Don Adams Get Smart What was Get Smart? a spoof that combined elements from two of the most popular film series at the time: the James Bond and Pink Panther (Inspector Clouseau) movies. When was its debut? When Get Smart debuted in 1965, Who created or wrote Get Smart? Dan Melnick and David Susskind,
Why was Get Smart created?
Why was Get Smart created?
Creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, prompted by producers Dan Melnick and David Susskind, wrote Get Smart as the comedic answer to the successful 1960s spy television dramas such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, I Spy and others. They were asked to write a spoof that combined elements from two of the most popular film series at the time: the James Bond and Pink Panther (Inspector Clouseau) movies.  Get Smart was written as a vehicle for Tom Poston, to be piloted on ABC; when ABC turned it down, NBC picked up the show, which cast Adams in the role because he was already under contract. When Get Smart debuted in 1965, it was an immediate hit. Barbara Feldon co-starred as Max's young and attractive partner (later wife) Agent 99, where she had a great chemistry with Adams throughout the show's run, despite a 10-year age difference, and they became best friends during and after.  Adams gave the character a clipped speaking style borrowed from actor William Powell. Feldon said, "Part of the pop fervor for Agent 86 was because Don did such an extreme portrayal of the character that it made it easy to imitate." Adams created many popular catch-phrases (some of which were in his act before the show), including "Sorry about that, Chief", "Would you believe ...?", "Ahh ... the old [noun] in the [noun] trick. That's the [number]th time this [month/week]." (sometimes the description of the trick was simply, "Ahh... the old [noun] trick."), and "Missed it by 'that much'". Adams also produced and directed 13 episodes of the show. He was nominated for Emmys four seasons in a row, from 1966 to 1969, for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series. He won the award three times. The show moved to CBS for its final season, with ratings declining, as spy series went out of fashion. Get Smart was canceled in 1970 after 138 episodes. CANNOTANSWER
wrote Get Smart as the comedic answer to the successful 1960s spy television dramas such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, I Spy and others.
Donald James Yarmy (April 13, 1923 – September 25, 2005), known professionally as Don Adams, was an American actor, comedian, and director. In his five decades on television, he was best known as Maxwell Smart (Agent 86) in the television situation comedy Get Smart (1965–1970, 1995), which he also sometimes directed and wrote. Adams won three consecutive Emmy Awards for his performance in the series (1967–1969). Adams also provided the voices for the animated series Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (1963–1966) and Inspector Gadget (1983–1986) as well as several revivals and spinoffs of the latter in the 1990s.

Early life
Adams was born in Manhattan, son of William Yarmy and his wife Consuelo. Adams's father was of Hungarian Jewish descent and his mother was Irish-American. Adams and his brother Richard (who later became an actor, known as Dick Yarmy) were each raised in the religion of one parent: Don in the Catholic faith of their mother, and Dick in the Jewish faith of their father.

Dropping out of New York City's DeWitt Clinton High School (comedian Larry Storch was a classmate), Adams worked as a theater usher.

During World War II, he joined the United States Marine Corps. Adams participated in the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942 in the Pacific Theater of Operations. His combat service was short-lived as Adams contracted blackwater fever, a serious complication of malaria, known for a 90% rate of fatality. He was evacuated and then hospitalized for more than a year at a Navy hospital in Wellington, New Zealand. After his recovery, he served as a Marine drill instructor in the United States.

He later worked as a comic, taking the stage name of Adams after marrying singer Adelaide (Dell) Efantis, who performed as Adelaide Adams. They had four daughters, and Adams also worked as a commercial artist and restaurant cashier to help support his family. When they divorced, he kept Adams as his stage name because acting auditions were often held in alphabetical order.

Career

The Bill Dana Show
Adams' work on television began in 1954 when he won on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts with a stand-up comedy act written by boyhood friend Bill Dana.  In the late 1950s, he made eleven appearances on The Steve Allen Show where Dana was part of the writing team. During the 1961–1963 television seasons, he was a regular on NBC's The Perry Como Show as part of The Kraft Music Hall Players. He had a role on the NBC sitcom The Bill Dana Show (1963–65) as a bumbling hotel detective named Byron Glick.

Get Smart

Creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, prompted by producers Daniel Melnick and David Susskind, wrote Get Smart as the comedic answer to the successful 1960s spy television dramas such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, I Spy and others. They were asked to write a spoof that combined elements from two of the most popular film series at the time: James Bond and The Pink Panther (Inspector Clouseau).

Get Smart was written as a vehicle for Tom Poston, to be piloted on ABC; when ABC turned it down, NBC picked up the show and cast Adams in the role because he was already under contract. When Get Smart debuted in 1965, it was an immediate hit. Barbara Feldon co-starred as Max's young and attractive partner (later wife) Agent 99. They had great chemistry throughout the show's run, despite a 10-year age difference, and they became best friends during and after.

Adams gave the character a clipped speaking style borrowed from actor William Powell. Feldon said, "Part of the pop fervor for Agent 86 was because Don did such an extreme portrayal of the character that it made it easy to imitate." Adams created many popular catch-phrases (some of which were in his act before the show), including "Sorry about that, Chief", , "Ahh ... the old [noun] in the [noun] trick.  That's the [number]th time this [month/week]." (sometimes the description of the trick was simply, "Ahh... the old [noun] trick."), and "Missed it by 'that much'".

