as “paid hirelings of the imperialist government that rules my home,”  and when he escapes (temporarily) he shouts “as long as I am free, the red tide of the future rolls on!”

Classic 1960s agitprop — pretty heady stuff for the kids reading this comic book.