Don Adams as Max (left) and Barbara Feldon as 99
September 18, 1965, 60 years ago: Get Smart premieres on NBC. It was a parody of the James Bond spy films. The pilot episode was in black & white, but all the other episodes were in color. The 1965-66 season was the one in which most American prime-time TV shows switched to color, if they hadn't already.
The show was created by Mel Brooks, already well-known for his comedy routine "The 2,000-Year-Old Man" with Carl Reiner, and as, along with Reiner, a writer for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows; and Buck Henry, then known as a writer for the American version of the British satire show That Was the Week That Was.
Henry said that Daniel Melnick of the TV production company Talent Associates asked him to create a show about a bumbling secret agent, citing, "The two biggest things in the entertainment world today are James Bond and Inspector Clouseau," Britain's fictional secret agent and the inept French cop of the Pink Panther movies, respectively. I guess Melnick had forgotten about The Beatles, meaning we could have gotten a spy with a Beatle haircut and/or a band. (We finally got that in 1997: Austin Powers.)
Don Adams played Maxwell Smart, who worked in Washington, D.C. for the American intelligence agency CONTROL, as their Agent 86. He reported to the Chief of CONTROL, played by Ed Platt. The Chief's full name was never revealed, but a court case forced him to reveal his first name: Thaddeus.
Max was often partnered with Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldon. Despite the fact that Max and 99 got married in Season 4 and became the parents of twins in Season 5, he never called her anything but "99." At one point, she used the name Susan Hilton, but explained to Max that it wasn't her real name.
Max was Agent 86. That number may have matched his IQ. Fortunately, he survived many cases because he was just plain lucky. Once, he tried to defuse a bomb that could have destroyed D.C., and in the process, his tie got caught in the mechanism, stopping it. 99 said, "Max, that was close!" Max said, "You don't know how close, 99: I was thinking of wearing my bow tie today!"
Like the Bond films, Get Smart became famous for its gadgets. Unlike the Bond films, the gadgets on Get Smart were intentionally funny. The most notable was the shoe-phone, which could ring at inopportune times, and draw strange looks from bystanders. Retroactively, it's become known as "the original Smart phone." Then there was the Cone of Silence: Whenever it was lowered in the Chief's office, over the heads of Max and the Chief, they couldn't hear each other, but anybody on the outside of it could hear them.
This was during the Cold War, including the Vietnam War, but CONTROL's main opponent wasn't the Soviet Union, or the People's Republic of China: It was KAOS, a private terrorist group, beholden to no nation. As with CONTROL, the letters in KAOS didn't stand for anything -- or, if they did, it was never revealed onscreen. The name was a joke: An operative was said to be "an agent of chaos."
And it was a running gag, and even once commented on by a KAOS agent, that, even though Americans were used to the Russians as the current enemy, most KAOS agents spoke with a German accent, as if they were the old enemies, the Nazis.
As with the name "KAOS," this was no accident: Most of the show's creative minds were Jewish: Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky, Buck Henry was Henry Zuckerman, the executive producer was Leonard Stern (who used his real name), the show's main composer was Irving Szathmary (brother of comedian William Szathmary, a.k.a. Bill Dana, a.k.a. José Jiménez), one of the main directors was Bruce Bilson (his real name, grandfather of actress Rachel Bilson), one of the main writers was James Komack (real name, later the co-creator of Chico and the Man and Barney Miller), one of the main producers was Arne Sultan (real name), and Adams was Donald Yarmy. Not Jewish: Gary Nelson, who directed the most episodes of the show.
In the 1st 2 seasons, the opening sequence showed Max driving a red 1965 Sunbeam Tiger convertible up to a building, getting out, walking through the front door, running down the stairs, and then walking through a series of steel doors that closed loudly behind him, until he got to a phone booth, the most famous phone booth in the history of American television. (But 2nd in the world behind Doctor Who's TARDIS.) Max dialed 3 numbers (push-button phones had been introduced in 1962, but most phone booths still had rotary dials), hung up, and then fell through a trap door, presumably reaching CONTROL headquarters underground.
For the 3rd and 4th seasons, Max drove up to a different building, and in a different car: Volkswagen had become a sponsor of the show, so his new car was a light blue Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, also a convertible.
For the show's 5th season, 1969-70, it moved to CBS. The opening was slightly reworked, with opening shots of the U.S. Capitol Building, the White House, and the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, to hammer home the point that the home base for CONTROL was Washington. And with a change in network came a change in sponsors: General Motors, through their Buick brand, sponsored, so Max's new car was a 1969 Buick Opel GT, a sports car but not a convertible. The theme song also had a slightly different arrangement.
The show is best remembered for Max's catchphrases. Whenever he screwed up, he would say, "Sorry about that, Chief!" (Or to whoever he'd wronged: "Sorry about that, 99!") When he didn't quite get something done, he held his fingers a little bit apart and said, "Missed it by that much!" He might say to someone, "Don't tell me... " and be told that exact thing, and follow it with, "I asked you not to tell me!"
