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Get Smart

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Get Smart was an American comedy television series that ran from September 18, 1965 to May 1970; a revival of the series ran from January to February 1995. It satirized the secret agent genre, which was quite popular in the mid-1960s. It ran on the NBC television network from 1965 to 1969, on CBS from 1969 to 1970, and on FOX in 1995, airing a total of 145 episodes.

The series, written and created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, won seven Emmy Awards and was nominated for an additional fourteen Emmys and two Golden Globe Awards.

Two movie versions were produced years after the end of the NBC/CBS run of the TV series: the theatrically released The Nude Bomb (also known as The Return of Maxwell Smart or Maxwell Smart and the Nude Bomb) in 1980 and the made-for-TV Get Smart, Again! in 1989. The latter aired on ABC, making Get Smart the only television franchise to air new episodes on four different American television networks.

Contents

Stars

Don Adams as Agent Maxwell Smart, the title role of Get Smart!.
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Don Adams as Agent Maxwell Smart, the title role of Get Smart!.

Barbara Feldon portrayed Agent 99 of CONTROL.
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Barbara Feldon portrayed Agent 99 of CONTROL.

The series starred Don Adams as bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart, Agent 86. Barbara Feldon's character (Agent 99) had no name; even after Smart married her, he (and everyone else) would always address her as "99". (In one episode she said that her name was "Susan Hilton" but she later claimed that it was an alias.[link]) Smart and 99 worked for CONTROL, a secret U.S. Government spy agency. Together, the pair investigated and opposed various threats to the world while Smart's bumbling caused complications. However, at each story's climax, Smart and 99 never fail to save the day. (In "The Nude Bomb", Max worked for the PITS — Provisional Intelligence Tactical Service, and by this time, his shoe phone was Touch Tone.)

The nemesis of CONTROL was KAOS, and KAOS's Vice President of Public Relations and Terror, Siegfried (Bernie Kopell), showed up often as Maxwell Smart's opponent, or would-be assassin. Though on opposite sides, Max and Siegfried clicked personally, and spoke fondly of one another - even when trying to kill each other!

Other characters included the Chief of CONTROL (played by Edward Platt), whose middle name was once revealed as Thaddeus, but who was always addressed as Chief (when the Chief was an agent, they used letters and he was Agent Q); Hymie the Robot (Dick Gautier), a powerful android who tended to take orders too literally; Agent 13 (Dave Ketchum), who was forever being stationed inside weird places such as mailboxes, washing machines, lockers, and other objects; Agent 44 (Victor French), who regularly suffered the same fate as Agent 13; Agent Larrabee (Robert Karvelas), the Chief's slow-witted assistant; and Shtarker (King Moody), Siegfried's chief henchman.

The number 86 for Smart was presumably chosen because it was bartenders' slang for not serving an inebriated customer, having been derived from clerks' slang for "We're all out of the item ordered." One explanation of the origin of that usage is that 86 was rhyming slang for "nix".[link] (In theatrical and movie-making slang, to "86" something—a prop or a light, for instance—is to remove or "strike" it. Whether this, or the similar bartending use of the term, has any relevance to the number chosen for Maxwell Smart, is speculation.)

Distinctive sayings

Many catch phrases and schticks have endured:

Gadgets

Perhaps the most recognisable 'gag' from the show was Maxwell Smart's shoe phone, which has become somewhat of a comic icon: Smart would communicate with CONTROL using a rotary-dialled telephone concealed in his shoe, similar to a modern cell phone. While such a device was decades ahead of its time in real life, the need to take off his shoe to use it and the loud bell among other design flaws lead to various humorously awkward situations.

The shoe phone, along with the pen phone from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as well as real world code-breaking devices and other such items were on display at the Reagan Library's "Spies: Secrets from the CIA, KGB and Hollywood" exhibit from February 17 to July 14 2002. The term "shoe phone" has returned to currency as a slang expression for a handheld cellular telephone.

Another of the show's recurring gags was the Cone of Silence. Smart would pedantically insist on following CONTROL's security protocols; when in the Chief's office he would insist on speaking under the Cone of Silence -- two transparent plastic hemispheres which were electrically lowered on top of Smart and the Chief -- which invariably malfunctioned, requiring the characters to shout loudly in order to be understood by each other. In one episode, the device worked so badly that an outside observer, who could hear everything spoken inside, had to relay messages to the people inside because they couldn't hear each other. Other times, the Cone of Silence would malfunction while being lowered and fail to stop at the proper desk level; the device would then repeatedly crush down onto Agent 86 and the Chief, resulting in loud anguished screams. The 1989 reunion movie revealed that Max and 99 had purchased a surplus Cone and placed it over their bed -- it still didn't work.

The AMT Corporation, a major producer of model car kits, produced a replica of the 1965 Sunbeam Tiger roadster Smart drove in the opening credits. Complete with a cache of hidden weapons, it is the only kit of the Tiger produced to date and is highly coveted by collectors. The start of the 1968 season put Smart in a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia for the opening credits, which never appeared in the show itself. He also began driving a 1969 Opel GT, with a variation of the shoe phone, namely a giant rotary telephone dial covering the steering wheel.

