Comments on: Would you believe...

Would you believe...

zarq — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:43:24 -0800

What do you need to be an international CONTROL super spy fighting the forces of KAOS? A Shoe-Phone. A Cone of Silence. A Bulletproof Invisible Wall and a Laser Blazer. Then, and only then, can you Get Smart.

I Asked You Not To Tell Me That! The following classified background information is marked "Metafilter Readers Only" and can only be seen at Wikipedia:

"Get Smart was a sitcom that ran for five seasons between 1965 and 1970. A parody of secret agent/spy movies and tv shows, (such as the James Bond films,) t centers on bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart, also known as Agent 86. His female partner is Agent 99. Both work for CONTROL, a secret U.S. government counter-intelligence agency based in Washington, DC. The pair investigates and thwarts various threats to the world, though Smart's bumbling nature and demands to do things by-the-book invariably cause complications. However, Smart never fails to save the day. Looking on is the long-suffering head of CONTROL, "Chief." Agent 99 would eventually become the first woman on an American hit sitcom to keep her job after marriage and motherhood. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry were commissioned to write a script about a bungling James Bond-like hero. Brooks described the premise for the show they created as, "I wanted to do a crazy, unreal comic-strip kind of thing about something besides a family. No one had ever done a show about an idiot before. I decided to be the first." So they proposed the show to ABC, where network officials called their show "un-American" and demanded a "lovable dog to give the show more heart" and scenes showing Maxwell Smart's mother. Brooks strongly objected to their latter suggestion: "They wanted to put a print housecoat on the show. Max was to come home to his mother and explain everything. I hate mothers on shows. Max has no mother. He never had one."