Adams also produced and directed 13 episodes of the show. He was nominated for Emmys four seasons in a row, from 1966 to 1969, for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series. He won the award three times. The show moved to CBS for its final season, with ratings declining, as spy series went out of fashion. Get Smart was canceled in 1970 after 138 episodes.

Typecasting
Following this, Adams then wanted to move on to other projects. His efforts after Get Smart were less successful, including the comedy series The Partners (1971–72), a game show called Don Adams' Screen Test (1975–76, see below), and three attempts to revive the Get Smart series in the 1980s. His movie The Nude Bomb (1980) was unsuccessful at the box-office. Adams had been typecast as Maxwell Smart and was unable to escape the image, although he had success as the voice of the title character of Inspector Gadget.

He earned most of his income from his work on stage and in nightclubs. As Adams had chosen a low salary combined with a one-third ownership stake in Get Smart during the show's production, he received a regular income for many years due to the show's popularity in reruns.

Don Adams' Screen Test
Don Adams' Screen Test is a syndicated game show which lasted 26 episodes during the 1975–76 season.  The show was done in two 15-minute segments, in each of which a randomly selected audience member would 'act' to re-create a scene from a Hollywood movie as accurately as possible.

Such moments as the bar scene from The Lost Weekend, the duel scene from The Prisoner of Zenda or the beach scene from From Here to Eternity were used, with Adams directing and a celebrity guest playing the other lead in the scene. Hokey effects, bad timing, forgotten lines, prop failures and the celebrity's "ad-libs" were maximized for comic effect as the audience watched "bloopers" and "outtakes" as they happened. At the end of the program, the final, serious, fully edited version of the "screen test" of each of the two contestants would be played, with audience reaction determining the winner, who would receive a trip to Hollywood and a real screen test for a motion picture.

Later work

Adams resurrected the Maxwell Smart character for a series of television commercials for Savemart, a retail chain that sold audio and video equipment. He also did a series of audio/radio commercials in the 1980s for Chief Auto Parts, a retail automobile parts establishment later sold to AutoZone.

He also appeared in the film Jimmy the Kid (1982) and played a cameo role as a harbormaster in Back to the Beach (1987).

Adams attempted a situation-comedy comeback in Canada with Check it Out! in 1985. Set in a supermarket, the show ran for three years but was not successful in the United States. The show also starred Gordon Clapp, an unknown actor at the time, who developed a rapport with Adams.

In 1995, Adams reprised his Maxwell Smart role one last time on Get Smart for Fox; it co-starred Barbara Feldon and rising star Andy Dick as Max and 99's son. Unlike the original version, this show did not appeal to younger viewers, and it was canceled after just seven episodes.  One of Adams's last public appearances was at the Get Smart Gathering on November 7, 2003, at a North Hollywood restaurant, in which fans of the show joined the cast and some of the creative talent of the series.

Adams was the voice of the title character in Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (1963–66), with his bombastic catch-phrase "Tennessee Tuxedo will not fail!" Later, he voiced himself in animated form for a guest shot in an episode of Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies, titled "The Exterminator". His most notable voiceover work was that of the title character in Inspector Gadget. He voiced the character in the original television series (1983–85) and a 1992 Christmas special, as well as in subsequent 1990s spinoffs Gadget Boy and Inspector Gadget's Field Trip. He retired from voicing Inspector Gadget in 1999.

His last roles, prior to his death in 2005, were the character of Principal Hickey in the late-1990s/early-2000s Disney cartoon Pepper Ann, Ranger Rudy in Fisher-Price CD-ROM game Outdoor Adventures: Ranger Trail, and the voice of Brain the Dog in the end credits for the 1999 film version of Inspector Gadget.

Personal life
Adams was married three times, to Adelaide Efantis Adams, Dorothy Bracken Adams, and Judy Luciano, and all three marriages ended in divorce. His brother Richard Paul Yarmy, also known as Dick Yarmy (February 14, 1932 – May 5, 1992), was an actor. His sister Gloria Yarmy Burton was a writer.

He had seven children: Carolyn, Christine, Cathy, Cecily, Stacey, Sean, and Beige. His daughter Cecily died of lung cancer in 2004 and his son Sean died in 2006 at age 35 of a brain tumor, a year after Don Adams's death. An avid gambler, according to his longtime friend Bill Dana, Adams "could be very devoted to his family if you reminded him about it, [but] Don's whole life was focused around gambling."

Death

Adams died on September 25, 2005, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.  He suffered from lymphoma and a lung infection. Before his death, Adams had joked about not wanting a mournful funeral, preferring, he said, to have his friends get together "and bring me back to life."

