March 21, 2010 Peter Graves - Good Night Mr. Phelps

Peter Graves died last week at 84. He was a long time actor known for playing Jim Phelps, the leader of the elite Impossible Missions Force in the CBS TV series Mission: Impossible. It ran for seven seasons from 1966-1973.

He also Captain Clarence Oveur in the comedies Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Peter Graves. One summer, in order to make money for college, I worked as the Night Auditor at the Howard Johnson’s hotel/restaurant in Zanesville, OH. Working form 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. was exceptionally boring. I would usually close out the day’s books by 1 a.m., which left six idle hours. At the time there was only one 24-hour TV station. It was WTCG (now TBS) out of Atlanta. The infomercial had not been invented and radio stations did not have 24 hour formats in 1981.

At 2 a.m. it was Rat Patrol and at 3 a.m. it was Mission Impossible, starring Peter Graves. Without these shows to get me through the night, I would have been relegated to talking to truckers on the CB radio or to sleeping on the job. OK – I usually did doze from 4 a.m. until I had to start providing wake up calls.

Mission Impossible was a great show that can claim the A-Team, MacGyver, Burn Notice, and many others TV series as disciples.

I need to rent/buy the Mission Impossible Series on DVD. I’m sure it will have lasted the test of time.