Back in March, I watched an episode of the original Mission: Impossible TV series, which led me to look the show up on Wikipedia.
I was amused by the paragraph about vaguely Eastern-European-esque place names and words used in the series:
Although a Cold War subtext is present throughout the series, the actual Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union is rarely mentioned over the course of the series. [. . .] However, in the early years, [. . .] many of the targets appear to be leaders of fictional Slavic countries. Major named enemy countries include the “European People's Republic” and the “Eastern European Republic.” Additionally, real languages spoken in Eastern Europe are used. In the Season One episode “The Carriers,” one of the villains reads a book whose title is the (incorrect) Russian Na Voina (About War); police vehicles are often labelled as such with words such as “poliiçia” and “poIiia”; and a gas line or tank would be labelled “Gaz,” which is a Romanian translation. This “language,” referred to by the production team as “Gellerese” [after series creator/producer Bruce Geller], was invented specifically to be readable by non-speakers of Slavic languages. Their generous use of it was actually intended as a source of comic relief.
