The Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s Unofficial James Bond Crossover Featured A Former 007 Star

James Bond took a vacation from MI6 when "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." recruited a former 007 star for an unofficial cameo.

While "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." was solely a TV property on NBC until the 2015 Guy Ritchie movie, Bond's adventures were almost all on the big screen ... unless you count that one time 007 actor George Lazenby had a cameo in the 1983 TV movie "The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E." He played an unnamed spy driving an Aston Martin DB5 through Las Vegas with a number plate reading "JB." 

It's clearly referencing Lazenby's role in 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." The short sequence even used similar music to the iconic Bond theme, and after taking out one of the villains, he breaks the fourth wall to quip: "Shaken ... but not stirred."

The unofficial James Bond cameo in "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." TV movie is a reference to Ian Fleming's involvement with the original TV series from the 1960s.

An issue of the "MI6 Confidential" magazine reported that the Bond author met with producer Norman Felton about turning one of his non-fiction books into a TV show. Felton had already developed the general plot of a spy working for the United Nations and worked with Fleming to take the concept further. 

Fleming helped create characters like spy Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn), and he signed the rights over to Felton for £1 before filming began, according to Bond historian Bill Koenig. Fleming was pressured to do so by producer Albert Broccoli, as he thought a weekly spy show from the author would be competition for the 007 franchise. 

Years later, the TV film was produced by Michael Sloane and Viacom, it was not made by MGM (currently Amazon MGM), which has held the rights to Bond with the Broccoli family since 1981. This means the companies weren't legally able to name 007 outright in "The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E."