Get Smart won 7 Emmys and received another 14 nominations. Starring Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, Edward Platt and Bernie Kopell. Some familiar names guest starred. Would You Believe They Made A Million Episodes? No? Okay, how about 138? Season One (1965-1966) Playlist 1) Mr. Big 2: Diplomat's Daughter 3: School Days 4: Our Man in Toyland 5: Now You See Him, Now You Don't 6: Washington 4, Indians 3 7: KAOS in CONTROL 8: The Day Smart Turned Chicken 9: Satan Place 10: Our Man in Leotards 11: Too Many Chiefs 12: My Nephew the Spy 13: Aboard the Orient Express 14: Weekend Vampire 15: Survival of the Fattest 16: Double Agent 17: Kisses for KAOS 18: The Dead Spy Scrawls 19: Back to the Old Drawing Board 20: All in the Mind 21: Dear Diary 22: Smart the Assassin 23: I'm Only Human 24: Stakeout on Blue Mist Mountain 25: The Amazing Harry Hoo 26: Hubert's Unfinished Symphony 27: Ship of Spies: Part 1 28: Ship of Spies: Part 2 29: Shipment to Beirut 30: The Last One in is a Rotten Spy Season 2 (1966-1967) Playlist 1: Anatomy of a Lover 2: Strike While the Agent Is Hot 3: A Spy for a Spy 4: The Only Way to Die 5: Maxwell Smart, Alias Jimmy Ballantine 6: Casablanca 7: The Decoy 8: Hoo Done It 9: Rub-A-Dub-Dub... Three Spies in a Sub 10: The Greatest Spy on Earth 11: Island of the Darned 12: Bronzefinger 13: Perils in a Pet Shop 14: The Whole Tooth and... 15: Kiss of Death 16: It Takes One to Know One 17: Someone Down Here Hates Me 18: Cutback at CONTROL 19: The Mummy 20: The Girls from KAOS 21: The Man from YENTA 22: Smart Fit the Battle of Jericho 23: Where-What-How-Who Am I? 24: The Expendable Agent 25: How to Succeed in the Spy Business Without Really Trying 26: Appointment in Sahara 27: Pussycats Galore 28: A Man Called Smart: Part 1 29: A Man Called Smart: Part 2 30: A Man Called Smart: Part 3 Season 3 (1967-1968) Playlist (Some episodes are out of order) 1: The Spy Who Met Himself 2: Viva Smart 3: Witness for the Persecution 4: The Spirit Is Willing 5: Maxwell Smart, Private Eye 6: Supersonic Boom 7: One of Our Olives Is Missing 8: When Good Fellows Get Together 9: Dr. Yes 10: That Old Gang of Mine 11: The Mild Ones 12: Classification: Dead 13: The Mysterious Dr. T 14: The King Lives? (If you watch ONE video in this whole post, make it the sword fight from this episode. Trust me.) 15: The Groovy Guru 16: The Little Black Book: Part 1 17: The Little Black Book: Part 2 18: Don't Look Back 19: 99 Loses CONTROL 20: The Wax Max 21: Operation Ridiculous 22: Spy, Spy, Birdie 23: Run, Robot, Run 24: The Hot Line 25: Die, Spy 26: The Reluctant Redhead Season 4 (1968-1969) Playlist (Incomplete: Missing episodes 22-26, which are linked individually below.) 1: The Impossible Mission 2: Snoopy Smart vs. the Red Baron 3: Closely Watched Planes 4: The Secret of Sam Vittorio 5: Diamonds Are a Spy's Best Friend 6: The Worst Best Man 7: A Tale of Two Tails 8: The Return of the Ancient Mariner 9: With Love and Twitches 10: The Laser Blazer 11: The Farkas Fracas 12: Temporarily Out of CONTROL 13: Schwartz's Island 14: One Nation Invisible 15: Hurray for Hollywood 16: The Day They Raided the Knights 17: Tequila Mockingbird 18: I Shot 86 Today 19: Absorb the Greek 20: To Sire, with Love: Part 1 21: To Sire, with Love: Part 2 22: Shock It to Me 23: Leadside 24: Greer Window 25: The Not-So-Great Escape: Part 1 26: The Not-So-Great Escape: Part 2 Season 5 (1969-1970) Playlist 1: Pheasant Under Glass 2: Ironhand 3: Valerie of the Dolls 4: Widow Often Annie 5: The Treasure of C. Errol Madre 6: Smart Fell on Alabama 7: And Baby Makes Four: Part 1 8: And Baby Makes Four: Part 2 9: Physician Impossible 10: Apes of Rath 11: Age Before Duty 12: Is This Trip Necessary? 13: Ice Station Siegfried 14: Moonlighting Becomes You 15: House of Max: Part 1 16: House of Max: Part 2 17: Rebecca of Funny-Folk Farm 18: The Mess of Adrian Listenger 19: Witness for the Execution 20: How Green Was My Valet 21: And Only Two Ninety-Nine 22: Smartacus 23: What's It All About, Algie? 24: Hello, Columbus - Goodbye, America 25: Do I Hear a Vaults? 26: I Am Curiously Yellow ....And Loving It! * Bloopers and Outtakes * The opening and closing themes Other Sites: * TV Tropes * Wiki * Wikipedia * Would You Believe.com. (Quite comprehensive.) Would You Believe, They Did Five Sequel Films? No? What About Three Films? Can't Believe That Either, Huh? Okay, Just The Two Films. * The Nude Bomb (1980) Sorry about that Chief: it's not online, but here the second corniest trailer you've ever seen! TV Tropes on the movie: "Executive Meddling hurt it; the producers wanted a titillating plot involving a bomb that dissolved clothing, allowing PG-appropriate nudity. The writers were so angered at the imposition that they were banned from visiting the set. Did not feature Feldon, who reportedly was not exactly crushed by the omission..." * Get Smart, Again! (1989) It's a shame they didn't use the power to create Revivals for niceness instead of evil. The TV Show Fox tried reviving the series in 1995 as Get Smart, Again!, even though that title had already been used for the aforementioned movie. The show lasted only 7 episodes, and starred Andy Dick as the son of Agents 86 and 99. * Episode 1, Parts 1, 2 * Episode 2, Parts 1, 2 * Episode 3, Parts 1, 2 * Episode 4, Parts 1, 2 * Episode 5, Parts 1, 2 * Episode 6, Parts 1, 2 * Episode 7, Parts 1, 2 The Movie The 2008 Get Smart movie starring Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway can be seen for $1.99 on YouTube (Scored 51% on Rotten Tomatoes and received some pretty negative reviews, including: ""Get Smart" is about as funny as a gently smiling mime. It couldn't buy a laugh in a nitrous oxide factory with a fistful of clown noses.... The first mistake was to make it at all. The second mistake was to set the movie in 2008.") Ah, The Old Shoe-Phone Trick! Instructables: How to Make a Wearable Shoe-Phone: "Any sane geek would think that something as cool as Maxwell Smart's shoe-phone would be everywhere. You'd think there'd be a company or two selling them online, and the internet would be filled with hobbyists boasting about how proud they are of them. But it's only ever been done once. That's right, there has only ever been one wearable working shoe-phone made. And it was made by a guy named Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen in Adelaide (in the world's sexiest country), who hasn't yet fully documented how he did it here. He also made a shoe bluetooth-headset, and thankfully he provided plenty of details.
Would You Believe... Max Is Also Penny's Uncle? Don Adams went on to play another bumbling secret agent in the '80's: Inspector Gadget. The cartoon was syndicated, and clocked 86 episodes in two seasons. A live-action Inspector Gadget movie was released in 1999, starring Matthew Broderick in the title role. So good, he missed being nominated for an Oscar by that much. Inspector Gadget Episodes (About half of them are on YouTube, uploaded by different users) * Pilot Episode: Winter Olympics. Gadget has a mustache in the opening sequence, and is voiced not by Don Adams but Gary Owens. Mona Marshall voices Penny here, but was replaced by Cree Summer for the rest of the series.Per IMDB, "DIC received a letter from MGM that Gadget closely resembled the animated incarnation of MGM's Inspector Clouseau, and infringed on intellectual property. Ergo, DIC decided to remove Gadget's mustache." Oops. Season One * Gadgets in Winterland * Monster Lake * Down on the Farm * Gadget at the Circus * Amazon * Health Spa * The Boat * Haunted Castle * Race to the Finish * A Star is Lost * All that Glitters * Movie Set * The Ruby * Volcano Island * Infiltration * MAD Trap * The Pharoah * Greenfinger * Don't Hold Your Breath * King Wrong * No Flies on Us * Prince of the Gypsies * The Emerald Duck * Funny Money * Unhenged * Weather in Tibet * Tree Guesses * Birds of a Feather * So it is Written * Fang the Wonderdog * School for Pickpockets Season Two * Gadget's Gadgets * Gadget in Minimadness * Gadget Meets The Grapple * Bed Dreams are Made of This * N.S.F. Gadget * Tyrannosaurus Gadget * Gadget's Roma * Gadget's Clean Sweep * Gadget Meets the Clan * Gadget and the Old Lace * Gadget and the Red Rose

