Max la menace

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.

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!

Don Adams made himself a mark in TV history as Maxwell Smart, the toughest, and unbelievably the dumbest secret agent in the small screen. Along with his partner and girlfriend Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), Max takes on evil KAOS agents and preserves national security, and still not have a damn clue on what's going on! GET SMART lives on thanks to Adams and his fiddle-brained alter ego.

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!

I haven't seen an episode of this show in more than 10 years and yet all the scenes described above remain fresh...This show has to stand as one of the greatest of all time. It's hard to compare it to All In The Family, Cheers, or Seinfeld, but it's never been duplicated. Every time I hear "Not Craw, Craw" I have to smile. No one's mentioned the "Coughing Code" - when the cone of silence breaks down - always ending with Max's line - "you should do something about that cold Chief" The casting of the show was perfect. What made the show so great was that the creative plots were intertwined with crazy little sidebars - it's been years but I still remember one episode where 99 was doing a commercial in a tub, and was called away - and the producer/director of the commercial tries to coax his elderly mother in the tub - hilarious...

I wish these episodes were available on DVD...