Missed it by that much.

Pointed in that direction by Mary of View from the Corner, I came across this interview with Barbara Feldon, who played Agent 99 on Get Smart.

Number of things in the interview made me sit up and take notice.

Would you believe that Get Smart is finally coming out on DVD?

Would you believe that Barbara Feldon is 74 years old?  Feldon was the second-sexiest woman on television when she was doing Get Smart, despite the black and white horizontally striped turtleneck minidresses and the bizarre hairstyle that was not quite a bob and not quite a beehive, but she was sexier at 54 than she was at 34, so imagine what she's like now that she's 74!

Would you believe that Feldon can make casual references to the songs of Tom Lehrer, which is just a reminder that a great deal of her sexiness has always been due to her intelligence and sense of humor?

Would you believe that her co-star on Get Smart, Don Adams, Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 himself, served in the Marines in World War II, fought at Guadalcanal, was the only member of his unit to survive, almost died there of fever, and Feldon was apparently unaware of any of this back when she was working with him on the show.

She only found out when late in life they renewed their friendship and he showed her some chapters from the autobiography he was working on and, sadly, didn't get to finish before he died.

I don't know what to make of the fact that during the course of five years Adams never talked about his time in the war.  I don't know if it was modesty, stoicism, or simply a sense of proportion---just about every man his age had served, so he might not have thought it was worth mentioning because he assumed everybody around him had the same stories to tell.

But a lot of WWII vets made a point of not talking about what happened to them in the war and in the process of learning to keep quiet about their experiences they learned to keep quiet about a lot of things and wound up not talking to anybody about anything that had to do with what they were feeling.

And would you believe that I have only one story to tell about Don Adams?

I got it from Bob Newhart's book, I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This.

Newhart credits Adams with convincing him to become a stand-up comic and perform his own material on stage.

But he doesn't mean that in a way entirely complimentary to Adams.

When Newhart was starting out in show business, he first tried to make his name as a writer for other comedians.  He wrote a routine for Adams about a submarine commander talking to his crew at the end of a two year tour at sea.  It's a famous routine now, Newhart himself made it famous. "The Voyage of the USS Codfish."  But if you read it you can hear Adams doing it too and imagine how funny it would have been in his voice.

But Adams didn't think it was funny.

At least he said he didn't.

He claimed to hate the routine.  Said it stunk.  He refused to pay Newhart for it.

Oh well, thought Newhart.  Them's the breaks.

Then one night he saw Adams on The Tonight Show----doing the routine!

Big chunk of it at any rate.

That's it! Newhart decided then and there, I'm through writing for other comics!  From now on he wasn't going to let anything he wrote out of his hands.  If he wasn't going to get paid for writing the stuff, then at least he'd get paid for performing it.

If you listen closely to Newhart doing the routine on one of his old albums you might pick up on it.  You can feel something's missing.  There's a jump, a gap in the captain's monologue.  Newhart left out the parts of the routine Adams had stolen because he didn't want anybody to think he had stolen it from Adams.

But Newhart liked and admired Adams anyway.  They were friends.  Newhart never told the story in public, while Adams was alive.  When Adams died, his widow called Newhart and asked him to speak at the funeral.   She asked him to tell the story.  Don's friends will love it, she said, it was so typical of him, the cheapness and the nerve.

Newhart was glad to oblige.

Comments

[Jennifer]

I loved that show!! Barbara was great. Do you remember her cameo on Mad About You? She was still hot then and she must have been in her 60's so I can imagine she is still cooking along in her 70's.

I always thought Chief was pretty darn handsome and had an awesome voice as well.

When I was a girl, I had a toy called Rascal Rabbit, it had Don Adams' voice and did indeed used that line, "Would you believe???" many times.

Of course now I'm thinking of Tennessee Tuxedo as well.

[jonst]

Today people ride around with license plates that announce to the world they are 'veterans', or in some cases, 'purple heart winning veterans', and in a few cases, 'combat veterans'. Its a different world these days.....

