Episode 168: Mission: Impossible (1996)

Max, Mike; Movies

Good afternoon, Mr. or Ms. Listener (and all the ships at sea). Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to listen to very special after-school episode of “I Made From TV Love You!” The movie you see before us is “Mission: Impossible,” the 1996 adaptation of yet another classic 60’s spy show that spawned a movie franchise that continues to devour everything in its path. It has propelled the career of Tom Cruise to new heights . . . oh, um, sorry Mr. Cruise, that was insensitive . . . The show starred the ivory-haired, granite-faced Peter Graves (alumnus of the University of Minnesota) as well as a pre-Space 1999 Martin Landau and Barbara Bain as part of the IMF (“Independent Meatball Fondlers”) who went after Enemy Agents from the country of Enemyland (no real country is ever named in the show) and overcame them with cunning, meticulous planning, and brilliant disguises [disclaimer: “brilliant disguises” tended to mean rubber masks). The film adaptation(s) do contain some meticulous planning but also way, WAY more explode-y parts. Can Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt fill the brogans of Peter Graves as Jim Phelps? Well, Tom Cruise did not attend the University of Minnesota, so that’s a pretty big disadvantage to overcome. Tune in and find out! This podcast will self-destruct during your next operating system update.

Poll question: Has there ever been a movie about a profession that made you say “I want to do THAT!” Conversely, has any movie about a profession ever made you say “I NEVER want to do that!”

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