The Spy in the Green Hat (1967) - Trivia - IMDb

Will Kuluva, playing a THRUSH chieftain, originally played the chief of UNCLE in the pilot episode "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Vulcan Affair (#1.1)" (1964)(scenes deleted); and in the re-edited film version of that pilot episode that was released to theaters ("To Trap A Spy").

When "Fingers" (Eduardo Ciannelli) smushes the grapefruit half into his wife's face, that's a callback to James Cagney famously doing the same to Mae Clarke in The Public Enemy (1931). Adding to the connection, Joan Blondell, who plays the hapless Mrs. Fingers and in only one scene, also appeared in "The Public Enemy" 36 years before this role. Blondell acknowledges this connection when she breaks the fourth wall and looks haplessly into the camera with her face dripping grapefruit juice.

After the series started, the United Nations put pressure on the show to assign a name to the baseless acronym as a way to make clear that the United Nations was not associated with the series. U.N.C.L.E. became "United Network Command for Law and Enforcement". Similarly, the show tried to use THRUSH as a nemesis without an explanation but this time the public was provided an acronym in a tie-in novel during the series' run. Hence, "Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity" was born.

The series' title and main character Solo were both the invention of Ian Fleming, famous for his James Bond creation.

The movie first aired on NBC@10:00 p.m. (EST), Friday, November 25 and Friday, December 2, 1966 as the 70th & 71st episodes of "Man from U.N.C.L.E., The" (1964), "The Concrete Overcoat Affair" (Parts 1 and 2).