Get Smart

Get Smart was an American comedy television series that ran from September 18, 1965 until 1970. It satirized the secret agent genre, which was quite popular in the late 1960s. It ran on the NBC television network from 1965 to 1969 and on CBS from 1969 to 1970, airing a total of 138 episodes.

Two movie versions were produced years after the end of the TV series; the theatrically released The Nude Bomb (aka, The Return of Maxwell Smart, aka Maxwell Smart and the Nude Bomb) in 1980 and the made-for-TV Get Smart, Again! in 1989. In 1995 the Fox Network launched an unsuccessful new series version.

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.

Contents

1 Stars

2 Distinctive sayings

3 Gadgets

3.1 Other Get Smart Productions

Stars

The series starred Don Adams as bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart, Agent 86. Barbara Feldon's character 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 [1] (http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/nonames.asp).) Smart and 99 worked for CONTROL, a secret U.S. Government spy agency. The nemesis of CONTROL was KAOS, and KAOS' Vice President of Public Relations and Terror, AKA Conrad Siegfried (Bernie Kopell), showed up often as Maxwell Smart's worst enemy. Other characters included the Chief of CONTROL, whose first name was once revealed as Thaddeus but who was always addressed as Chief (Ed Platt); Hymie the Robot, a powerful android who tended to take orders too literally; Agent 13, who was forever being stationed inside weird places such as mailboxes, washing machines, lockers, and other objects; Agent Larrabee (Robert Karvelas), the Chief's assistant; and Starkher, 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". [2] (http://www.plateaupress.com.au/wfw/eightysix.htm)

The show is also notable for its blaring and sometimes badly-timed laugh track.

Distinctive sayings

Many catch phrases and schticks have endured:

(After causing yet another disaster for the Chief) "Sorry about that, Chief."
"Now listen carefully ... [long list of directions to a secret rendezvous or some such] ... did you get that?" "Not all of it." "Which part didn't you get?" "The part after 'Now listen carefully'."
(Used when his enemies call his bluffs and he ineffectually resorts to more desperate ones) "Would you believe..."
"Missed it by that much."
"Don't tell me [he made yet another mistake and when his compatriot confirms it, he responds...] I asked you not to tell me that."
"Max!" (99's cry of anguish)
"The old...[complicated explanation]...trick" (often followed by "that's the second time this month")
"Max, you'll be in extreme danger every minute!" "...and loving it!"
"That's the second biggest ...(whatever)... I've ever seen."
(Used by Siegfried, usually to silence his sidekick, Shtarker who is doing something silly) "Starkher! Zis is KAOS, Ve don't... [whatever it was he was doing]... here!"

Gadgets

Smart would communicate with CONTROL using a dial telephone concealed in his shoe (a "shoe phone").

Smart would always insist on following the rules and, when in the Chief's office, would insist on speaking under the Cone of Silence. One of the show's recurring gags, the Cone of Silence was two transparent plastic hemispheres which were electrically lowered on top of Smart and the Chief, and which invariably malfunctioned, such that the characters wound up shouting in order to be understood by each other.

The AMT Corporation, a major producer of model car kits, produced a replica of the 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 another Carroll Shelby creation, a Shelby GT-500 convertible with a variation of the shoe phone, namely a giant rotary telephone dial covering the steering wheel.

Other Get Smart Productions

Don Adams again played a bumbling secret agent in the animated series Inspector Gadget, which was not officially 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.

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 Zach Smart, Max and 99's bumbling son, presumably one of the twins. Despite appearances by Don Adams and Barbara Feldon, the show failed to recapture the spirit of the original.

Reports of plans for a new big-screen version of Get Smart surface from time to time. Several actors including Jim Carrey have been mentioned as potential Maxwell Smarts.