Among his eulogists were his decades-long friends Barbara Feldon, Don Rickles, James Caan, Bill Dana, and his son-in-law, actor Jim Beaver (widower of Adams' daughter Cecily). His funeral Mass was held at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. He is interred in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

 
 
 Profile, laughterlog.com
 Associated Press obituary. legacy.com

1923 births
2005 deaths
American stand-up comedians
American male film actors
American game show hosts
American male television actors
American male voice actors
United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II
American people of Irish descent
American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
United States Marines
Military personnel from New York City
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from lymphoma
DeWitt Clinton High School alumni
Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in a Comedy Series Primetime Emmy Award winners
Infectious disease deaths in California
Male actors from New York City
People from Manhattan
20th-century American male actors
Comedians from New York City
20th-century American comedians
Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, the series stars Don Adams (as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86), Barbara Feldon (as Agent 99), and Edward Platt (as the Chief). It was initially broadcast from September 18, 1965 to May 15, 1970, the first four seasons on NBC, and the last on CBS. It ran for five seasons, with 138 half-hour episodes being produced in total. 

The pilot episode was filmed in black-and-white, but the entire ensuing series was filmed in color. 

Like most sitcoms of its time, Get Smart was not serialized, so the episodes generally have no relation to each other.

Each of the five seasons has been released on DVD by HBO; also, the entire series has been released in a single box set, first by Time Life, then by HBO.

On August 10, 2015, the entire series was officially released on digital streaming platforms for the first time in preparation for the series 50th anniversary.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (1965–66) 
Debuting on September 18, 1965, the series aired on Saturday nights following I Dream of Jeannie and opposite The Lawrence Welk Show (ABC) and The Trials of O'Brien (CBS).

The season earned executive producer Leonard Stern an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series and Don Adams for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series. Two episodes were nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards: "Diplomat's Daughter" for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy (Paul Bogart) and "Mr. Big" for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy (Buck Henry and Mel Brooks).

{{Episode table |background=#ffd700|overall=4 |season=4 |title=19 |director=15 |writer=20 |airdate=14 |prodcode=7 |episodes=

{{Episode list
|EpisodeNumber   = 1
|EpisodeNumber2  = 1
|Title           = Mr. Big
|DirectedBy      = Howard Morris
|WrittenBy       = Mel Brooks and Buck Henry
|OriginalAirDate = 
|ProdCode        = 001
|ShortSummary    = Maxwell Smart must defeat the sinister Mr. Big, who is using a device called the Inthermo to threaten New York City. Michael Dunn, who would go on to star as The Wild Wild Wests Dr. Miguelito Loveless, stars as KAOS's Mr. Big.Note''': This was the only black and white episode of Get Smart; all others were in color.
|LineColor       = ffd700
}}

}}

 Season 2 (1966–67) 
The second season of Get Smart aired on Saturday nights following Please Don't Eat the Daisies and opposite The Lawrence Welk Show (ABC) and Pistols 'n' Petticoats (CBS).

 Season 3 (1967–68) 
For the third season, Get Smart aired on Saturday nights following Maya and opposite The Lawrence Welk Show (ABC) and My Three Sons (CBS).

 Season 4 (1968–69) 
Season Four of Get Smart aired on Saturday nights following Adam-12 and opposite The Newlywed Game (ABC) and the second half of The Jackie Gleason Show (CBS). It was the last season on NBC.

 Season 5 (1969–70) 
After its move to CBS, the series aired on Friday nights at 7:30 (replacing The Wild Wild West), opposite Let's Make a Deal (ABC) and The High Chaparral'' (NBC). This is the series' final season.

Home media

References

External links 
 
 Carl's Complete Get Smart Website

E
Lists of American sitcom episodes Robert Karvelas (April 3, 1921 – December 5, 1991) was an American actor. He was best known for his role as Larabee in the television series Get Smart (1965–1970).

Biography 
Karvelas was born in New York City with a twin brother and grew up in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. His mother was of Irish descent and his father was of Greek descent. His mother and Don Adams' mother were sisters. Karvelas was a Golden Gloves boxing champion while serving in the United States Marines during World War II  and later worked as a stockbroker.

Wanting his cousin to remain close to him, Adams initially gave Karvelas several uncredited bit parts on Get Smart. One such part was an assistant to the Chief, which would evolve into the character of Larabee.  Karvelas actually ended up appearing in all five seasons of the show.  The character "Larabee" would go on to have the distinction of being just as bumbling as Maxwell Smart, if not more so. In Episode 21, Season 5, Smart tells the Chief, "People ask if Larabee and I are related."  Robert's character part, and his generally sweet, unassuming nature, enhanced the joviality of Get Smart.

After the cancellation of Get Smart, Karvelas again joined his cousin Adams on the sitcom, The Partners, which starred Adams and Rupert Crosse and co-starred Dick Van Patten. The show was cancelled after one season. He continued to appear in small bit parts on television before dropping out of acting in 1976. He reprised the character of Larrabee in The Nude Bomb and Get Smart, Again!

Karvelas died in 1991 in Los Angeles and was buried at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

Filmography

References

External links
 
 

1921 births
1991 deaths
20th-century American male actors
American identical twin actors
American male boxers
American male comedy actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II
American people of Greek descent
American people of Irish descent
American stockbrokers
Boxers from New York (state)
Burials at Riverside National Cemetery
Identical twin male actors
Male actors from New York City
National Golden Gloves champions