Get Smart

Get Smart
Premiere	September 18, 1965
Finale	May 15, 1970
Creator	Mel Brooks with Buck Henry
Network/Provider	NBC (seasons 1-4) CBS (season 5)
Style	30-minute sitcom
Company	Talent Associates, CBS (season 5)
Distributor	NBC Films (until 1973) National Telefilm Associates (1973–1986) Republic Pictures Television (1986–1994) Worldvision Enterprises (1994–1999) Paramount Domestic Television (1999–2006) CBS Paramount Television (2006–2007) CBS Television Distribution (2007–2021) CBS Media Ventures (2021– )
Seasons	5
Episodes	138
Origin	USA

Get Smart is a sitcom that aired on NBC for four seasons and CBS for one season.

Get Smart, created as a satirical sendup of the secret agent genre, focuses on Maxwell Smart (Don Adams), a bumbling secret agent also known as Agent 86. Smart and his partner, Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), are employed by CONTROL, a counter-intelligence agency funded by the US government to deal with domestic and foreign threats to global security posed by a ruthless organization called KAOS. Although seemingly incompetent (which often causes problems during missions), Smart manages to get the better of the various villains he deals with through a combination of sheer luck and surprising skills on his part and the assistance of the more competent 99. The head of CONTROL, known primarily as the Chief (Edward Platt), oversees Smart and 99's missions and, to his own chagrin, often has to deal with Smart's apparent awkwardness and clumsiness.

Many of the storylines on the show parodied the James Bond film series. As part of the satire, spy gadgets used in Get Smart were often concealed in ordinary items; one of the most notable was a telephone concealed inside one of Smart's shoes, which he had to take off in order to use. Also concealed in the heels of Smart's shoes were miniature smoke bombs, explosive pellets and cherry-flavored suicide pills. Among the other featured gadgets were an invisible bulletproof wall in Smart's apartment (which lowered from the ceiling when needed) and the Cone of Silence, two connected transparent domes which Smart and the Chief used for secret conversations when needed for security purposes, but which often failed to work properly as Smart and the Chief never hear each other clearly inside the defective device, while outside bystanders can hear them and speak to them.

During the run of the show, there were also frequent appearances by popular celebrities, character actors and up-and-coming young stars in roles as guest villains, other CONTROL agents and in cameo roles. Following the end of the series in 1970, four movie versions of the show were produced; the 1980 theatrical feature The Nude Bomb, the 1989 TV movie Get Smart, Again!, the 2008 Warner Bros. theatrical remake Get Smart (which starred Steve Carell as Smart) and a 2008 direct-to-DVD spinoff titled Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control. Following on the success of Get Smart, Again!, a short-lived revival of the original series aired on FOX in 1995, with Don Adams and Barbara Feldon returning to their original roles while comedian Andy Dick portrayed Smart's son, Zach, now a CONTROL agent himself.

Get Smart was produced by Talent Associates (also credited in the end credits during the first season as Talent Associates-Paramount and in the final two seasons as TA/Norton Simon) throughout its run, with CBS assuming co-production of the show when it moved to that network for its fifth and final season. NBC, which had aired the show during its first four seasons, then assumed distribution of the series through its original syndication unit, NBC Films (whose library was sold to National Telefilm Associates in 1973 following a 1970 FCC ruling prohibiting the American TV networks from syndicating their own programs). Most episodes of the final season, however, did not air in syndication for many years due to restrictions and reporting requirements placed on the syndication rights of those episodes, but those rules were mostly lifted in recent years as the result of corporate changes with Get Smart's subsequent distributors, particularly the 2006 split of Viacom (whose Paramount Television, prior to the split, held the TV distribution rights at that point) into the separate companies CBS Corporation and the second version of Viacom. CBS Media Ventures, the syndication unit of CBS Studios, now holds the North American TV distribution rights to Get Smart, while Warner Bros. Television is the international distributor and WarnerMedia's HBO (which now owns the Talent Associates library, including Get Smart) is the DVD distributor.

Cast

Actor	Character	Duration
Main Cast		1	2	3	4	5
Don Adams	Maxwell Smart	*	*	*	*	*
Barbara Feldon	Agent 99	*	*	*	*	*
Edward Platt	The Chief	o	*	*	*	*
Orange/Red/o indicates a recurring or guest role during that season. Dark Green indicates top billing during that season.
Supporting/Recurring Cast		1	2	3	4	5
Robert Karvelas	Larabee	*	*	*	*	*
Victor French	Agent 44	*
Al Molinaro						*
David Ketchum	Agent 13		*
Richard Gautier	Hymie		*	*
Bernie Kopell	Conrad Siegfried		*	*	*
Angelique Pettyjohn	Charlie Watkins		*
Stacy Keach, Sr.	Carlson		*
Leonard Strong	The Claw	*	*		*

Seasons

Season	Premiere	Finale				#
NBC
Season One	September 18, 1965	May 7, 1966				30
Season Two	September 17, 1966	April 22, 1967				30
Season Three	September 16, 1967	April 6, 1968				26
Season Four	September 21, 1968	April 12, 1969				26
CBS
Season Five	September 26, 1969	May 15, 1970				26

Feature Film

Title			Release Date
The Nude Bomb			May 9, 1980

Telefilm

Title	Network		Airdate
Get Smart, Again!	NBC		February 26, 1989

In-Depth

• At a Glance: Additional information about the series

DVD Releases

Title			Release			Discs
Complete Series  (Region 1)
The Complete Collection			November 15, 2006 (TimeLife) November 4, 2008 (General)	purchase		25
Season Sets  (Region 1)
Season 1			August 5, 2008	purchase		4
Season 2			March 10, 2009	purchase		4
Season 3			June 9, 2009	purchase		4
Season 4			October 6, 2009	purchase		4
Season 5			December 8, 2009	purchase		4

External Sites

• Get Smart on IMDb