My 50 Favorite Classic TV Characters: Don Adams as Maxwell Smart

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Let's first acknowledge the obvious reasons why Get Smart remains one of the crown jewels of television comedy.

Start with the clever foundation laid by genius creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry; the perfect casting of Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, with equally memorable support from sultry Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 and Edward Platt as Max’s exasperated Chief; the movie spoofs (“Bronzefinger,” “Witness for the Persecution”); the catchphrases (“Missed it by that much”); surefire visual gags like the Cone of Silence; guest characters that would be delightfully offensive to easily-triggered modern sensibilities (The Claw, Harry Hoo).

And many, many more. But there’s one ingredient in this remarkable mix that is not always acknowledged: the show was perceptive enough to not make Max stupid all the time.

Even if part of the intent was to spoof both James Bond and U.S. covert agencies that had come under increased scrutiny in the late ‘60s, making Max a complete moron would have quickly become tiresome. He would often be clueless and clumsy, but usually he would also complete his missions, knock out a few bad guys, and keep the world safe from the evil plots of KAOS.

Contrast this with, say, Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island. In every episode, a rescue plan is foiled because Gilligan screws up. The only suspense is in exactly how he’s going to doom his fellow castaways to another week on the island. There was no point is rooting for him to be a hero. Max, despite his mistakes, could still save the day, much to the amazement of everyone around him.

The stars seemed to align to bring this series to magnificent fruition, though there were some bumps along the way. The pilot was first offered to ABC with Tom Poston cast as Max. When ABC turned it down, NBC picked it up – not because they had a lot of confidence in the idea, but because they already had comedian Don Adams under contract and wanted to get something out of that investment.

They didn’t know how fortuitous that decision would prove. With Adams in place, Maxwell Smart was not a character that had to be developed or shaped by the first scripts. He was fully formed before the first scene of Get Smart was shot. If you watch Adams as hotel detective Byron Glick on The Bill Dana Show, you’re seeing the birth of Max – same mannerisms, same line delivery – he was even using the “Would you believe” routine that became one of Get Smart’s best recurring bits.

Another reason I believe this is one of the most perfect matches of actor to role of the Comfort TV era, is how, in a different world, Don Adams could play it straight and make an audience accept him as a dashing secret agent - at least when he wasn't talking into his shoe.

That debonair quality would be on display early in several scenes, as he’d walk confidently into a potentially fatal encounter, gun drawn…and then fall down the stairs.

As gifted a physical comedian as Adams was, it’s his voice that is first recalled as a defining characteristic. The network asked him to tone it down a bit after the pilot, but thankfully it wasn’t dialed back far enough to lose that nasally quality inspired by William Powell in the Thin Man movies. Adams was also a gifted mimic, working in credible impressions of Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Colman in some of the series’ most fondly remembered episodes.

Fifty years later Get Smart remains one of the most laugh-out-loud comedies ever created. In 1965, when one of the Gemini 7 astronauts suffered a minor technical malfunction in his space suit, the response from Mission Control was “Sorry about that, Chief.” That’s how you know a series has fully penetrated the pop culture.

Even on a tenth viewing of an episode when you know the jokes are coming, they still land. That’s a testament not only to Adams, who won the Emmy three years in a row for his portrayal of Agent 86, but to the entire cast, including occasional regulars like Hymie and Larrabee and Agent 13, not to mention the villainous Siegfried (Bernie Kopell) and William Schallert as the first Chief of CONTROL.

Classic episodes? Where do you even start? The pilot, pitting Max against a villain known as Mr. Big (when you see him you’ll know this show was politically incorrect from day one); “Washington 4, Indians 3,” in which a Native American tribe threatens to take back their stolen land by force with a weapon that, to me, may be the best sight gag in 1960s television; “A Man Called Smart, Part 1,” featuring a masterpiece of slapstick comedy starring Don Adams, a stretcher and a revolving door.

And about 50 or 60 more. Yes, the series did start to run out of gas in its fifth and final season, with Max and 99 married and becoming parents (did that ever work to save a troubled show?). But by then viewers had already been gifted with more laughter than most sitcoms manage in twice as many seasons. And Don Adams was doomed to a typecasting fate that befell many other creators of iconic television roles.

Sorry about that, Don. But I wouldn’t trade a minute of this series for anything.