When seeing an unnecessarily large KAOS gimmick, he would say, "That's the second-biggest (whatever it was) I've ever seen!" When an unusual tactic was used, by either side, Max would say, "Of course: The old (whatever it was) trick!" Given a particularly dangerous assignment, the Chief would say, "Max, you're going to be facing danger, risking your life at every turn." Max would respond, "And... loving it!"
The most-quoted is usually the "Would you believe... " routine. Example:
Max, smiling: "You'd better surrender! This building has been surrounded by 40 CONTROL agents!"
KAOS agent: "I find that very hard to believe."
Max, his smile shrinking: "Would you believe, 30?"
KAOS agent: "No."
Max: "How about one boy scout?"
KAOS agent: "No."
Max: "Girl scout?"
Aside from the regulars, Adams, Feldon and Platt, the supporting characters often included:
* Agent Larabee (Robert Karvelas), the Chief's assistant, dumb enough to make Max look, well, smart.
* Agent 13 (David Ketchum), who always seemed to be undercover in tight places where a full-grown man shouldn't have been able to fit, like lockers, trash cans, washing machines, and so on.
* Dr. Steele (Ellen Weston), a CONTROL scientist whose brilliance -- this was the 1960s, so she was lucky that this was even mentioned -- was overlooked, as she often went undercover as a go-go dancer, a stripper, a cocktail waitress, etc.
* Ludwig Von Siegfried (Bernie Kopell), a high official within KAOS, although his title varies.
* Starker (King Moody, and the name was always pronounced with the German accent, "Shtarker"), a dumb KAOS agent, but, apparently, Siegfried's right-hand man -- "Max," to Siegfried's "Chief." (As best as I can remember, there was no regular female agent that was KAOS' answer to 99.)
* Hymie the Robot (Dick Gautier), a humanoid robot built by KAOS, but convinced by Max to defect to CONTROL on his first mission. Like the children's book character Amelia Bedelia, he tended to take things literally: On that first mission, Max needed to hurry, so he said, "Shake a leg, Hymie," and Hymie shook his left leg.
Inspired by the 1966 Batman series being turned into a successful film, Talent Associates became one of several production companies that considered turning their sitcoms into feature-length films. But after the film based on The Munsters, Munster Go Home, flopped, the others changed tactics. Most such ideas were scrapped entirely, but since A Man Called Smart had already been filmed, it was turned into a 3-part episode of the series, to close Season 2, on April 8, 15 and 22, 1967.
The show's last episode aired on May 15, 1970. Like many other shows, it became even more popular in reruns. Adams was typecast, and never got out of Max's shadow. In the 1970s, he became a regular panelist on game shows. In the 1980s, he voiced the title character in the cartoon Inspector Gadget, who had Hymie the Robot's skills, but a brain no better than Max's; and, like Max, needed feminine support (in that case, his niece, Penny).
Another cartoon, The Plastic Man Comedy-Adventure Show, gave the titular stretchy superhero Max's catchphrases, and even a boss known only as "The Chief" (although, in this case, a woman.) In this continuity, Plastic Man's girlfriend, and eventually wife and the mother of "Baby Plas," was named Penny, which may have led to the name of Inspector Gadget's nice.
Plastic Man was voiced by Michael Bell, who also voiced Wonder Twin Jan and his monkey Gleek, supervillains Lex Luthor and the Riddler, and others on Super Friends. He would go on to voice Space Ace on Space Stars, Bruce Banner (but not the Hulk) on the cartoon version of The Incredible Hulk, Doctor Octopus on Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, good guy Duke and bad guy Major Bludd on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Cyclops on X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men, and Batman on Tiny Toon Adventures.
Don Adams made 5 guest appearances on The Love Boat. In one, his character was shot, but wouldn't go to see the ship's doctor, Adam Bricker. He didn't trust Bricker. Bricker was played by Bernie Kopell, formerly Siegfried.
On March 19, 1974, Ed Platt died at the age of 58. His son later said that it was a suicide, the result of untreated depression.
In 1980, Universal Pictures produced The Nude Bomb, in which a KAOS agent has a bomb which, when detonated, destroys all fabric within its range. He plans to detonate enough of them to destroy all clothing outside the dome that protects his hideout, which includes a factory that will produce new clothes, of his own designs. The idea is that he wants to corner the fashion market: Everyone will have to buy his clothes, much like everyone would have to buy gold from Auric Goldfinger if his plot in the James Bond film Goldfinger had succeeded.
Pretty much the only thing this film kept from Get Smart was the basic concept. Adams again played Max, but he and Karvelas as Larabee were the only returning actors. Dana Elcar played the Chief. There was a female agent, but it wasn't 99: It was Agent 36, played by Pamela Hensley, a.k.a. the villainous Princess Ardala from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. There was no mention of what happened to 99. There was an Agent 13, but he was now played by Joey Forman. And Sylvia Kristel, the Dutch actress best known for the Emmanuelle porn films, played Agent 34. Even CONTROL was renamed, as PITS, but at least they said what this stood for: Provisional Intelligence Tactical Service.
The Nude Bomb, well, bombed at the box office. It was recut for television, with the title The Return of Maxwell Smart -- apparently, as with the 1960s police drama The Naked City, you could have the word "Naked" in the title of a TV show, but not the word "Nude" -- and aired on NBC.
