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AMANDA'S TOP TEN FAVORITE EPISODESAs 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
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) who appeared in a previous Get Smart episode, The King Lives. This time, Mr. and 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?
#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 (Pat McCormick) jumps into a vat of molten lava to retrieve Rupert's gun cracks me up.
2. The Little Black Book
This episode became a two-parter because the two Dons (Adams and Rickles) could not behave and kept cracking each other up. Their hijinks have been documented on a few blooper reels that can be found on YouTube and on the Get Smart DVDs. 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 a black book of KAOS agents that an informant dropped on the floor of Max's apartment. Sid 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
special 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, Max's shoephone rings. Max runs up the stairs and to return the call. Sid, in the meantime, arranges a date with a couple Kaos "girls" and is nearly speared with one of Max's booby traps. 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 then groans and crosses her legs.
3. One of Our Olives is Missing
In this episode, which Don Adams and Carol Burnett wound up "doing shtick at 3 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? #1. I love the scene where Max calls up room service and pretends to be Siegfreid. Don Adams' impersonation sounds exactly like Siegfreid! #2. The ending scene is cute. Siegfried's scientists 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. Big
From there, Max must locate KAOS agent Mr. Big, find 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:
99 takes her hat off and shakes her hair
5. Casablanca
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? Don Adams' Humphrey Bogart impersonation. It is superb and makes
the whole episode! Adams and Feldon appear to be having a good time with this episode -at least until the Choker shows up and tries to kill them. 6. Back to the Old Drawing Board
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." I'm not sure what the response to that scene would be today. Max: Spying and alcohol don't mix. Is that
OK, Hymie?
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
This episode, rated among the worst by some There's actually a few separate parodies going on in this episode, which I suppose could make it seam a bit jumbled. The episode title references Mission Impossible and opening spoofs MI's standard opening. Max, like IMF leader Jim Phelps, gets his instructions via a self destructing tape recorder and then goes on to go through a folder of photos to select the agents that will work on the mission. This is where any similarity to Mission Impossible ends. Though, an actual start-to-finish spoof of that series would have made for a cool episode. The next parody involves the episode's villain, The Leader, a.k.a. Herb Talbot, band leader of the Tijuana Tin. This 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. This brings us to the third parody: Max and 99 end up dressed as Charlie Chaplin and engage in a chase scene reminiscent of a silent film. What's so great about it? The feels. Max and 99 find themselves trapped, leading Max to pop out a marriage proposal and 99 to pop out an escape plan. I like this episode because, to some degree, I'm a romantic with these two. Other Smartians found the proposal, followed by an escape plan, lame and contrived. 8. The Farkas Fracas
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.
9. Temporarily Out of Control
For some reason, Max and the Chief have phony baloney covers that list them as Naval reservists. Kaos takes advantage of this and forges orders that send Max and the Chief out to sea. The plan is keep Max and the Chief out of Control long enough to pass a Kaos agent off as a phony dignitary. This episode, by the way, was filmed on the U.S.S. Yorktown. What's so great about it? The Navy. Anything else need to know information. 10. Aboard The Orient Express
What makes this one the cat's meow? 1. Watching Max scarf down all those secret messages and Styrofoam cups. 2 Special Guest Conductor Johnny Carson and the very brief passage through Liechtenstein 3. Well, I have to give this episode extra credit because years ago it helped me ace a Psychology paper. I used a little conversation Max and 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.
COPYRIGHT © 1999-2023 BY AMANDA HAVERSTICK. |
Five reasons:
here?
One of my olives is missing too.
Yes, its the old pilot trick. Secret agent Maxwell Smart must
make contact with Agent 99.
The title pretty much describes this one.
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.
Smartians, features Max's
inevitable proposal to 99.
Wedded bliss is less than bliss when one has neighbors like the Farkases.
The Farkases (played by Tom Bosley and 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.
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.