NETWORK: NBC
Following the second World War, the United States fell into a Cold War with the Soviet Union. During this time, stories of international espionage, from war stories to new stories of intelligence against foreign enemies, gained popularity. For popular culture, this culminated in the James Bond series of films which began with Sean Connery in the title role in 1962. This led to other spy offerings, such as Secret Agent (aka Danger Man), The Avengers, and others. But of course, when anything gets popular so does the comedic parody of it. Bond film had several tongue-in-cheek imitators, and into this stew of the serious and silly spy series surfaced Get Smart.
Created by comedy writers Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart followed the adventures of Maxwell Smart, a secret agent for the American organization Control, as he battled the nefarious foreign organization Kaos (chaos vs control, get it?). Kaos was a sort of non-specific other of our European foes, often Russian, but some German thrown in there as well, particularly in the character of Siegfried, the primary antagonist. Smart, Agent 86 (his number is a joke, as to "86" someone is old slang for killing them) is played by Don Adams, at the time perhaps best recognized as the voice of Tennessee Tuxedo in the old cartoon show (and known to later generations as the voice of Inspector Gadget). He teams up with a female partner known only as Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldon, and has all sorts of silly escapades. In this season, 99's real name was briefly revealed, only for it to have been a false undercover name at the end of the episode. One of the series mandates from the creators was that her name never be known, and the show sticks to that.
Get Smart was a single camera comedy series, which makes sense stylistically. It's shooting style parodies a more serious television intrigue drama of the day such as Mission: Impossible. The primary signal of its comedic sentiment in terms of television style is the ever-present laugh track. This type of series, already innovated by shows like The Monkees, moving away from the three-camera sitcom, would continue, laugh track included, into the following decade.
Get Smart is perhaps best remembered for its iconic title sequence, in which Smart pulls up to his office building and then descends the stairs to pass through a series of enormous doors down a long corridor to a phone booth, inside which he drops through the floor. Series star Don Adams sells the moment very well because I had never actually considered that in reality he was just crouching down in the phone booth; no floor actually drops in the shot. During the show's closing credits, Smart returns and does the sequence in reverse (only to get his nose caught in a door).
I first saw Get Smart when I was a kid in reruns on Nickelodeon. And not just on Nick at Nite; they actually ran it mid-day for awhile. I was instantly a fan because the goofy humor plays to a broad age range. There's always something funny about a man talking into a shoe. Our modern ubiquitous cell phones make the idea of a phone in a shoe a little less ridiculous, don't they? But I hadn't seen the show for years, and I discovered many episodes this season that I didn't remember seeing.
The series' third season continued much as the previous seasons had,
though by this time co-creator Buck Henry had left the show. There were a
number of celebrity cameos from personalities like Bob Hope, and a
guest spots from Carol Burnett and Don Rickles. The Rickles episode actually turned into a
two-parter because he and Adams riffed so much the show became too long.
Get Smart allowed itself to play a little beyond parody of the spy genre. For example, in "Mawell Smart, Private Eye", cutbacks force Max to moonlight as a private investigator and the episode sends up the classic '40s noir detective style. In "The Mild Ones", Max and 99 go undercover with a motorcycle gang. Smart gets a black partner for an episode in a nod to the contemporary series I Spy which starred Bill Cosby. In another, Smart becomes a fugitive pursuing the one-armed man who framed him; sound familiar? And in a send-up of The Prisoner of Zenda, Don Adams plays dual roles as both Smart and his double, the king of a foreign nation. Doubles feature a few times this season. The episode that won the Emmy was "The Spy Who Met Himself" in which KAOS creates lookalikes to infiltrate control. Once again, Adams flexes his acting muscles playing Smart's doppelganger.
Like other series of the late 1960s, particularly those written by old comedy veterans of the '50s, shots were fired at the growing hippie culture and psychedelia. If The Monkees showed us that the kids were all right, Get Smart answers back that there's still something wrong with them in "The Groovy Guru". A mysterious radio DJ called the Groovy Guru is hypnotizing America's youth through rock music that turns them into mindless go-go dancing zombies. I'll let you decide if there's an underlying message there.
Another aspect of late '60s television is the slow shift in broadcast standards. One of Control's top scientists is a woman, Dr. Steele, who works undercover as a stripper/burlesque dancer. This is a little more risque than we were used to in an era when Mary Tyler Moore had to fight to wear slacks and Barbara Eden still can't show her bellybutton on I Dream of Jeannie.
But the series has its broader silly side, such as the fact Control has a robot working for them named Hymie. He's more an android, played by Dick Gautier with very robotic movements. Gautier's physical comedy sensibilities are surprisingly good in this role. After a tune-up, he jumps about uncontrollably and it's both funny and convincing. I quite enjoyed Gautier's performance. Hymie appears in several episodes this season. The best is "When Good Fellows Get Together". Here, KAOS builds their own evil robot, and only Hymie can stop him. It's a funny show, but there's a lot of subtext to the writing. Hymie constantly worries that he and Max aren't friends and that he's treated differently because he's not human. He has a few lines that made me wonder, especially considering his name is Hymie, if the writers were making a statement about the treatment of Jews. Regardless, Hymie doesn't want to fight against Groppo, the KAOS robot. He thinks they can be friends. Ultimately, when a fight must come, Hymie deduces "nice is nice, but enough is enough." It's a good exploration of pursuing peace when possible, but not being a pushover.
Though perhaps not as strong as earlier seasons, season three of Get Smart is a lot of fun with a variety of styles and gags that are both of their time and timeless. It is very well-shot, especially given time and budget restraints of television. Don Adams shows off his great talent, even directing episodes. It's no surprise that he won the Emmy for lead actor in a comedy for the second consecutive year. This season the series also picked up a Direction award and a nomination for Feldon.
FAVORITE EPISODES: The Spy Who Met Himself; One of Our Olives is Missing; When Good Fellows Get Together, The Mild Ones, Don't Look Back, 99 Loses Control
UP NEXT: Get Smart (again!)
