RIP Peter Graves

Peter Graves has died of a heart attack at age 83.

This was one of my favorite programs growing up.

Until I read the obit I never realized this little factoid:

He was Jim Phelps, the leader of the Impossible Missions Force, a super-secret government organization that conducted dangerous undercover assignments (which he always chose to accept). After the tape summarizing the objective self-destructed, the team would use not violence, but elaborate con games to trap the villains.

It was only a few years later in 1980 when he really cracked me up in Airplane! with his deadpan delivery of outrageous stuff in the role of Captain Oveur.

Captain Oveur: You ever been in a cockpit before?
Joey: No sir, I've never been up in a plane before.
Captain Oveur: You ever seen a grown man naked?

Thanks for the memories.