FIVE-O YOUR ENTHUSIASM (7)

By: Annie Nocenti
April 22, 2021

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite TV shows of the Sixties (in our periodization: 1964–1973).

GET SMART | 1965–1970

Chief: “Max, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Agent 86: “No, Chief, I’m thinking what I’m thinking.”

Created by comedic talents Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart aired in the late 1960s, just a channel notch away from horrific images of Vietnam, the first televised warfare. As a kid, I could flick the dial from the spy spoof to the Cold War CIA-driven blunder of an unpopular war.

Get Smart is a cornball classic. A reaction to the slick flicks of James Bond, Maxwell Smart (a.k.a. Agent 86) was tricked out with as many spy-craft gadgets as 007. In one episode, Smart is chasing Harvey Satan, a “mass murderer out of prison for good behavior.” Smart, along with pretty, plucky Agent 99, is communicating via five “secret” phones hidden in his accessories. In trying to handle multiple calls, Smart commands: “Hello Central? Cancel my handkerchief, hold my glasses, cut off my shoe, and see if you can get that guy off my tie.” Agent 86’s inept bungling seemed to say everything you needed to know about “counter intelligence,” as his stealth moves inevitably morphed into spectacle.

My favorite bit was the “cone of silence.” Spies trade in secrets. Agent Smart, over the protests of his weary, accommodating Chief, would sometimes invoke the cone — a plastic igloo bubble which descended over them from on high. Rather than privacy, the dysfunctional design of the unwieldy cone made communication deliriously impossible. Like two people in a deafening night club, the Chief and Agent 86 would begin to shout, their decibel levels escalating, their “secret” words bouncing off the cone, jig-jagging around, and eventually not just leak out, but blast out as if by bullhorn to any listening spies. Gags like the cone of silence and the shoe-phone were good schtick, and kept the chortles and titters coming. But somehow, watching the plastic cone of silence lowering down on people in this, a plague year, the amusement is tinged with discomfort. At a time when city streets are scattered with supposedly protective bubbles of plastic, the cone gag transposes on the current discourse of pods to become the insidious leak, spill, and waft of the invisible deadly virus.

The two warring spy agencies in Get Smart were called KAOS and CONTROL. In these maladroit times, lines like “No control agent can stand up to the logic and planning of chaos!” no longer read as mirthful satire. They feel more spot-on than spoof. The cone of silence descends.

***

FIVE-O YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Lynn Peril on DARK SHADOWS (1966–1971) | Mark Kingwell on THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (1964–1968) | Elizabeth Foy Larsen on I DREAM OF JEANNIE (1965–1970) | Luc Sante on SECRET AGENT/DANGER MAN (1964–1968 seasons) | Erin M. Routson on THE PATTY DUKE SHOW (1963–1966 run) | Gordon Dahlquist on HAWAII FIVE-O (1968–1973 seasons) | Annie Nocenti on GET SMART (1965–1970) | Sara Driver on THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1964–1966) | Carlo Rotella on MANNIX (1967–1973 seasons) | Adam McGovern on JULIA (1968–1971) | Mimi Lipson on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW (1970–1973 seasons) | Josh Glenn on BATMAN (1966–1968) | Tom Nealon on HOGAN’S HEROES (1965–1971) | Miranda Mellis on THE ODD COUPLE (1970–1973 seasons) | Peggy Nelson on GILLIGAN’S ISLAND (1964–1967) | Susan Roe on THE BRADY BUNCH (1969–1973 seasons) | Michael Grasso on UFO (1970–1973) | Richard McKenna on DOOMWATCH (1970–1972) | Adrienne Crew on BEWITCHED (1964–1972) | Michael Lewy on STAR TREK (1966–1969) | Greg Rowland on THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY (1970–1973 seasons) | David Smay on THE MONKEES (1966–1968) | Vijay Parthasarathy on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW (1964–1966 seasons) | Carl Wilson on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW (1967–1973 seasons) | Jessamyn West on EMERGENCY! (1972–1973 seasons).

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

FIVE-O YOUR ENTHUSIASM (7)

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