Hopping on the Get Smart bandwagon, Sony has released "the complete series" on DVD. You may be wondering why all the episodes appear on one disc: it's because this is the 1995 version of the show that lasted a whopping seven episodes before being cancelled. The classic 1960s series had a checkered history in terms of reunion movies. In 1980, Universal released the big screen feature film The Nude Bomb, which boasted only one saving grace: the fact that the movie starred Don Adams. Missing in action was Barbara Feldon (who must have actually read the script) and Edward Platt, who had already passed away. The film had a few laughs, but was done on the cheap and became reviled for using its extended climatic sequence as a thinly-veiled promotional film for Universal Studio tours. It also inexplicably didn't include Get Smart in the title, leading to dismal box-office results. In 1989, Adams reunited with Feldon for the TV movie Get Smart Again (aka The Return of Maxwell Smart). This film captured the charm and wit of the original series and is largely respected by fans. However, in 1995, the fledgling Fox network had the bright idea of bringing the show back on a weekly basis. From the start, however, virtually every possible miscalculation was made. Although the publicity played up the fact that Adams and Feldon would be reunited in the series, the old prejudice against actors over the age of 40 came into play. Adams' Maxwell Smart (now promoted to Chief of CONTROL) was relegated to brief scenes and Feldon (whose Agent 99 is now a congresswoman) had mostly blink-and-you'll-miss-her appearances. Adding to fan's frustrations was the fact that both of these legendary TV stars looked terrific and their timing and chemistry was as good as ever. Yet, in the relentless quest to appeal to a more youthful audience, the scripts largely centered on two characters who viewers had never met before: Max and 99's bumbling son Zach (Andy Dick) and his glamorous partner Agent 66 (Elaine Hendrix). The result was a disaster of Irwin Allen proportions. Without any affection or background given to these characters, audiences could not relate to them.
The concept of believing that charisma is transferrable from one character to another simply because the audience is told they are related, has long been discredited. (Even Son of Kong couldn't approach the charisma of his old man.) Dick's Zachary Smart follows in the footsteps of his father, but the results are uniformly lame - though in fairness, the laughless scripts don't help much. Dick plays Zach in a flamboyant, prissy manner that might have had some value if the series had the courage to present him as the first openly gay action hero. Instead, the scriptwriters punt and actually present him as a ladies' man, the least convincing casting since Liberace was seen as a hearthrob in Sincerely Yours. Elaine Hendrix, cast as his partner Agent 66, is undeniably gorgeous, but the character is poorly written and presented as a self-obessed snob - the antithesis of Barbara Feldon's 99. In the first episode, the old plot device of the reluctant team mates is dragged out when Max pairs his son with Agent 66. To no one's surprise, they learn to like and respect each other, but the series enters the realm of science fiction when Agent 66 begins to find the foppish Zach an irresistable catch. This allows the scripts to introduce the kind of wince-inducing dirty jokes that the original series never had to rely on. The series also suffers from its ultra cheap production values beginning with the cheesy opening credits. (The entrance to CONTROL is through a car wash and the phone booth has been replaced by a soda machine!). There are no exteriors and the sets appear to have been imported from a local high school play.
The show does benefit from its talented cast, though one can only be saddened by the demise of the once talented Andy Dick, who has spent the last decade living up to his surname through a series of endless personal scandals and boorish public behavior. Elaine Hendrix has looks and charisma, but her character is completely repellant. The brief pairings of Don Adams and Barbara Feldon only leaves viewers frustrated by what could have been. In the course of suffering through the seven episodes, I laughed precisely twice through two sequences that manage to recapture the spirit of the original show. In one episode, a Robert Goulet impersonator (played by Goulet himself) amends his song lyrics to warn Max of imminent danger. Max becomes charmed by the song and ends up tapping his feet, oblivious to the obvious warning. In another episode, the character of KAOS mastermind Siegfried (Bernie Koppel) is resurrected to match wits (!) with Max, and the result is the kind of wonderful banter that was a hallmark of the original series.
Yet, for all of the above criticisms, this edition will be a "must have" for spy movie fans who will want to add this to their collections as a historical curiosity. There are no extras except for the inclusion of two "minisodes", which are five minute condensations of TV episodes (we're not joking). The first is an episode of NewsRadio and the other is (inexplicably) T.J. Hooker which recalls a time when William Shatner could still credibly fit into a police uniform. The shows are part of a web site that allows viewers to see a wealth of series episodes all reduced to five minutes - including complete opening and closing credits. Apparently, the intended market for these is an audience who finds Classic Comic adaptations and movie trailers too mentally taxing to understand. In any event, the way TV episodes are being routinely butchered in the syndication market, these might emerge as the most extensive representations of these shows on broadcast television- Lee Pfeiffer
To order the Get Smart DVD from Amazon click here
Click here to order The Nude Bomb DVD