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AMANDA’S TOP TEN FAVORITE EPISODES

As the header says, these are my favorite Get Smart episodes. I've listed them all right here with my own personal commentary. Therefore, you are forewarned about what you are about to read.

 1. To Sire, With Love.Max and King Charles

This two-parter is without a doubt my favorite. In fact, I believe I know the script by heart! This episode features King Charles of Caronia -Max’s royal look-alike (as if one Max was not enough). Mr. & Mrs. 86 have been assigned to guard the king and hide him in their apartment. Naturally this and Max’s ever persistent jealousy open the door to a host of problems.

What's so great about this one?


One false move and I run him through, Rupert!Five reasons: 

#1. Don Adams looks dashing in a mustache and does a remarkable impersonation of Ronald Coleman.

#2. James Caan (Adams’ golf buddy who once picked Adams up and threw him in the green after a golf dispute) plays Rotten Ruthless Rupert of Rathskeller and Don Rickles (the insult sultan) plays a brainless KAOS agent.

#3. I love fencing. ‘Nuff said.

#4. Don Adams and his sister Gloria Burton wrote the second part. Need I say more?

#5. The part when KAOS agent Otto jumps into a vat of molten lava to retrieve Rupert’s gun cracks me up.

    Otto: (jumping in after the gun) I’ll get it!
    Smart gives Rupert a confused look.
    Rupert: (uneasily) Well, good help is hard to find.
     

2. The Little Black Book.

I can’t remember too much about this one, but what I do remember is a trip. In this two-parter (it became a two-parter because the two Dons (Adams & Rickles) could not behave and kept cracking each other up) Max’s old army friend, Sid Krimm, pays a visit. This results in, as what usually happens when friends get together, complete chaos.... er... KAOS. Sid finds Max’s black book of KAOS agents and arranges for he and Max to go out with two girls named Nancy and Zelda. The problem is that Nancy and Zelda are not girls!

What is so darn specialAdams and Rickles chained to a wall here?

Generally it’s Rickles and Adams being goof-balls. One scene is permanently etched in my mind:

In the beginning of the episode, a girl comes into Max’s apartment and is shot by a sniper. Before Sid arrives, Max takes her up to his room and lays her on the bed in such a way that her knees are bent and her feet are touching the floor.

A while later, after Sid has arrived, I believe Max’s shoephone rings. Max runs up the stairs and Sid, thinking his friend is a crackpot, runs after him. Max tries to hide the girl by (and this is really weird) kind of kneeling across her and propping a pillow across her legs. At this point Sid enters the room and finds Max on the shoephone.

What comes next is an argument over Max’s sanity or lack of it. During the argument, Sid pulls away the pillow that was covering the girl’s legs. Max is in such a position that these smooth, shapely, feminine, legs look like they belong to him. Then the woman he’s hiding groans and crosses her legs.

Max: I can explain this, Sid!
Sid: There's nothing to explain! You are a dingaling!

3. One of Our Olives is Missing

One of my olives is missing too. In this episode, which Don Adams and Carol Burnett wound up "doing shtick at three A.M.", Burnett guest stars as country singer Ozark Annie. Annie mistakenly swallows an olive transmitter and must be protected from KAOS by our hero, Max. 

SO? What's the big deal? 

Carol Burnett and Don AdamsThe big deal is that I'd love to see this one again!

#1.  I love the scene where Max calls up room service and pretends to be Siegfreid. Mr. Adams' impersonation sounds exactly like Siegfreid!

#2.  The end scene is cute. Siegfried's scientists (one of whom is played by King Moody who later played Shtarker) have developed two rooms. The first room makes females (KAOS had been experimenting with bunnies) fear males. The second room makes females fall in love with males. In both rooms the males wind up totally confused. It's a lot like real life. This whole experiment is played out when Max, 99, and Annie wind up in the rooms.

 

4. Mr. BigMr. Big and his really big office

Yes, its the old pilot trick. Secret agent Maxwell Smart must find Agent 99, KAOS agent Mr. Big, where Big is stowing the inthermo, and close the door to his limo before Mr. Big blows Lady Liberty to kingdom come.

What makes this one rate?

Ah, there's just so much, but something about this episode made me want to see more. Could it be:
Don Adams' nasal squeak?
Barbara Feldon's awesome hair?
The famous "Are you 99" scene?
The fact that Max didn't know that 99 was a woman? Why you're a girl!

    99 takes her hat off and shakes her hair
    Max: (looking at her in awe) Why, you're a girl!
    99: (as she and Max attempt to kiss) Thank-you!
    Fang then barks and interrupts them.
    99: He's right!


