Get Smart: "Dr. Yes" (1967)

In “Dr. Yes,” a 1967 episode of Get Smart (1965 – 1970), Maxwell Smart (Don Adams), 99 (Barbara Feldon) and CONTROL investigate the secret unknown force that is toppling U.S. rockets shortly after launch.. 

They fear that the evil Dr. Yes (Donald Davis) is behind the sabotage. The agents trace the electromagnetic disturbances to Lost Lake, and learn that Dr. Yes maintains an underwater base there. 

From this installation, he plans to destroy SAC (Strategic Air Command) using the United States’ own rockets.

Fortunately, Max is on the job, and is equipped with an electronic mosquito, the latest high-tech gadget concocted by CONTROL.

As its title indicates, “Dr. Yes” is a straight-up parody of the first James Bond movie ever made, 1962’s Dr. No.  

At the same time, however, the episode parodies the big screen’s fascination with Asian-styled villains in the mold of Sax Rohmer’s Fu-Manchu.

The episode’s narrative follows the details of Dr. No, with a super-villain diverting state-of-the-art rockets from his secret base.  In the movie, that base was in Jamaica; in the Get Smart episode, it’s at scenic Lost Lake. 

And like Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman), who puts Bond (Sean Connery) through some tough, brutal paces, Dr. Yes resorts to torture to get information from captives 86 and 99.

Dr. Yes closely resembles Fu Manchu, however, rather than Wiseman’s character, with a severe mustache and beard, long fingernails, and stereotypical Chinese fashion. He also speaks with a “movie” Chinese accent, which is about as realistic as the silver screen’s peculiar brand of Pidgin English.

The jokes fly fast and funny in “Dr. Yes.” Max’s gadgets in this installment are classic, including a diamond-cutting ring, a fishing rod that is an electronic homing device, and the aforementioned electronic mosquito.  

The mosquito is the weapon that defeats Yes. After Max clips Yes’s razor-sharp finger-nails, only one is left, and it is laced with poison.  Fortunately, when the Mosquito lands on Yes’s face, it impels him to scratch his own face, causing the super-villain to poison himself.

I also like the pre-Star Wars (1977) trash-compactor gag here, with a trailer’s walls closing in on Max and 99.  They nearly get squished.

Another great joke involves the KAOS agents that Max and 99 encounter at Lost Lake. Like Max and 99, they are undercover as “harmless, fun-loving vacationers.”  They just happen to speak with thick foreign accents.

Pop Art: Get Smart Novels (Temp Books Edition)

Get Smart Electronic Question and Answer Game

Model Kit of the Week: Get Smart

Pop Art: Get Smart (Dell Edition)

Trading Cards of the Week: Get Smart

Lunch Box of the Week: Get Smart

Board Game of the Week: Get Smart (Ideal)

Theme Song of the Week: Get Smart

Advert Artwork: Get Smart RCA Edition

Get Smart: "The Impossible Mission"

Would you believe...that fifty years later, Get Smart (1965 - 1970) is still pretty damned funny?

This classic TV series from creators Buck Henry and Mel Brooks arrived on American television (first NBC, then CBS) at the height of the James Bond/secret agent craze of the mid-1960s. 

On television, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West and Mission: Impossible ruled the air-waves, and Get Smart was a response to the fad, a situation comedy about the world's dopiest spy: Agent 86, Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) of CONTROL.

Max's job was to battle the evil forces of K.A.O.S., and he did so with his partner, the beautiful and highly capable Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), plus the latest and strangest gadgets imaginable, including the ubiquitous shoe phone.  

Max's put-upon boss was The Chief (Edward Platt), and Smart also occasionally teamed with Agent 13 (Dave Ketchum), an undercover expert who would hide in the most unusual places -- including filing cabinets and tree trunks -- and Hymie (Dick Gautier), a kindly robot who had escaped from K.A.O.S. control.

To my generation, the oft-repeated gags on Get Smart have become legendary, particularly the shoe phone, and The Cone of Silence.  The latter, as you may recall, was a top-secret device to promote security and secrecy, but which never operated as it was intended.  

Don Adam's catchphrases, many of which originated on an earlier program, The Bill Dana Show (1963 - 1965) are also well known even today: 

"Sorry about that, chief," "Would you believe...," "I asked you not to tell me that!" and, of course,  "missed it by that much..."

My favorite of Max's catchphrases, however is the one that he used frequently to cover his own profound ignorance. 

Whenever Max was confronted with a new and deadly K.A.O.S. gambit, he would feign prior knowledge of it and quip, "Of course, the old poison needle in the phonograph trick," or "the old biplane hidden in the haystack trick."

Get Smart's "The Impossible Mission," which first aired on September 21, 1968, also showcases one of Get Smart's must entertaining proclivities: to parody elements of (then) popular entertainment.  Over the course of the program's five year duration, Smart battled a villain called Dr. Yes, for instance, joined up with bikers in "The Mild One," satirized Britain's The Avengers ("Run, Robot Run,") and so on.  Here, as the title makes plain, Mission: Impossible gets mercilessly riffed.

As the episode commences, Maxwell Smart visits a bus depot to receive his orders from a tape recorder hidden in a locker.  The Chief's recorded voice informs him that his mission is to recover an equation for "Helmunitis" -- a disease that can cause the extinction of the human race -- before "The Leader," a K.A.O.S. mastermind, can acquire it. 

At the end of the message, The Chief dutifully informs Max that the tape recording will self-destruct in five seconds. 

But six seconds later, there is a massive explosion that destroys several lockers. 

Yet the tape recorder is still whole and undamaged,  and it begins to loudly replay the secret message over and over again. 