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:47:30 -0800

After this post, I may never get the theme songs for either Inspector Gadget or Get Smart out of my head.

By: cmyk

cmyk — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:53:19 -0800

zarq, you spoil us. I loved this show when I was a kid. I'm going to binge on old episodes now. Back in the day when we all had to communicate with was morse code and pigeons and pagers, my pager code -- y'all remember that? Page someone with a strange number and your code so they know it's you -- my code was 99. Because she was awesome.

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:53:51 -0800

... aaaaaand I only just noticed, now that the post has been made... that Inspector Gadget ran for 86 episodes and he was voiced by Agent 86. :)

By: localroger

localroger — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:55:25 -0800

The Maxwell Smart patter in the writeup is a perfect touch. Epic post.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:55:30 -0800

*gasp* *faints*

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 15:58:32 -0800

localroger, I had SO much fun making this post. Thanks! :)

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:00:00 -0800

Man, The Get Smart Remake, which should've been an easy-ass, no brainer excuse to make a goofy spy movie was nearly as bad as the Uma Thurman version of The Avengers ( slightly better because while it was bad, Get Smart wasn't ...unwatchable.) I've often noticed how much Get Smart's attitude falls into shows I like, the scientist parts of Better Off Ted could've come straight from the original episodes "We're using science for evil, you promised we wouldn't do that so much!"

By: Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish

Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:01:33 -0800

This is the most fantastic fantastic post.

By: ceribus peribus

ceribus peribus — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:02:10 -0800

Elementary school era me loved this show for the opening and closing credit sequences, with the succession of doors.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:02:15 -0800

"Would you believe" I haven't heard that line in ... I don't know how long, but I can still hear the voice and the cadence when reading it here. Thanks for the post!

By: roll truck roll

roll truck roll — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:02:36 -0800

Awesome. Tiny nitpick: are you sure the 1995 reboot was called "Get Smart Again"? I thought it was just "Get Smart."

By: Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish

Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:04:09 -0800

Get Smart Again was a reunion movie.

By: mhoye

mhoye — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:04:38 -0800

I will be favoriting this... and loving it.

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:05:17 -0800

roll truck roll: " Tiny nitpick: are you sure the 1995 reboot was called "Get Smart Again"? I thought it was just "Get Smart."" Missed it by THAT much! You're absolutely right. Sorry about that, folks! (Nice catch, roll truck roll!)

By: designbot

designbot — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:05:23 -0800

I was Maxwell Smart in our high school play. It's all been downhill from there.

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:10:49 -0800

The Ship of Spies 2-parter, in addition to being very funny for children and adults alike, is genuinely chilling and suspenseful. My father's name was Hymie!

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:11:43 -0800

Get Smart was also one of the parents ( grand parents?) of Archer, and I always think about Maxwell Smart when I think about Griphus' take on Sterling Archer, a character with lots of intelligence but no wisdom.

By: maryr

maryr — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:16:29 -0800

You win December, zarq.

