the pistol alone was still a working firearm. It was also modified by the studio to allow it to fire in full automatic "machine gun" mode. Unfortunately, this caught the attention of the US Treasury Department- the manufacture of automatic weapons without a license is very illegal, and the show nearly had the guns confiscated. In the end MGM was fined $2000 and the matter was closed. The prop masters of the series created six U.N.C.L.E. Specials at a cost of approximately $1,500 per gun, but only two had the full array of attachments. In the episodes, the gun(s) were used by Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin. The gun was extremely popular with viewers. MGM began to get fan mail addressed to "The Gun." At one point the gun was getting 500 letters per week. A US Army Ordinance General once asked if a few of the guns were available, he would like to borrow them for testing as possible weapons for the armed forces. The UNCLE Special in popular culture Reuben Klamer of Toylab designed a cap firing toy version of the weapon that included a bipod for the Ideal Toy Company as the "Napoleon Solo Gun" and also designed an "Illya Kuryankin" gun based on the AR-7. Larami offered a Z-Matic toy P-38 in the early 1980s with the scope molded onto the non-working slide. The pistol was offered both by itself and with a carbine barrel that slid over the stock pistol barrel, a detachable scope and a detachable stock. RMI (Replica Models Incorporated) offered the U.N.C.L.E. P-38 variant with all the silencer, extended magazine, stock and scope accessorie along with a shoulder holster, in their early 1970's catalog. Constructed of metal, with black plastic grips. Pulling the trigger moved the slide back, chambered a solid brass round, and ejected it, repeating the process for each trigger pull. In 1983, a toy U.N.C.L.E. gun that could fire rubber projectiles and convert into a robot action figure was made in Japan as part of Takara's Microman line under the name "MC-13 Gun Robo Walther P38 U.N.C.L.E." In 1984, the Microman "MC-13 Gun Robo Walther P38 U.N.C.L.E." toy mentioned above was imported to the US by Hasbro and renamed to create the original Transformers character Megatron. This version of the toy was modified to disable the projectile firing mechanism, and stickers were added to identify the toy as a