At a loss, Max stomps on the recorder, to no avail.  Then he bashes it with a stick.  Then, giving up, Max attempts to tuck the still-yammering tape recorder under his jacket and leave the depot unnoticed...

After Max assembles his team, rejecting Alfred E. Newman, Tiny Tim, and the Mona Lisa as prospective candidates (another great riff on another trademark Mission: Impossible scene), he learns from an informant (Jamie Farr) that the equation he seeks will be transmitted over live TV during a nighttime special featuring a band called Herb Talbot and the Tijuana Tin. 

Using a self-playing "computer trumpet," Max infiltrates the musical act, even as 99 joins the show as a chorus singer.  All of the chorus, incidentally, is dressed as Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp.

Soon, Max and 99 are discovered, and the Leader attempts to kill them.  The duo escapes in Little Tramp costumes, and Get Smart suddenly indulges in a lively, fast-motion salute to silent film comedy tradition. 

Before "The Impossible Mission" ends, Max proposes marriage to the love of his life, 99.  They then foil the Leader's plans together and defeat him by using "The old double door deception trick," which is actually pretty nifty, though I doubt Daniel Craig will be using it any time soon.

Finally Max offers a thoughtful requiem for the Leader.  "If only he had used his music for niceness instead of evil."

Yes Max, if only....

Watching Get Smart in 2015, it came as a shock to me just how much contemporary self-reflexive comedies such as The Simpsons or South Park owe this particular series. 

Get Smart confidently bounces from pop-culture allusion to pop-culture allusion with a sly, ingenious sense of fun that is widely emulated.  The gags come at lightning fast speed too, so that even if there's one that can't stick a landing, you're onto the next funny joke before you know it.  The many silly catchphrases serve as our point of identification or foundation in a free-wheeling format that bends and stretches, but never breaks

Yet even with a commendably fast pace and Adams rat-a-tat, staccato delivery (called "glicking," officially), Get Smart remains endearing because Adams and Feldon share a lot of chemistry.  Max fancies himself the world's most suave and debonair secret agent, and 99's tolerant, long suffering reply is universally, "Oh Max..."   Max and 99 (and Adams and Feldon in the respective roles) make for a charming, fun-to-watch couple.

I didn't see the 2008 Get Smart film so I can't comment knowledgeably on it, but I grew up with this version of the material and  so was pleasantly surprised, on recent viewing to see that it has grown up with me, as well.  Get Smart is still fresh and still funny.

Outré Intro: Get Smart (1965-1970)

Following the premiere of Goldfinger in 1964, the pop culture world launched into a 007 or James Bond craze. 

American television promptly jumped on board with the trend, offering such prime-time TV series as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964 - 1968), Mission: Impossible (1966 - 1972), and the great parody series from Buck Henry and Mel Brooks: Get Smart (1965-1970).

Get Smart focused on the mis-adventures of Agent 86, Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) of CONTROL. This hapless and over-confident agent was assigned missions from The Chief (Edward Platt) and partnered with the beautiful, sensible, and frequently life-saving agent, 99 (Barbara Feldon).  One recurring enemy was the nefarious KAOS.

The laughs on the series emerged from a couple of inspirations. 

One was Don Adams' act, which resulted in his catch-phrases appearing again and again ("would you believe?" "and loving it...," and others). 

 The other source was the spy milieu, and that milieu as used by the Bond films. In particular, Get Smart often used Bondian gags, but always pushed them one step into absurdity.

The series opening montage plays on that very idea, of the normal lapsing into the unusual, lapsing into the absurd (through repetition and then, finally, exaggeration).  

This montage is so famous that it actually appeared (with Homer in the Maxwell Smart role) as a couch gag on The Simpsons (1989 - ). It is probably one of the best-known, best-loved and most familiar introductions in TV history.

The intro begins with a staple of the 007 movies: a fast, stylish car.  

The car races into view and parks in front of a large, non-descript building. A well-dressed man (Smart, not 007, in this case), exits the vehicle and races into the building.

As he moves urgently (responding to a call from his secret HQ, perhaps), the series title flashes on the screen.

Next we're inside, and Max appears, coming out of a staircase that appears (from the signage above) to be an elevator, not a staircase.  

Already, we are getting into secret agent territory.  There is a secret truth under every day life.

We meet our star, Don Adams, as he looks around.  And walks through...another door.

Then, he sees giant steel doors...and goes through them (as we are introduced to the actress who portrays 99.)

Then, Max approaches sliding doors (as we are introduced to the actor who portrays the chief.)

We meet the series creators -- Mel Brooks and Buck Henry -- as  another door appears. This door recedes into the ceiling.

Then, another door, and you start to get the idea of exaggeration. at play here.  We're not only into the terrain of secrecy, but super-secrecy!  

We are not only moving into a secure location, but a super-secure location. And, you might rightly ask yourself, how would you get to CONTROL HQ...quickly?

Finally, Max Smart is through the seemingly-endless series of doors, and he arrives at a phone booth where he places a call.  

Once more, the idea here is of Bondian gadgetry, but also items that aren't really what they seem. A shoe that's a phone, for instance, or a wrist-watch houses a laser. The common is the extraordinary. The extraordinary is...silly.

Finally, Max reaches his final stop on the way to CONTROL.

By dialing a code on the rotary phone, the bottom drops out of the telephone booth, and he falls -- presumably -- to his destination, CONTROL HQ.

What organization in its right mind would feature an entrance like this one? 

That's the joke. 

We get several doors (repetition), and then a joke (a telephone booth with no floor). It captures perfectly the nature of this classic TV series.

Here are several variations of the Get Smart theme song and introduction.