By: JimInLoganSquare

JimInLoganSquare — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:18:31 -0800

Thanks so much for this post! I loved Maxwell Smart enough that for my first car, I bought a used Sunbeam convertible just like Agent 86's. Well, it was an Alpine, not the Tiger, but it was the same color. Missed it by THAT much!

By: njohnson23

njohnson23 — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:20:03 -0800

Not the "Craw!" The "CRAW!!!" Sorry. That line has been stuck in my head since early youth.

By: twsf

twsf — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:24:11 -0800

I was driving down the 5 in LA a few years ago and looked over to see a spiffy new Jaguar coupe being driven by Don Adams. He pulled ahead and I could see that his license plate read... "Agent 86". So glad he enjoyed his fame.

By: wittgenstein

wittgenstein — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 16:26:36 -0800

Zarq-you are on FIRE this month...

By: layceepee

layceepee — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 17:14:59 -0800

The Get Smart stuff is great, but it's actually The Inspector Gadget theme that really takes me back--to the days when rap was young, when I could "walk through the desert and still be chill." MCs on the beat, get funky!

By: Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner

Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 17:23:05 -0800

Great post, zarq! Well done. Beyond that, the only thing I have to add is that Don Adams also was the voice of the scheming cartoon penguin Tennessee Tuxedo.

By: Strange Interlude

Strange Interlude — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 17:34:27 -0800

More Don Adams/Get Smart ephemera: Early '90s White Castle commercials

By: 445supermag

445supermag — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 17:54:45 -0800

*gasp* *faints* posted by brundlefly Kneels down to listen to brudlefly's dying words: "Get your knee off my chest".

By: shoesfullofdust

shoesfullofdust — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 17:59:14 -0800

Would you believe that I favorited this post twice? No? Okay, how about once?

By: shoesfullofdust

shoesfullofdust — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 18:06:29 -0800

Mel Brooks AND Buck Henry? I ought to be able to favorite it twice! Thanks, zarq! Great post!

By: cazoo

cazoo — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 18:50:28 -0800

I loved this show when I was little and even went to see the Nude Bomb when it opened and only now just realized that Siegfried was also Doc from The Love Boat.

By: littlesq

littlesq — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 18:54:54 -0800

THERE WILL BE NO SHUSHING HERE.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 18:57:35 -0800

The Inspector Gadget victory lap was really going beyond the call of duty. But did you know that the cartoon got a sequel series, called Gadget and the Gadgetinis?

By: SPrintF

SPrintF — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 19:30:01 -0800

Tequila Mockingbird: great title? Or greatest title? You decide!

By: hearthpig

hearthpig — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 04:29:06 -0800

I worked for about a year assisting my boss in an expert witness case, with all the associated communication walls and various legal shenanigans. Everything associated with the project became "...of Silence". Filing Cabinet of Silence. Server directory of Silence. Conference call bill of Silence. It got to the point that if he wanted to talk about the project he would walk past my office and whisper cones or email me a photo like this. "Oh, the old file-emissions-data-by-incorrect-YEAR trick, eh?"

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 04:49:25 -0800

ZARQ! Zis is METAFILTER! Ve don't "linkdump" here. so gledd you didn't know zat

By: DoctorFedora

DoctorFedora — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 04:51:04 -0800

WELP enjoy that iPad

By: Gelatin

Gelatin — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 05:14:53 -0800

I'd love to make some clever Get Smart referencing comment, but I am too much in awe. Amazing post.

By: radwolf76

radwolf76 — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 06:03:54 -0800

The live action Gadget movie committed the cardinal sin of showing Dr. Claw's face. This is unforgivable. For the character to really work, he must remain faceless. And I don't care what you have to say about the action figure or the iPad game... just because they agree with each other doesn't mean that they can override what we saw (or in this case didn't see) in the series itself.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 06:12:54 -0800

Gadget and the Gadgetinis probably could use a post of its own sometime. It was a direct sequel to the show. Gadget (after Don Adams death, now voiced by that second-coming-of-Mel-Blanc, Maurice LaMarche) has changed careers and is now a Lieutenant in WOMP, a world-wide crime fighting organization, but he still faces MAD and Doctor Claw in most episodes. Penny is older but is still a computer genius, and now uses a laptop to help her uncle. She's also built him two robot helpers, the "Gadgetinis" in the title, who take over from Brain, who unfortunately had a nervous episode from helping Gadget one too many times. Brain's still shown in the illustrated French end credits, where Penny comes to visit him, and he cameos in one episode, as does Chief Quimby. The live action Gadget movie committed the cardinal sin of showing Dr. Claw's face. This is unforgivable. It's like a rule that movie adaptions of treasured childhood properties have to get important aspects willfully wrong in some way. It's Hollywood showing how bloody-minded superior it thinks it is.

