so sheldon leonard was the producer of eyespot, at the time one of the most -- i spy, one of the most successful television producers, did the danny thomas show, an integral the show and k van dyke. the james bond movies were just taking off, so all of a sudden all these people into you want to sort of james bond like shows. this is what leads to the man from uncle, gets more. sheldon leonard idea for a spy show was really novel which was it would teach -- feature a pair of spies, one white, one black. he pretty quickly chose robert culp, this handsome, young sort of tv actor at the time to be a white spot. but partly because there were so few african-americans on television, there was the obvious choice for who the partner would be. so sheldon leonard worked very closely with karl reiner who was the sort of, ran the dick van dyke scheppach it was his idea, chief writer, on the show. and one night just as cosby is starting to take off, he got his first comedy album had come up to the appears on the tonight show with johnny carson, and he does a routine. one of the people in the audien