Get Smart-on dvd

[schwenko]

from the NY Times

When KAOS Threatens, Talk to the Shoe

By VINCENT COSGROVE
Published: July 29, 2007

A SYMPHONY orchestra plays before a hushed audience. Suddenly, the shrill ring of a telephone cuts across the concert hall. People turn to stare at the source of the annoying sound. A dark-haired man rises and walks to the lobby, where he seeks refuge in a broom closet. There, he removes a shoe — and answers the phone hidden under the sole and heel. He also accidentally locks himself in the closet. Thus is the bungling secret agent Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) introduced in the 1965 pilot of the classic spy spoof “Get Smart.”

“That was actually the first time that phones went off in an audience — we were prescient,” says Mel Brooks, who created the series with Buck Henry. Mr. Brooks’s observation is part of a 25-DVD collection from HBO Video that includes all 138 episodes, lovingly restored and remastered, and a slew of features (including commentaries, outtakes and a “Get Smart” reunion seminar from 2003).

Employing a strident, know-it-all voice inspired by the actor William Powell, Mr. Adams makes Max, a k a Agent 86 of CONTROL, a likable, dapper doofus who saves the day, usually by accident. Like a clueless James Bond crossed with Inspector Clouseau and armed with an array of silly gadgets, Max regularly matches half-wits with KAOS, an international ring of bad guys as inept as Max.

On Max’s side are Agent 99 (a beguiling Barbara Feldon) and the Chief (Edward Platt, the straightest of comic straight men).

No matter how ridiculous the plot — and every episode is ridiculous — the writers loonily tie together the story in the end. They also get to poke fun at government ineptitude, movie genres, classic mystery novels and other television shows. In a “Mission: Impossible” parody Max opens a folder with photos of secret agents. Included are Tiny Tim, the Mona Lisa and Mad magazine’s mascot, Alfred E. Neuman.

Then there’s Siegfried, a former Nazi turned KAOS agent (Bernie Kopell, who would have been great in another of Mr. Brooks’s creations, “The Producers”). In one of many appearances Siegfried threatens the United States with global cooling. Blizzards smother the nation because Siegfried has installed a giant electric fan at the North Pole, and it’s blowing snow south.

In “Ship of Spies” Max must find a killer who makes a clip-clop noise. Unfortunately every suspect aboard the freighter makes a clip-clop noise, including the peg-legged captain. Max asks him about his leg.

“You’ve heard of the great white whale?” says the captain.

Max asks, “That was done by the great white whale?”

“No, that was done by a small blue convertible.”

The series popularized a number of catchphrases, including Max’s perennial apology for messing up, “Sorry about that, Chief,” and his famous query “Would you believe...?” Max posed the question many times through “Get Smart’s” five-year run, starting with the pilot, when he tries to bluff Mr. Big (the diminutive Michael Dunn).

Max: “Seven Coast Guard cutters are converging on this boat. Would you believe it? Seven?”

Mr. Big: “I find that pretty hard to believe.”

Max: “Would you believe six?”

Mr. Big: “I don’t think so.”

Max: “How ’bout two cops in a row boat?”

Mr. Adams reprised Max three times before his death in 2005: in the 1980 feature “The Nude Bomb,” nine years later in the TV movie “Get Smart, Again!” and in a short-lived “Get Smart” series on Fox in 1995. Next year Steve Carell tries to fit into Max’s shoes with a new “Get Smart” movie. Whether there’s a phone in one of those shoes remains to be seen.

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