5. Casablanca Why don't I order you a ham sandwitch?

The title pretty much describes this one. Max, against the orders of the chief, goes to Casablanca to find the notorious choker and avenge the murder of his good friend Dr. What's his name (Pliney)

 

What's awesome about this one?

Would you believe Bogart? * Don Adams' Humphrey Bogart impersonation. It is superb and makes the whole episode!

 *Ms. Feldon's blonde wig! 

 *The Lorre/Greenstreet bit

 

 

6. Back to the Old Drawing Board

Dick Gautier beat out King Moody (Siegfreid's Shtarker and more famously, Ronald McDonald) to play emotional robot Hymie in this first Hymie episode. Moody does seek his revenge in a later episode, "Anatomy of a Lover", as a KAOS agent in CONTROL, Kirsh.

What's so hot about this one?

Dick Gautier (he's sooo good looking -but that is neither here nor there). and the infamous "closet scene". If Get Smart took place in the 1990s, that scene would have never happened without some perverted stink being raised.

    Max: Spying and alcohol don't mix. Is that okay, Hymie?
    Hymie responds by kissing Max on the cheek.
    Max: (giving Hymie a funny look) A simple nod will do.

During the filming, Adams and Gautier kept laughing. Gautier, according to Joey Green's book, estimates that it must have taken "twenty-five takes" to get it right.

7. The Impossible Mission

86 and 99 before they tried the

This episode, rated amongst the worst by some99's ring Smartians, features Max's inevitable proposal to 99. The opening mirrors Mission Impossible and the main villain is The Leader, a.k.a. Herb Talbot. Herb Talbot's Tijuana Tin is obviously a reference to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Max and 99 infiltrate Herbie's TV program and find themselves in a reeelly big shew -er rutt. With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, Max proposes to the ever lovelorn 99.

What's so great about it?

I like this episode solely because I'm a romantic. Other Smartians found the whole Max proposing and 99 thinking up an escape plan scheme rather lame. It was lame, but that was probably because most of the scene was devoted to the proposal itself. I mean, it’s the mushy stuff... -not exactly something Mickey Spillane would write.

 8. The Farkas Fracas

Poison mousse anyone? Wedded bliss is less than bliss when one has neighbors like the Farkases. The Farkases (played by Tom Bosley & Alice Ghostley) are actually KAOS agents and plot to poison the Smarts and the Chief. Naomi Farkas slips 99 poisoned chocolate mousse -not that Naomi needed to poison it- and the games begin.

 What's so great about it?

The poison scene and Don Adams' facial expressions. I'd really hate to be the nurse at the poison control center with him around. I like it when he and the Chief run up to the bathroom in a desperate attempt to find relief. It goes something like this:

    Max and the Chief coming downstairs again.
    Chief: I don't understand it! We've tried everything in the medicine cabinet and nothing has helped.
    Max: Yeah, we even tried those little chocolate things.
    Chief: Those definitely didn't help.
     

9. Where-What-How-Who am I?

That's what I said after I stayed up 'till 2:30 a.m. to see that episode. Yes, it's the old Amnesia-to-enhance-a-sitcom-accented-with-a-KAOS-plot-called-The-old-bomb-in-the-snack-truck-trick. (Would you believe this is the second biggest trick I've ever seen?) Max wrecks his red Tiger and experiences more amnesia than necessary courtesy of KAOS.

What's so great about it?

You know, I really don't know. I can't scrounge up an excuse here. Guess I forgot. Sorry about that.

 10. Aboard The Orient Express.

. sorry about this mess.. The Control boys working behind the iron curtain haven’t been paid in months and after handcuffing himself to the special briefcase used to deliver the dough, Max becomes the man for the job. His only problem is that he has to keep from getting himself railroaded on the chaotic Orient Express by the not quiet human KAOS agent Krochanska. In the end Max and 99 find that this mission is a real gas.

What makes this one the cat’s meow?

1. Watching Max scarf down all those secret messages & Styrofoam cups.

2 Special Guest Conductor Johnny Carson & the very brief passage through Liechtenstein

3. Well, I have to give this episode extra credit because it helped me ace a Psychology paper. I used a little conversation Max & 99 had to illustrate the reluctance in sending a woman to do a dangerous task -which was often a scenario in 1960s TV.

    Chief: The enemy knows we must send another courier. Our one chance is that they won’t be expecting a woman.
    99: I know. I’ll do the best I can.
    Chief: It will require intelligence, determination and icy nerves.
    99: Will I be issued a destruct pellet?
    Chief: Yes, 99.
    Max: Wait a minute, Chief! You’re not thinking of sending her! She’s a woman!
    99: (smiles at what he has said) Thank-you!
    Chief: Being a woman is the reason we chose her. Four men have failed!
     

COPYRIGHT © 1999-2008 BY AMANDA HAVERSTICK.