[Mike Schilling]

My favorite Maxwell Smart quote:

"What are you talking about, 99? We have to shoot and kill and destroy. We represent everything that's wholesome and good in the world."

[Kevin Wolf]

Get Smart is a show I've not seen since childhood. I'd like to revisit it. The opening credits are great and Don Adams is such a distinctive voice...

What was it about that whole group that emerged in entertainment in the 50s and 60s? So many personalities. Wally Cox, etc.

[Jennifer]

"What was it about that whole group that emerged in entertainment in the 50s and 60s? So many personalities. Wally Cox, etc."

That's a good point. I think it was due to the fact that they had talent or many talents. I think it was a time where talent was more important that immediate image. If you had the talent, the image could evolve. Today it seems that having talent is negligible, you just need the proper image.

[joanr16]

I'm going to assume that the first-sexiest woman on TV in the Sixties was Diana Rigg.

My great-aunt Lois had a crush on Don Adams. Thanks for reminding me of that, Lance. She had better taste than I realized at the time. (I was, what, nine?)

And as for Get Smart, just three words: Hymie the Robot.

[Jennifer]

joan! I was thinking of Hymie earlier! Wasn't that Dick Gautier?? He was one nice looking robot. Of course he went on to star in that rarely seen tv gem, "When Things Were Rotten".

[Hymie]

Thank you, joanr16. Thank you, Jennifer. But you don't have to be kind to me. I know what people really think. It's the same old story. Nobody cares about a robot. Just wind him up, turn him loose, and grease him every thousand miles. By the way, I am still programmed for goodness and niceness, as you can see if you investigate my webpage.

[CJColucci]

joanr16
Another vote for Lady Diana.

[Jennifer]

Hymie! So glad to hear you're not... deceased, but then robots don't really die, do they? They just... rust?

[Eric]

I think TV Babes in the 60s goes:

1) Diana Rigg
2) Mary Tyler Moore
3) Barbara Feldon
4) Julie Newmar (Catwoman to the youngsters out there)

[OutOfContext]

Sorry Hymie, not a big fan. Larabee was my favorite supporting cast member. The "Cone of Silence" was brilliant comedy.
As to the joke stealing story, it reminds me of a lot of the stand-up controversy centering around Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook. Joe Rogan is on a one man crusade to expose Mencia.

I will put in a vote for Elizabeth Montgomery in the 60's TV Babe-athon. Eva Gabor in the Mature division.

[Chief]

What?

[joanr16]

Ah yes: Eva. The sweet Gabor sister. She once saw my sister-in-law in a play in Los Angeles, tickled her under the chin, and said, "You vere vunderful, dahling." Or so my sister-in-law says.

Jennifer, that's right, Dick Gauthier played Hymie. (Wow... all these names I haven't heard since grade school!)

[Bianca Reagan]

I love Get Smart, too! My favorite character was 99, but I also liked the often inane Larabee. I also liked guest appearances from Harry Hoo, even though he wasn't really Asian.

[Jennifer]

I had forgotten about Larabee. And now, for some reason I have "De Craw!" "Not de Craw, de CRAW!" going through my head.

Who played The Claw??

[jerry]

Regarding WWII soldiers and their silence after the war, I just finished reading "Ordinary Heroes" by Scott Turow. Excellent book, and it addresses that in part.

(Okay, I listened to the unabridged recording by Edward Herrmann.)

[Mike Schilling]

The Claw was this guy.

[mndean]

I'm only 45, but my father fought in WWI. The only way I ever became aware of it was when I found his 1930 census entry a couple of years ago. It was a shock as he never mentioned his own participation while alive, although he did tell of a brother dying in that war. Re: Get Smart - the Claw was one I always happily remembered, along with Siegfried (Bernie Kopell) as the head of KAOS. It amazes me how much of the show I can remember, considering how young I was when it was on.

[PSoTD]

Ah yes, Tennessee Tuxedo. I wish I had a 3DBB...

