I Spy is an American secret-agent adventure television series that ran for three seasons on NBC from September 15, 1965, to April 15, 1968, and teamed American intelligence agents Kelly Robinson (Robert Culp) and Alexander "Scotty" Scott (Bill Cosby), traveling undercover as international "tennis bums."

I Spy broke ground in that it was the first American television drama to feature a black actor (Cosby) in a lead role.

After seeing Cosby performing stand-up comedy on a talk-show, Sheldon Leonard decided to take a chance on hiring him to play opposite Culp.

(Culp revealed in his audio commentary on the DVD release that he and Cosby agreed early on that "Our statement is a non-statement" regarding race, and the subject was never discussed again.)

This was unique for a television show, especially since the series actually filmed its lead actors at locations ranging from Spain to Japan, rather than relying on stock footage.

Compare with the more recent series, Alias, which also utilized worldwide settings but rarely filmed outside the Los Angeles region.

Contrast the extensive use of location shooting with I Spy's contemporaries on CBS's Mission: Impossible and on NBC's The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which were mostly filmed on the Desilu and MGM back lots, respectively.

Episodes were filmed in Hong Kong, Athens, Rome, Florence, Madrid, Seville, Venice, Tokyo, Mexico City, Acapulco, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Morocco.

It is indicated that Robinson is a few years older and has been in the Department longer than Scott (however a third season flashback episode shows them going through initial training together, so that aspect of the backstory changed a little).

In another episode it is indicated that he was orphaned before he was an adult and spent time with an aunt and uncle living on a farm in an unspecified location, possibly the Central Valley of California.

Although Culp and Cosby frequently exchanged breezy, lighthearted dialog, the stories invariably focused on the gritty, ugly side of the espionage business.

Occasionally the series produced purely comedic episodes such as "Chrysanthemum," inspired by The Pink Panther, and "Mainly on the Plains" with Boris Karloff as an eccentric scientist who thinks he's Don Quixote.

At least two episodes begin with them receiving a briefing at the Pentagon, they frequently refer to the Pentagon as the ultimate headquarters of their organization, and they are often seen receiving their instructions from uniformed, high ranking, military officers - with all branches of the military - Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force - showing up in such a role.

However, they also seem to be answerable to the State Department as well, frequently getting instructions from civilian administrators at or from the local American Embassy in the nation they are operating in.

However, the two main characters themselves are only twice shown operating behind the Iron or Bamboo Curtain and once in Viet Cong controlled territory.

In a few episodes they are not actually on an assignment at all but have an adventure related to their personal lives, such as helping keep Scotty’s foster-daughter's boyfriend out of trouble with the Italian police, or dealing with the angry family of a soldier who had served under Kelly in the Korean War years before and had been killed in action.

While the two agents are frequently involved with attractive women who factor into their assignment, they rarely become involved with an innocent bystander who is accidentally swept up into the situation as was the usual plotline of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Top-billed series star Culp wrote the scripts for seven episodes (one of which he also directed), including the show's first broadcast episode, "So Long, Patrick Henry."

Prior to joining I Spy, Culp wrote a pilot script for a proposed series in which he would have played an American character like James Bond.

Nevertheless, Culp and Cosby were often dissatisfied with the frivolous and formulaic scripts they received and rewrote most of their dialog and improvised a great deal during filming.

[citation needed] In I Spy Returns (1994), a nostalgic television movie (and unsold pilot episode for a new series), Culp and Cosby reprised their roles as Robinson and Scott for the first time since 1968.

The original opening title sequence is reused with no changes other than the addition of the word 'Returns' beneath 'I Spy' and a new arrangement of the theme music.

However, the aging agents have to leap into action once again, this time to keep an eye on their children, Bennett Robinson (George Newbern) and Nicole Scott (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) who are now operatives.

In this iteration, the character names are reversed, so Alexander Scott (Wilson) is now the white secret agent and Kelly Robinson (Murphy) the black athlete, now a boxer (It also changed the original premise of them both being agents, with Robinson being a civilian boxer who is essentially brought in to act as Scott's cover story while he carries out his mission).

A number of original novels based upon the series were published, most written in the mid-to-late 1960s by Walter Wager under the pseudonym "John Tiger."

In addition, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the 1994 reunion made-for-TV film on DVD in Region 1 on October 8, 2002.

In September 1982, the religious cable channel Christian Broadcasting Network began airing I Spy nationwide on weeknights at 8:00 PM and continued to do so for the next 2+ years.

In 2015, reruns of I Spy were pulled by the Aspire and Cozi TV networks as a result of allegations of sexual assault by Cosby.