Get Smart

Get Smart stands as the single most brilliant television comedy EVER. Before Hot Shots!, before Frank Drebin, before Airplane!, before Kentucky Fried Movie, before Young Frankenstein, and before Blazing Saddles, there was Get Smart, the creation of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. This show, which would go on to inspire Police Squad!, arguably the second most brilliant television comedy ever, presented in Maxwell Smart the most completely asanine leading man thus far in television history, and as a result provided for more stupid jokes than ever before. Perhaps the first moment in television where comedy did not require a laugh track (though it did USE one, it would have flown fine without one), this show would inspire nearly every film by Mel Brooks and Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker. Can we really imagine Hedley Lamaar from Blazing Saddles without Maxwell Smart having preceded him? Can we really imagine Frank Drebin without Maxwell Smart having preceded him? The answer to these questions MUST be "no." Get Smart was a rare moment in television comedy history, and it has given us a truly rich comedic tradition ever since. Thank you, Buck, Don, and Barbara!

Its writers/creators included Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.

'Nuff said.

But, since IMDb won't let me get away with saying just that, I'll just have to write more.

How can you go wrong with something by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry? It's obvious that the actors are thoroughly enjoying themselves in this show, and this enthusiasm was infectious. I was a very little girl in 1965, and I used to sit up with my father to watch TV after dinner and the nightly installment of whatever book he was reading to us. We sat together and watched Get Smart, Hogan's Heroes, McHale's Navy, among others, all of which are now considered classics. Why? Because, while the shows themselves were very topical (Get Smart was about the Cold War - as is Bullwinkle -- and Hogan and McHale fought in WWII which had ended barely 20 years earlier), the humor itself did not rely on specific current events. They were just out-and-out funny.

They still are.

The funniest but rarest episodes were those that involved Hymie the robot who delivered wacky lines deadpan like....er...a robot. He fell in love with another robot - a soda vending machine and his wooing line was: "I like you so much because.....you are so simple." How about The Claw, the FuManChu-like or Dr. No doppleganger, who was about as inept as Maxwell himself. He tells his factotum to show the captive Smart the bamboo under the fingernails torture and starts screaming "Aaaaa! Not on me, you fool!."

At one time, Smart was assigned to solve a case of a spate of kidnappings of blond young women. It turns out that The Claw was just after one blond woman. He explains to Smart: "Unfortunately to us orientals, all blond women look alike."

Unfortunately, the movies were not as funny as the original season episodes.

'Get Smart' holds a special place in the hearts of Australian kids growing up in the 1970s. Throughout that decade it was on almost continuous repeat, and at least two generations of couch potatoes almost had the whole series memorized by the time they graduated high school. But you know what? Watch it today and it's STILL the funniest TV show EVER!

Nobody but Don Adams could have played Maxwell Smart. He IS Maxwell Smart! Adams comic timing and expressions are superb. It's a pity he hasn't gotten the recognition he deserves. Surrounded by the first rate Barbara Feldon ('99') and Edward Platt ('The Chief'), supported by a fabulous group of comic actors (particularly Bernie Kopell as Siegfried), and some talented guest stars (most unforgettable - Larry Storch as 'The Groovy Guru'!), and with consistently funny scripts, this show set a standard in comedy that is as good as, if not better than, much more "respected" shows like 'M.A.S.H.', 'Taxi' and 'Cheers'.

Forget the reunions, movies and attempts to revive 'Get Smart'. Just stick with the original and best "grooovy baby" Super Spy! There's nothing as hilarious as this show at its best! One of the greatest TV shows of all time.

To review GET SMART is like giving a speech on "What I think of my Mother-In-Law! There will NEVER be another Max - even "Max" himself couldn't do it in 1995. GET SMART is a 60's time-capsule, a reminder of a life style that has so long disappeared it hurts to remember!

No matter how many times you see it - its still funny..it will ALWAYS be funny - it even transcends humor. It is something so comfortable and embraceable you can temporarily forget every day to day hassle that may be niggling at you. For those with even longer memories, Maxwell Smart had his embryonic exposure as the store detective "Glick" in the Bill Dana show...almost exactly the same character. No matter, the combination of Don Adams, Barbara Feldon and the long suffering (and late) Ed Platt were arguably the most charismatic acting trilogy ever screened. Dear old Bernie Kopell as Siegfried, Max's nemesis in CHAOS and David Ketchum as the insanely hidden Agent 13 combined to raise GET SMART to heights will never again be assailed. Probably the only show ever came close to being as fondly remembered is the Adam West/Burt Ward BATMAN series of the same period.

Think about it! How many people in the Western World of most any age have never heard of Max's shoe-phone, the cone of silence? or the phrase "Would you believe?" THAT is a measure of the penetration of GET SMART in current society. Along with THE FLINSTONES, our lives have all been enriched by this most enduring of legends!