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When Max needed to use or answer his phone, he took off his Florsheim size 9-D shoe (his left one), removed the rubber sole to reveal the rotary phone dialing device. His shoe phone number is 306. When he dialed the number 117, his shoe would convert into a gun. Max's shoes also contained deadly weaponry. Housed in a small compartment of his left heel were two pellets-the small one explodes when thrown or heated; the larger one was a suicide pill which killed painlessly in twenty seconds when swallowed. Max's right heel concealed a smoke-screen pellet which left a trail of heavy smoke when crushed.

Other forms of communications used by CONTROL agents included the Cone of Silence, which Max insisted the Chief use (although he hated it); and odd or comical passwords (sign and counter signs) and codes. On one assignment ("The Mummy") Max used a coughing code which consisted of various types of coughs - soft, hard, etc. The enemy organization KAOS once used a confetti code which tossed different colors of confetti to send messages to their agents. 

To get around town, Max drove a Red Tiger Sunbeam convertible sports car. The CFB600 model (License Plate No. D6-893) contained a cigarette lighter (that doubled as a grenade); ejector seat (activated by remote control or switch on dashboard); exhaust pipe machine gun, tail pipe oil slick device, two 100-velocity, 50-caliber machine guns concealed in hood, radar scan, radar tracking device to track Control agent cars. (activated by pulling light switch and turning it left); radiator cap filled with poisonous gas; trunk (opened by dialing the plate numbers to CA44N); and smoke screen device. Max also drove a blue Kharman Ghia convertible, and a 1969 Opel GT sports car. 

Outside of his "spy" family, Max had a few personal relatives of his own. They included his Uncle Abner and Aunt Bertha, his mother (whom Max sends $15.00 a month), his father (whose only gift to his son was a pair of pants so he could go to work), and Max's brother who used to lock Max in the closet when they were kids.

On November 16, 1968, Max and Agent 99 married and soon had a family of their own - adorable twins. The two moved into Max's apartment which was filled with all sorts of protective devices designed to keep them safe from their enemies. One such device was an invisible bullet-proof wall which Max was always activating and bumping into inadvertently.

Agent 99 and 86 on the job.

By the mid 1970s, CONTROL had "controlled" the menace of KAOS and so their agency was closed. Their records were warehoused at 96427 43rd Street In Washington DC. but in the late 1980s, KAOS reared its ugly head again and threatened to destroy the world with a deadly weather machine stolen from the government. Called out of retirement to handle the threat, Max left his job as a protocol officer with the State Department and reported to Commander Drury, the new head of CONTROL. Of course, Max (with the aide of 99, Hymie the Robot and Agent 44) saved the world and the government decided to keep CONTROL open for business.

In 1995, Max was promoted to the Head of CONTROL. Assisted by his flighty secretary Trudy, Max promoted his son, Zach from researcher to field agent (who used a sneaker phone). His partner was a sexy, intelligent agent - code named "66" (her bra shot bullets). They, of course, battled the agents of KAOS, now a mega-corporation, who were bent on world "economic" domination.

So, Max had come full circle from a secret agent to the head of the agency. Meanwhile, 99 had written her memoirs called Out of Control and been elected to Congress. Would you believe that the world was a safer place with Max at the helm of CONTROL? We shall see.

TRIVIA NOTE: Maxwell Smart reappeared in the 1980 motion picture The Nude Bomb a.k.a. The Return of Maxwell Smart wherein he worked for the spy agency PITS (Provisional Intelligence Tactical Service). On February 26, 1989 ABC aired a TV move, Get Smart, Again. In 1995, Max returned for a final stint on the short-lived (seven episodes) FOX network remake of the original series GET SMART. In 2005, Warner Brother will produce a feature film based on the series starring Steve Carrell as Maxwell Smart.

According to The Get Smart Handbook by Joey Green (Collier Books, 1993) Don Adam's Agent 86 character was a combination of two earlier inspirations:

1. A pompous but very confused detective who gathered all the suspects in a room to find the murderer (a character Adams created in 1954)
2. The sophisticated vocal mannerisms of William Powell from the Thin Man movies.

Dan Melnick, of Talent Associates, gave Maxwell Smart the operative number 86 (a la the 007 signature of James Bond). The term referred to the slang expression "to eighty-six someone" meaning "to refuse credit, to stop serving a drunk any more liquor, to oust an obnoxious patron." Mel Brooks, the series co-creator derived the Smart's first name from his relatives (both his father and his own son's were called Max). In 1995, Don Adams lent his vocal talents to an equally bumbling law enforcement officer on the animated series INSPECTOR GADGETSYN/1983-85.

Born Donald James Yarmy in New York City on April 13, 1926, Don Adams (a.k.a. Agent 86) died September 25, 2005 from a lung infection at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 82.

Steve Carrel (of THE OFFICE fame) assumed the mantel of the bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart in the remake Get Smart: The Movie (2008). Anne Hathaway played Agent 99.

Anne Hathaway and Steve Carrel

GET SMART/NBC/CBS//1965-70/FOX/1995

External Links

• Get Smart - 1965 (IMDb)
• Get Smart - 1995 (IMDb)
• Get Smart, Again! - TV Movie 1989 (IMDb)
• Get Smart: The Movie 2008 (IMDb)
• TV Guide's Get Smart Page, with TV Listings, Photos, Videos, Exclusive News and More.

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