As he tells it, the Laugh-In producers thought no one would buy Joe as a goofy doofus on stage. They referred him to the producers of an upcoming show, I Spy, which would co-star Bill Cosby, with a main role to be filled for "Kelly," a suave, tennis-playing spy. They thought Joe's background he revealed to them in Army Intelligence and then in the CIA were a perfect match. They gave the role to Robert Culp, but Joe did say he learned some things from Bill Cosby during the auditions, and specifically in the time away from the studio, when they hung out.