Trivia for the Mission: Impossible TV series.
- Accidentally-Correct Writing: Some of the gadgets used on the show happened to closely resemble being developed and used by real spies, leading the the production getting more than one visit from the US government.
- Acting for Two: Several instances:
- Martin Landau essayed double roles in the pilot and "Wheels."
- In "Shock" guest star James Daly played a kidnapped U.S. envoy, the enemy agent impersonating him and Dan Briggs disguised, thanks to Steven Hill's difficulties.
- When Leonard Nimoy replaced Martin Landau as the disguise expert, he played his regular role of Paris and the Big Bad in "The Choice," and Paris, a double of a deceased premier and said premier (in pictures), plus the "Robot" of the title. There were also several times when he played minor roles in disguise and the audience had no idea it was him.
- Alan Smithee: Used in both the original series and the revival - due to Meyer Dolinsky's script for the original's "Live Bait" being changed drastically en route to the screen, one "Michael Adams" receives co-teleplay and story credit; the revival's remake of "The Condemned" credits "John Truman" with the storynote because Laurence Heath, author of the original, took his name off the remake (as did William Read Woodfield with the remake of "The Legacy" - credited "Michael Lynn" and Allan Balter; Balter was Woodfield's deceased writing partner.).
- Award Category Fraud: "The Seal" got Lalo Schifrin an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Composition - even though a) the episode was almost completely tracked with music written for other episodes... and b) the only piece of original music in the episode was written by Jacques Urbont!
- California Doubling: And, in the case of the 80s revival, Australia Doubling.
- Although the latter averted it in three episodes ("The Cattle King" and the two-parter "The Golden Serpent"), which were set wholly or partly in Australia.
- The episode "Action!" centers on an Eastern European film studio, which is actually Desilu Studios, where Mission: Impossible itself was filmed.
- In one season one episode it was literal - the team was trying to trick a Russian spy into believing that the compound they were holding him in outside Los Angeles was actually a KGB facility near Moscow.
- The Cast Showoff:
- Shannon went undercover in several roles that required her to sing, which allowed Jane Badler to showcase her talent as a singer.
- In "Gunslinger", Jim Phelps remarks that he used to be pretty good with a sixshooter and does a few Gun Twirling tricks to the admiration of his teammates. The filming makes it obvious that actor Peter Graves (who cut his acting teeth in westerns in the 1950s) is doing his own twirling.
- Creator Backlash:
- Paul Playdon, script consultant in seasons three and four, was so ashamed of his own "Time Bomb" (as were many who worked on the episode) that he actually left the show. (While he contributed "The Catafalque" in season five and has story credit on season six's "The Tram," he never returned as a staff member.)
- Leonard Nimoy had critical comments about the superficiality of the writing, as the show's format provided no opportunities for the actors to explore and develop their characters. As Spock, he needed to put a lot of work into understanding the character's nuances and keep a lot of subtext in mind when performing. As Paris, all he needed to do was show up and say his lines.
- The Danza: Subverted. Bruce Geller wrote Martin Landau's part with the actor in mind, going so far as to name the character "Martin Land" in the pilot script. Landau said he was honored, but requested the name be changed, which it was to "Rollin Hand". Played straight in "The Tram," with Victor French as Vic Hatcher (although even then it was nearly averted, as French replaced originally cast Keenan Wynn).
- Defictionalization: According to the book The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier the government contacted the producers to find out how they created a tiny hovercraft-like device that was (in show) controlled by remote control and sent down a shaft, somehow missing the somewhat obvious strings that were actually controlling the gizmo.
- The self-destructing CDs seen in the 1980s revival series appear to act like DVDs - even though DVDs weren't introduced until the 1990s. They were meant to be miniaturized laserdiscs (video discs that were read using laser like a CD, but were the size of a long-play record), which existed since the mid-80s.
- In the episode "Robot" Leonard Nimoy plays his part under heavy make-up. This allows Paris to rip off his face mask in one take instead of the standard 'mask actor starts to take off face, cutaway to something else, cut back to IMF agent removing last bits of latex' routine.