In 1989, ABC aired Get Smart, Again! It was a true reunion movie, with Gary Nelson directing and Leonard Stern writing. Aside from Platt, to whose memory the film was dedicated, pretty much everybody was back. KAOS had returned after a corporate takeover (providing another inspiration for the Austin Powers films), with Siegfried (Kopell) and Starker (Moody) running it for the new owners, threatening the world with a weather machine.
So the U.S. Intelligence Agency, a (fictional) successor to CONTROL, calls in Max, who had been transferred to the State Department in 1974, and gives him permission to reactivate any former CONTROL agents he wants. So he gets the old gang back together. Feldon was back: 99 had written a memoir titled Out of CONTROL, but the inside joke was kept up: Her real name on the book cover was obscured. Gautier was back: Hymie had been employed as a crash test dummy. Karvelas was back as Larabee.
The new head of KAOS turns out to be Nicholas Demente, 99's publisher (played by Harold Gould), who intends not only to extort the money but also to create weather that will keep people eternally indoors and interfere with television reception, forcing millions of Americans to entertain themselves by buying Demente's books and publications. In other words, a variation on the Nude Bomb plot, but also inside joke, at the expense of the TV industry itself.
The TV-movie got good ratings, so Fox tried a continuation series. But it took until 1995 to get the new Get Smart on the air. Counting ABC's 1989 TV-movie, this made Get Smart the 1st TV franchise to appear on all 4 major networks.
Max was now the Chief of a revived CONTROL. 99 -- whose real name is still not revealed, after 30 years -- has been elected to Congress. (Hey, if Maude Findlay from Maude and Carol Seaver from Growing Pains could get elected to Congress, why not America's favorite former lady spy?)
Remember the twins? They hadn't been mentioned since the original series was canceled. In this series, Andy Dick (now better known for his substance abuse and the awful behavior it's caused) played their son, Zach Smart, the new Agent 86. He has his own counterpart to Agent 99, Agent 66, played by Elaine Hendrix. Ketchum returned as 13, and Kopell returned as Siegfried.
But the Cold War was over, and the War On Terror hadn't yet begun. There was no audience for Max and his adventures. Only 7 episodes aired, from January 8 to February 19, 1995. The writers didn't mention Zach's twin sister, but the plan, if there had been a 2nd season, was to have introduced her as... a defector and the new head of KAOS! Of course: The old Evil Twin trick! (Albeit fraternal and of the opposite gender.)
In 2008, a film version of Get Smart was released, setting the story in the present day. Steve Carell played Max, Anne Hathaway played 99, Alan Arkin played the Chief, David Koechner played Larabee, Bill Murray played Agent 13, Patrick Warburton played Hymie, Terence Stamp ("Kneel before Zod!") played Siegfried, Ken Davitian played Starker, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson played Max's hero Agent 23 (who turns out to be a double agent for KAOS), and James Caan played the President (a fictional one, not real-life current President George W. Bush).
With the War On Terror making such a plot relatable again, the film was successful, but a planned Get Smart 2 got stuck in "development hell," and was abandoned.
As I said, Ed Platt died in 1974. Irving Szathmary died in 1983, Robert Karvelas in 1991, James Komack in 1997, King Moody in 2001, Don Adams in 2005, Leonard Stern in 2011, Dick Gautier in 2017, Buck Henry in 2020, Gary Nelson in 2022, and David Ketchum last month. As of September 18, 2025, Barbara Feldon, Ellen Weston, Bernie Kopell, Bruce Bilson and Mel Brooks are still alive.
September 18, 1965 was a Saturday. This was also the day the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie premiered on NBC.
* This new season, NBC also premiered Run for Your Life on September 13, Please Don't Eat the Daisies and the much-mocked My Mother the Car on September 14, I Spy on September 15, the Western Laredo and the sitcom Mona McCluskey on September 16, Hank and a TV version of Mister Roberts on September 17, The Wackiest Ship in the Army on September 19, and, outlasting all other shows debuting in the 1965-66 season, the soap opera Days of Our Lives on November 8.
* ABC premiered the Westerns The Legend of Jesse James and A Man Called Shenandoah on September 13, the comedy western F Troop on September 14, the Western The Big Valley and the modern comedy Gidget on September 15, The Long, Hot Summer on September 16, the spy series Honey West and a TV version of Tammy on September 17, The F.B.I. on September 19, and The Dating Game on December 20.
* CBS premiered Green Acres and Lost in Space on September 15, Hogan's Heroes and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on September 17, and The Loner and The Trials of O'Brien on September 18.
And there were lots of new cartoons premiering. The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show debuted on NBC on September 9. Sinbad Jr. and his Magic Belt debuted in syndication on September 11. The Beatles, essentially based on their films A Hard Day's Night and Help!, debuted on September 25, and ran 2 years, by which point they had far surpassed their "Loveable Mop Tops" phase.
October 2 saw the debuts of The New 3 Stooges in syndication; and, all on NBC, The Hillbilly Bears, Precious Pupp, Squiddly Diddly and Winsome Witch. Milton the Monster debuted on ABC on October 9.
