Would You Believe. . . We Forgot The Don Adams Centenary

Since comedy actors and standup comedians who also did voice work on animated cartoons remains a frequent topic here, it's surprising that we hadn't spotlighted Don Adams (April 13, 1923 – September 25, 2005), well known as Secret Agent 86 from Get Smart, in over 1380 posts. Here's Don on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.



Alas, the blog forgot the Agent 86 centenary last year but posts on Don Adams' 101st today to both rectify that error and say missed it by that much.



Don Adams began his career as a standup comic, first seen nationally on The Steve Allen Show in the 1950's.



Comedy and 20th century pop culture historian Kliph Nesteroff elaborates at length in his 2014 article Don Adams, Joey Bishop and the Steve Allen Scandal: Television Comedy in the Early 60s. While we love Don Adams, it appears he was to some degree the Carlos Mencia of his day, albeit infinitely funnier, and was also why Bob Newhart became a standup comic and decided to be the only performer of his own material. That said, Don's appearance here as Mr. Surfboard is hilarious.



My sexagenarian and septuagenarian contemporaries first became familiar with the distinctive voice of Don Adams via the 1963-1966 Saturday morning cartoon Tennessee Tuxedo & His Tales.



Still enjoy the Total Television series and its excellent voice work by Adams, Bradley Bolke, Larry Storch, narrator Kenny Delmar and others.



The storylines were IMHO the best of Total TV shows (King_Leonardo and His Short Subjects, Underdog, Klondike Kat) and the Phineas J. Whoopee segments, featuring the Frank Morgan-esque voice characterization by Larry Storch, were always entertaining and informative.



And that, dear readers, brings us to Get Smart and the indisputable fact that instead of doing his homework, the guy who writes this blog watched the series' first episode on TV on September 18, 1965 and ended up ROFL.



As Don's frequent writing partner was standup comedian Bill Dana, the origins of the Maxwell Smart character can be seen in The Bill Dana Show, which also co-starred Jonathan Harris (later the sniveling and pathetic Dr. Zachary Smith in the Irwin Allen TV series Lost In Space).



Get Smart, the spoof of 007 that no doubt proved an inspiration to Mike Myers' Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, was created by two of the all-time greats in television and silver screen comedy, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.



As the intrepid (and much smarter than Max) Agent 99, Get Smart co-star, actress Barbara Feldon, brought wit, understatement and style to the series. Could another actress pull off the role of Agent 99 as gracefully? Probably not.



There were five seasons of Get Smart and numerous ties to 1960's pop culture beyond 007 and Inspector Jacques Clouseau. While episode one was penned by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry - and both would contribute to season one episodes - a good number of talented scribes penned very funny scripts through the entire run of the series.

Stan Burns and Mike Marmer, subsequently writers for Carol Burnett Show, made their mark on the series. Allan Burns and Chris Hayward, terrific Jay Ward Productions writers, penned many Season 4 episodes, often collaborating with Arne Sultan and producer Leonard Stern. Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso, the writing team from The Monkees, penned many Get Smart episodes. Also among the writers: The Tonight Show's ultra-zany Pat McCormick.

After a stretch returning to stand-up comedy, Adams re-emerged with the Don Adams Screen Test show in the mid-1970's.



He also appeared as Agent 86 in TV ads.



There would be a big screen revival of Get Smart in 1980, the feature film The Nude Bomb, penned by Mel Brooks, Buck Henry and Arne Sultan. While this Agent 86 adventure has its moments and an appearance by 1940's movie queen Rhonda Fleming, the absence of Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 is much felt. The fact it doesn't include scenes featuring numerous individuals much better looking than Maxwell Smart victimized with naked aggression by The Nude Bomb does not help.



The next comeback for Don Adams would be a return to animation - and portraying a much more formidable sort than Agent 86 - in the 1980's TV series Inspector Gadget.



Inspector Gadget went on to further series and revivals.



The Don Adams version of Agent 86 would return in 1989 for the TV movie Get Smart Again! (prior to subsequent 21st century revivals starring Steve Carell), this one a lot more successful than The Nude Bomb, in large part due to the presence of Barbara Feldon. Enjoy!