- At least in the first season, Martin Landau often played (with similar amounts of make-up) the people Rollin Hand was called on to impersonate.
- Directed by Cast Member: Peter Graves, "Kidnap".
- Edited For F/X: When US cable channel F/X ran the series, bits with Briggs/Phelps giving counter-statements to agents in order to gain access to the recordings were removed, with the Tape Scenes beginning with Briggs or Phelps turning on the devices to hear the assignment. Other than that, episodes were presented edit free.
- Fake Nationality:
- Israeli-born Nehemiah Persoff played the Big Bad three times: once as an Arabian, once as a Latin American, and once as an Eastern European.
- The team adopt numerous ones in-universe, but the What the Hell Is That Accent?-worthy "Australian" one Paris puts on in "Chico" is notable because it's meant to be fake, as part of a persona which the week's Big Bad is supposed to unmask as fake, as part of the IMF's plan.
- Barbara Luna (from New York City) played a Latin American and an Asian in the original series, and a Latin American Big Bad in the revival.
- Khiegh Dhiegh, an actor of Anglo-Egyptian Sudanese ancestry (born Kenneth Dickerson) who specialized in playing East Asian characters like Wo Fat in the original Hawaii Five-O, plays a Japanese villain in a Season 5 episode. The same episode also stars Chinese-American actors Lisa Lu and Benson Fong as Japanese characters.
- Hostility on the Set: The relationship between the producers and Steven Hill became increasingly tense due to difficulties everyone had accommodating Hill's observance of the Jewish Sabbath (leading to a reduction in Hill's role and his absence in some episodes) and an incident where he refused to perform a stunt and locked himself in his trailer, necessitating that the entire episode be rewritten and reshot without him.
- Licensed Game: One for the NES. Notable because it apparently used a modified version of the NES Metal Gear engine. It had little to do with the series other than characters' names, instead opting to create its own story. Nonetheless, many considered it a good game despite its shortcomings. There was also a "text adventure" game called Mission Impossible developed for the Commodore 64 and similar computers; its licensing status is unknown.
- The Merch: Record albums of the seriesnote , as well as a few 'Young Reader' type books. Published by Whitman, The Money Explosion was particularly good. Near the end of the run, Paramount was considering the idea of MI branded tape recorders, but nothing came of the idea. There was a game for the NES released in time for the revival. There were also a series of original tie-in novels, and a Comic-Book Adaptation by Dell Comics.
- Non-Singing Voice: Averted by Barbara Bain in "Illusion" (the three songs she sings here were written for the show, and can be heard on La-La Land Records' multi-disc set that came out in 2015), Lesley Ann Warren (who had musical experience before [and after] her stint on the series) in "Flip Side," Greg Morris in "Blues" and Lynda Day George in "Trapped." And by Lynn Kellogg, an actual professional singer, in "The Martyr."
- To give you an idea of just how bad it would have been without the dubbing, in Greg Morris' case, here's his one and thankfully only album.
- To give you an idea of just how bad it would have been without the dubbing, in Greg Morris' case, here's his one and thankfully only album.
- The Pete Best: Steven Hill as Dan Briggs.
- Possibly also Terry Markwell as the 1988 revival's Casey Randall whose character is killed off after only a dozen episodes.
- Real-Life Relative: In the revival, Barney Collier's son Grant was played by Greg Morris's son Phil. Greg reprised his role as Barney in three episodes of the revival ("The Condemned" and "The Golden Serpent" parts 1 and 2).
- Christopher George guest-starred in the episode "Nerves", opposite his real-life wife Lynda Day George, one of many times they appeared together on television.
- Recycled Script: Done out of necessity in the revival series due to a writers' strike, but it was resolved early enough that only a handful of episodes ("The Killer," "The Legacy," "The Condemned" and "The System") were outright recycled from the original show.
- Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Steven Hill wasn't invited back after the first season due to him being difficult to work with. Being one of the few Orthodox Jewish actors working in Hollywood at the time, he refused to work on the Sabbath, even walking off the set while an episode was in the middle of filming. He was suspended near the end of the season when he refused to climb rafters as per the script of "Action!" and when he returned, his role was severely reduced.
- Similarly Named Works: Both the original and the revival have an episode called "Submarine" - but unlike the episodes listed in Recycled Script above, the revival's "Submarine" is not a remake.
- Technology Marches On: They went from tapes in the original 60s series to miniature compact discs in the 80s revivial. Likewise, in Jim's apartment, he uses a TV with a remote control to view the dossiers of agents and his table opens to reveal a computer with hard CD-type drives that were fancy for 1988. He wistfully goes, "Time does march on." The keyboard and remote then used to choose, then "accept" agents. Once Grant's selected, though, Jim has his team of four then, and another press of the remote finalizes them as "Mission Team."
- Throw It In!: Because the characters were stoic and spoke very little by design, Peter Graves once decided to throw in an unscripted smile to try and convey Jim Phelps' appreciation of a job well done only to get chewed out for "editorializing". However, the shot with his smile ended up being used in the final cut.
- Un-Canceled: The 1988 ABC revival.
- What Could Have Been:
- Bruce Geller wanted Henry Mancini to write the theme music (but because Mancini wouldn't get to keep the publishing rights, he said no).
- The original concept was for the show to have a constantly rotating cast of specialists to be mixed and matched according to the needs of each episode's mission with Dan Briggs as the leader holding it all together. This was dropped in favor of having a core cast and the occasional guest team member and the only thing that remained of the original idea was having the main cast credits take the form of Briggs/Phelps flipping through a stack of dossiers and picking out the ones he needed.
- You Look Familiar: Guest stars and actors were recycled constantly.
- Sid Haig, for example, was in the show no fewer than nine times, ranging from "Driver #1" to The Dragon to the Big Bad.
- Lee Meriwether guest starred as a kidnap victim in a Season 3 episode, then was one of the femme fatale team members in Season 4.
- Since M:I shared the Desilu/Paramount soundstages and some production personel with Star Trek, it should come as no surprise that William Shatner guest starred twice as a Big Bad ("Encore" and "Cocaine" - sadly for Star Trek fans, both came after Leonard Nimoy's tenure as an IMF agent... although the latter episode did reunite him with Barbara Anderson, alias Lenore Karidian from "The Conscience Of The King") and George Takei as an IMF member ("The Carriers"). Leonard Nimoy became an Suspiciously Similar Substitute of Martin Landau's character — four years after Landau had turned down the role of Mr Spock for Star Trek's first pilot "The Cage" in 1965. Herb Solow was production manager for both shows. Ricardo Montalbán (Khan Noonien Singh) played a season one Big Bad, who was one of the only villains to be directly killed by the IMF team.
- Going in the other direction, Robert Johnson, the mysterious voice on the MI tapes, provided uncredited voice work on at least two Star Trek episodes -the unaired pilot "The Cage" and the episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion". On the latter episode he provided the voice of "Provider #3", a disembodied brain in a container which engaged in an often quoted/parodied discussion about betting on the survival of Kirk & Company at hand to hand combat ("I'll bet 2,000 quatloos on the newcomers!") Johnson also voiced a few aliens on The Outer Limits (1963).
- In at least one case, some alien artwork featured in an episode of Star Trek was actually the discarded protective styrofoam piece that housed an M:I prop tape recorder spraypainted orange and green.
- One of Star Trek's infamous gag reels makes use of the Mission: Impossible theme music.
- In Universe Example: Rollin Hand shows up in in a few photos with different names.
- Barbara Luna is one of the few people to appear in the original (twice, as the title character in "Elena" and as an IMF agent in "Time Bomb") and the revival ("The Fortune," as a dictator's evil wife and killer of Casey Randall).