[Chumley]

"3DBB"

:)

[tdraicer]

I saw Ms. Feldon from a distance of about 3 feet recently at a Lewis Black concert, and she certainly didn't look 74. Or if that is how 74 is going to look, well, the next 26 years may not be so bad.

[Andrew]

Don Adams was apparently a nice guy and he was a great Maxwell Smart, but he was notorious for lifting other comics' material. In the world of standup, this is a greater offense than kidnapping the Lindbergh baby.

Vets who saw combat and performed acts of heroism tend not to brag about it too much (see THE GIRL WATCHERS CLUB by Harry Stein). It's the guys who stayed put on military bases for four years who exaggerate their exploits.

Barbara Feldon was a contestant on THE $64,000 QUESTION in the 1950s, her category Shakespeare. She won $64,000. No, she didn't get the answers beforehand.

I understand that there's an upcoming GET SMART theatrical film, with Steve Carell as Max, and Anne Hathaway as 99. They got the casting right.

[mds]

Don Adams, Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 himself, served in the Marines in World War II, fought at Guadalcanal, was the only member of his unit to survive, almost died there of fever,

Hang on... Don Adams was Bobby Shaftoe?

[harry near indy]

a few comments:

andrew is right about comics stealing material from other comics. thievery is the worst thing a comic can do.

in the late 1970s, when robin williams blew up, he was notorious for doing that to little-known comics. nowadays, or so i've heard, if he wants to use a comic's material, williams will pay him.

(btw, i do amateur stand up comedy around the indianapolis area under the stage name of t.j. boone. if you want to see my act, please go to rooftopcomedy.com and click on my name. i might as well promote myself and give you some boan fides.)

as for carlos mencia, someone caught him stealing a routine from bill cosby. it was about the fact that everytime a football player is broadcast during a game, the first thing they say is "hi, mom!"

the word is out over the internet about that, too.

but i think a lot of the hating toward mencia and dane cookis because of their successes. a lot of comics are masses of jealousy.

anne hathaway as agent 99? she's a beautiful young woman, but i believe she's a little too girlishly cute for the role. barbara felton had back (and has now) the mature beauty of a woman, just as sophia loren has had it all her movie career.

as for hotties from '60s tv, here's a vote for barbara eden.

and lance:

1) no mention of mel brooks or buck henry, the creators of get smart. i hope that was an accidental lapse of memory.

2) how so you like newhart's autobiography? when you finish it, do you plan to write a post about it? if you do, i look forward to it.

[Andrew]

1) no mention of mel brooks or buck henry, the creators of get smart. i hope that was an accidental lapse of memory.

From what I understand, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry never really got along on GET SMART (even though Buck wound up writing the screenplay to THE GRADUATE, costarring Mel's wife). Apparently Brooks demanded higher billing in the credits.

[Lance]

Andrew, harry, if you look at the opening credits you'll see that it says, "Created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry." Odd. Definitely puts Henry in the position of second banana.

harry, I finished Newhart's book last fall. I thought I did write about it then. Maybe not. I'll check the archives. But for now: it's a pleasant read, fun if you're a fan of Newhart's. He tells some good stories, publishes the scripts for some of his great monologues, and that's about it. Took me a couple of hours to read. But I read it about the same time I read Alan Alda's and Jay Mohr's and together the three make an interesing triptych.

[OutOfContext]

Hey, Harry near Indy, I was just out your way Sunday a week ago to see the amazing Zach Galifianakis. As for Dane Cook, the big problem with him is he isn't funny. The jealousy defense is what he sells to his teenage admirers. Why hasn't the "jealousy" hammer hit other comics like Chris Rock, Dave Attell or Doug Stanhope as hard? Look, there is never going to be purity of thought in any creative endeavour, but Mencia's "Hi Mom" football bit is almost taken verbatim from Cosby; like translating King James to the Living Bible (all right, a little over the top).
Also for all things Smart, check out The Get Smart Page.
By the way, I have no bona fides whatsoever.