By: mightshould

mightshould — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 06:17:48 -0800

I don't think it matters if zarq wins (although this post is FULL OF WIN). What matters is that this is the BEST POST EVER! If all posts were this amazing, we'd never get anything productive done.

By: BozoBurgerBonanza

BozoBurgerBonanza — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 06:25:27 -0800

Would you believe that Agent 86 went undercover in the mid 80's as the CEO of a billion dollar department store chain?would you believe the CFO?would you believe as a regional manager?would you believe the manager of a crappy grocery store? Check It Out

By: zarq

zarq — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 06:45:41 -0800

JHarris: "The Inspector Gadget victory lap was really going beyond the call of duty. Heh. Actually, the Inspector Gadget part was going to be a different post. I started working on that a month or so ago. But once this post started coming together I realized the IG content had to be folded into this one. It just fits. But did you know that the cartoon got a sequel series, called Gadget and the Gadgetinis?" Holy COW, NO!!!? I had no idea! Cool! The wikipedia page you linked to shows 52 episodes produced. It looks like this channel has most of them. Thanks for pointing out that the show exists -- gonna be a lot of fun watching them. Although, I gotta say right off the bat I hate the theme song.

By: radioamy

radioamy — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 11:21:54 -0800

I want to go home RIGHT NOW and binge-watch Get Smart. I loved that show as a kid and would watch it with my dad on Nick at Nite. I also watched Inspector Gadget but I was way more into Smart. Oh, Max.

By: Sunburnt

Sunburnt — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 13:13:49 -0800

I'm the hundredth user to favorite this thread. "Sorry 99." This is really awesome, thanks for all of this.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 02:01:41 -0800

Huh. More looking into it reveals there were two other spinoff series, Gadget Boy and Inspector Gadget's Field Trip. Don Adams reprises the role except in the second season of Gadget Boy. Just watched an episode of Gadgetinis. It's better than I expected, but the animation quality is notably not up to that of the original show.

By: maryr

maryr — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 15:49:58 -0800

Gadget was a mouse.

By: maryr

maryr — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 15:51:11 -0800

From above Wiki: "Gadget as she appears at the Disney theme parks.": TERRIFYING.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 17:17:06 -0800

Inspector Gadget's first episode predates Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers by six years, he's got prior art. (Yes, he's patented. He's a robot, duh.)

By: maryr

maryr — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 18:48:45 -0800

Inspector Gadget is a guy. Gadget is a mouse. That's all I'm trying to say.

By: maryr

maryr — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 18:49:08 -0800

...Please don't ask who Dr. Claw was going to get next time, because then in gets confusing.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 07:35:48 -0800

Except he's Lieutenant Gadget in Gadgetinis, and "Gadget Boy" in that show, both cases where the specific title no longer applies so for clarity it is acceptable to go with his formal name. We don't know his first. (The mouse Gadget's last name, BTW, is Hackwrench.) BTW, if you're wondering how much of (Lieutenant by that point) Gadget is human and how much is robot, there's an episode of Gadget and the Gadgetinis where his gadgets are malfunctioning much worse even than usual, and it's revealed that his brain must be periodically rebooted, using a special CD, for his gadgets to calm down. Dr. Claw's minions steal the disk to build themselves their own Gadget -- who's a giant killer robot, of course. We even get to see Gadget's maintenance manual, which has a silhouette of his head on the cover. The CD is kept in a safe at WOMP Headquarters. This raises all kinds of new questions. (Insp./Lt.) Gadget now seems a lot less human. But everyone still treats him like one, and Penny still seems to have a biological relation to him. Was he once completely a human being? Did he have an accident that required medical, mechanical intervention to save his life? (The Disney film I easily discard from all consideration.) Apparently he was once a "Gadget Boy," why didn't he stay that size forever, like Dr. Slump's Arale Norimaki? Did someone build him an adult body? Is Penny an orphan, adopted by Gadget? Penny built the Gadgetinis, did she have a hand in her uncle's construction? But no, it seems like she'd be too young, and her building robots herself, as opposed to just computers, seems like a skill she picked up for the newer show. Anyway, I think that's enough overthinking those particular biomechanical beans, for now.

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 12:18:17 -0800

Holy crap! Cree Summer from A Different World was on Inspector Gadget?!? I gotta lie down....

By: timsteil

timsteil — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 11:58:04 -0800

After this post, I may never get the theme songs for either Inspector Gadget or Get Smart out of my head. It is quite catchy