RIP 86

[Peter_Puget]

[olyclimber]

[Recycled]

Yeah, but 99's still with us and looking good!

[catbirdseat]

Don Adams was a really funny guy. I still have an old comedy albumn of his called Don Adams meets the Roving Reporter. Mount Everest was hilarious.

 

Re-released in 1997

[seawallrunner]

noooooooooooooooo !!!

 

I always feel just a bit sadder, when a comedian dies.

[Thinker]

Is 99 with us still?

 

[chirp]

Coming soon to a dvd near you! Amazon says this year sometime.

 

Smart. Maxwell Smart. The dumbest spy in the world, who fights on behalf of the forces of goodness and niceness, and succeeded in making democracy vs. communism a lot more entertaining. With the comic trio of Don Adams, Barbara Feldon and Edward Platt, this hilarious spy spoof is still funny today.

 

Don Adams is Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, a not-so-bright spy with an endless arsenal of strange devices and odd sayings. The bumbling spy at a top-secret government agency called Control, which is responsible for keeping the free world free. Backing him up is his beautiful partner/love interest Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) and his long-suffering Chief (Eward Platt) who puts up with Smart's constant mistakes.

 

Together with 99 and the Chief (and his faithful dog Fang), Max battles the forces of badness and rottenness -- namely, the anti-Control called KAOS. Among the enemies the Control agents face: the dwarfish "Mr. Big," the fashion forces of evil, a likable killer robot, a Chinese mastermind called the Claw, and explosive paintings. And that's only the start...

 

"Missed it by that much!" Maxwell Smart's catchphrases and goofy confidence made him the perfect antidote to the suave James Bond. Unlike Bond and similar movie spies, Max succeeds out of luck and bumbling more often than not, but he still succeeds.

 

The comic timing is a little awkward at the very beginning, but rapidly gets its footing. What's really funny is the endless spoofery -- Max is given all sorts of weird gadgets, including the legendary "shoe-phone," and he faces off against all sorts of cartoonish villains.

 

The political clime of the mid 1960s is all over the series, especially in the form of KAOS. But fortunately they don't get preachy -- KAOS is merely a big evil organization, no more. Some references are dated, and this definitely debuted before the era of political correctness (there's a bizarre episode about American Indians threatening the US government, and the Claw is funny if un-PC).

 

Don Adams MAKES this series, with his quirky facial expressions, nasal voice and odd body language. Hard to tell how he could keep a straight face throughout many of the lines he says. Barbara Feldon is the least quirky of the cast, but does a good job as the brains behind Max, while Edward Platt is just wonderful as the long-suffering Chief, who always looks slightly frayed.

 

Though some of the 60s-era references are a bit dated, "Get Smart" is still gutsplittingly funny. You'll roll around on the floor, laughing yourself sick... and... loving it.

[JoshK]

Who are these guys? What movies are these references from?

[Billygoat]

What are you Josh, like 20 years old

 

 

A sad day indeed

[Fairweather]

Who are these guys? What movies are these references from?

 

This explains away a small portion of your limited world-view.

 

The cone of silence was, perhaps, the greatest comic invention of all time.

 

[griz]

When I told a 28 year old guy at work that Agent 86 had died today I just got a blank stare...after many prompts and descriptions ...the blank stare of ignorance continued.

 

Where is my geritol,people? I can't remember anymore.

[Billygoat]

 

 

 

The cone of silence

[TREETOAD]

I just loved that show. What ever happened to Barny Rubble, now he was a great actor!!

[layton]

Get Smart was possibly the funniest show ever. and agent 99 is still in my porn collection.

[JoshK]

Who are these guys? What movies are these references from?

 

This explains away a small portion of your limited world-view.

 

The cone of silence was, perhaps, the greatest comic invention of all time.

 

 

Every thought I might spend my time reading about events out side my of my life span that hold a little more importance and personal interest to me?

 

I hardly think age qualifies you to claim any sort of expansive world knowledge. If your posts on this board are any indication, your extra years have added little more than bitterness and paranoia.

[archenemy]

 

Every thought I might spend my time reading about events out side my of my life span that hold a little more importance and personal interest to me?

 

I hardly think age qualifies you to claim any sort of expansive world knowledge.

 

[Blake]

Who are these guys? What movies are these references from?

 

you got to quit seetting yourself up like this josh. Just google "agent 86" if you've never seen Get Smart.

[foraker]

I hardly think age qualifies you to claim any sort of expansive world knowledge.

 

You will when you're past 65. Ask my dad.

[cj001f]

"The President's Analyst" was 10x better. Get Smart sucks

[JoshK]

Who are these guys? What movies are these references from?

 

you got to quit seetting yourself up like this josh. Just google "agent 86" if you've never seen Get Smart.

 

Yeah, I should have googled - that is one of life's great rules I broke.

 

Google needs a new slogan - "Making message board posters seem remotely informed since 1998."

[klenke]

I remember Get Smart. It was funny. And I had completely forgot about the "Cone of Silence." A total gag but not impractical, if you think about it.

And what about The Nude Bomb--the Get Smart movie! The final scene is a riot.

 

Two improvements I'd like to see on web browsers:

1. A right-click search engine setting (would help Josh's problem). Say you want to google a word or phrase in text. Simply highlight the word or phrase in question, the right-click the mouse, and select the search engine from the pop-up pulldown list. To be really nice it would be good if you could pre-select the engine you wanted to use (a default, if you will).

 

2. There ought to be a setting for a window or windows in general where if you want every link clicked on on that page to open up in a new window it automatically does so. That way you wouldn't have to right-click the mouse to do so if you didn't want to. It's one less step.

 

Okay, enough thread drift.

[archenemy]

Good thinking. That right clicking wears me out.

Oh, but switch that for me, I mouse lefty. Same problem though. I gotta stop typing, I am getting so very

[klenke]

A workmate told me that Maxwell Smart was supposed to be Agent 69 but the TV producers wouldn't allow it. Now that would have been funny. Apparently, it was Mel Brooks' idea. Brooks created the show. Something I never knew.

 

Also unforgettable:

The title song -- Dunt-da-daa-dunt Dunt-da-daa-dunt.

The title sequence -- Max walking the corridors with the closing doors and getting his nose caught in the last door.

[knelson]

Great headline I saw online...

 

"Agent 86 makes 82 – missed it by that much"

 

Mr. Adams will be remembered forever. At least by us old (?) farts, I guess.

 

And Klenke... try Firefox. Google search bar (NOT their spyware toolbar) right on the menu bar. Click the "open a new tab" button, type or paste your word/phrase in the toolbar and voila - your results in seperate window/tab, without losing the page you were originally on. Try it... you'll like it. You can also do Yahoo, dictionary.com, ebay, and others from that same menu bar too.