Communication contraptions on the show were not limited to footwear: one episode had the Chief using the hour and minute hands of a clock (detached from the clock face) to communicate. Max once used a 'Bunsen burner phone' with the flame as the microphone: he had to put "Code P" into effect, and the device repeatedly disconnected when Max's explosive "P"s blew the burner's flame out.

Spies at work

CONTROL and KAOS didn't seem to be above everyday bureaucracy, and business quirks. KAOS is a Delaware corporation for tax purposes. The Guild of Surviving Control Agents is the union at CONTROL, and Max is their negotiator; he learns from a captured KAOS agent about all the benefits that KAOS agents have for their families as beneficiaries with the Chief in their presence and Max uses that information for his labor talks there and then.

In one episode, where Max infiltrates a KAOS-run garden shop, Max refuses to arrest the manager until after 5 p.m., so he can collect a full day's pay from the shop. The Chief threatens to fire him, but Max isn't afraid; according to CONTROL's seniority policy, "If I get fired from CONTROL, Larrabee moves up!" The Chief gives in and lets Max stay on the job, rather than risk having the inept Larrabee take Max's place.

In another episode, Siegfried and Max casually discuss the various flavors of cyanide pills they have been issued.

CONTROL also has a policy of burning pertinent documents after cases are closed; the reasons why were detailed in their rules and regulations book, but nobody can read them, since they burned the only copy!

And of course, in the spirit of company morale, both CONTROL and KAOS have their own bowling teams.

Other Get Smart productions

Adams again played a bumbling secret agent in the animated series Inspector Gadget and its prequel series Gadget Boy and Heather, which were not related to Get Smart. He also portrayed Maxwell Smart in a series of TV commercials in New Zealand for the Toyota Starlet in the late 1980s and in another series of popular Canadian ones in the late 1990s for a dial-around long distance carrier.

Smart and Agent 99 married near the end of the series, and she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The short-lived 1995 Fox revival starred Andy Dick as one of the twins, Zachary Smart, who was every bit the bumbler as his father. Despite appearances by Adams (Max is now chief of CONTROL) and Feldon (99 is now a congresswoman), the show failed to recapture the spirit of the original. The last epsiode of the 1995 series shows that just as Siegfried is leaving a room, Maxwell Smart accidentally activates an atomic bomb just before the end of the show. .

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A new big-screen version of Get Smart is in production, starring Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart. [link]

According to the Get Smart fansite 'wouldyoubelieve.com', HBO acquired the rights to Get Smart for DVD releases, however TVShowsonDVD.com reports that they licensed the show to Time-Life who are working on DVDs for a Fall 2006 release [link].

Books and comics

A series of original novels based upon the series were published in the late 1960s. In addition, Dell Comics published a comic book for 8 issues during 1966 and 1967.

References and Trivia

In an episode of Married... with Children, Al Bundy relates to neighbor Steve Rhoades how one of the ways he endures having sex with wife Peggy is by "propping a TV up on the pillow, so I can watch Get Smart!"

In a 1980 all-celebrity episode of Family Feud, Don Adams and Bernie Kopell once again found themselves on opposite sides, playing on behalf of charities. This time, Kopell's side won.

Goof

Kaos Mr Big

The black and white pilot is the only time KAOS Boss, aka "Mr. Big," is seen, played by Michael Dunn (although others played the head of KAOS in other episodes).

Regular cast

Recurring cast

CONTROL agents

Other (or not sure)

Guest appearances

Other guest appearances: Byron Morrow, Helen Kleeb, Val Avery, Bill Zuckert, Iris Adrian, Simon Oakland, Philip Pine, Len Lesser, Nestor Paiva, Maurice Marsac, Roger Price, Robert Ellenstein, Roy Engel, Jack Lambert, Byron Foulger, Vaughn Taylor, Tony Lo Bianco, Ted Knight, Jason Wingreen, Vince Howard, James Millhollin, Lee Bergere, Dino Natali, Howard Morton, Vic Tayback, William Boyett, Paul Dooley, Mickey Manners, Johnny Seven, Dick Wilson, Dort Clark, Mickey Deems, Paul Comi, Louis Quinn, Lewis Charles, Ralph Manza, Alex Rocco, Sid Haig, Iggie Wolfington, Mousie Garner, Barry Newman, Robert Easton, James Komack, Eddie Ryder, Larry Gelman, John Byner, Robert DoQui, Regis Philbin, Noam Pitlik, Jamie Farr, Mary Frann, Ivan Bonar, Johnny Silver, Bernard Barrow, Ron Masak, Avery Schreiber, Fred Willard, Dick Latessa, Ivor Francis, Jack DeLeon, Milton Parsons, Barney Phillips, Kathie Browne, Johnny Haymer, John S. Ragin, Henry Brandon, Ned Wertimer, Billy Barty, Danny Dayton, Don Diamond, Stanley Clements, Dana Elcar, John Barbour, Maury Wills, Cliff Norton, Ian Abercrombie, Jonathan Harris, John Zaremba.

Also cameo appearances by: Joey Bishop, Buddy Hackett, Bill Dana, Wally Cox, Danny Thomas, Steve Allen, Ernest Borgnine, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, Robert Culp, Phyllis Diller, Martin Landau, Richard Deacon.

See also

External links

 

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