Starring: Peter Graves, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus
Revealing mistake: The Cardinal is being held in an Eastern European prison, yet the nearby carnival spectators all wear very American clothing. In fact, the same people wearing the exact same clothes are there watching for all four days of the circus' performances. (00:28:15)
Revealing mistake: The circus act supposedly begins at 7 p.m. every evening. But the shadows reveal that the sun is directly overhead and that it's midday, not evening. (00:30:00)
The System - S3-E15
Continuity mistake: Phelps takes the tape from the recorder's right-hand spindle. When he opens the acid vat, we can see the tape he just removed back on the recorder - but on the left spindle. The tape he then drops into the acid doesn't remotely resemble the one he pulled, and when he drops it, the recorder's left spindle, where the full tape was in the last shot and where the empty reel should be, now has nothing on it at all. (00:02:50)
Voice on Tape: Good morning Mister Phelps.
Trivia: Apollo rewinds a reel-to-reel tape recorder that has just recorded him admitting to illegal activities. As he does, it makes the expected chipmunk noise. When slowed and reversed, the tape is of a speech given in episode #4 from the 3rd season. You can hear these recordings at: http://www.litb.com/recording1.mp3 and http://www.litb.com/recording2.mp3.
Question: At the start of each episode of Mission Impossible Briggs or Phelps received details of the mission from a tape recording that was 'hidden in plain sight', say a telephone booth displaying a poster saying 'Telephone Out Of Order. Do Not Use'. So, what would happen if somebody went into the kiosk before Briggs or Phelps, picked up the telephone and got the secret message ahead of the Mission Impossible team?
Answer: This is not really a serious question. When I posted this question I was fully aware that Mission Impossible is only a television programme. Like many espionage thrillers (Man From Uncle, The Avengers, James Bond) it is meant to entertain, it is never meant to be taken literally seriously. It was essential to the story that Briggs or Phelps received a secret message, which would give them a mission to accomplish. If they did not receive the message you would not have had the story. When I used to watch Mission Impossible it just used to amuse me to wonder what might have happened had somebody picked up the phone containing the secret message ahead of Briggs or Phelps. I even considered writing to a comedian and suggesting that they devise a comedy sketch in which this happened. My question was only meant to be a joke, that I posted to amuse people.
The Lucy Show or Here's Lucy did an episode of exactly this scenario.
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: We don't know what would happen because the show never addressed this issue. Any answer would be speculation. This is a TV show, and the plot is structured so that only IMF team will retrieve the secret message.
raywest ★