Get Smart

Get Smart is an American comedy television series parodying the secret agent genre that had become widely popular in the first half of the 1960s with the release of the James Bond films. It was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and had its television premiere on NBC on September 18, 1965. It starred Don Adams, who was also a director on the series, as agent Maxwell Smart (Agent 86), Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, and Edward Platt as The Chief. Henry said that they created the show at the request of Daniel Melnick to capitalize on James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, "the two biggest things in the entertainment world today". Brooks described it as "an insane combination of James Bond and Mel Brooks comedy". The show generated a number of popular catchphrases during its run, including "Sorry about that, Chief", "...and loving it", "missed it by that much", and "would you believe...". The show was followed by the films The Nude Bomb, a 1980 theatrical film made without the involvement of Brooks and Henry, and Get Smart, Again!, a 1989 made-for-TV sequel to the series, and a 1995 revival series and a 2008¹ film adaptation. In 2010, TV Guide ranked Get Smart s opening title sequence at number two on its list of TV's top 10 credits sequences as selected by readers. The show switched networks in 1969 to CBS. It ended its five-season run on May 15, 1970, after 138 episodes.…

Get Smart is an American comedy television series parodying the secret agent genre that had become widely popular in the first half of the 1960s with the release of the James Bond films. It was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and had its television premiere on NBC on September 18, 1965. It starred Don Adams, who was also a director on the series, as agent Maxwell Smart (Agent 86), Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, and Edward Platt as The Chief. Henry said that they created the show at the request of Daniel Melnick to capitalize on James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, "the two biggest things in the entertainment world today". Brooks described it as "an insane combination of James Bond and Mel Brooks comedy". The show generated a number of popular catchphrases during its run, including "Sorry about that, Chief", "...and loving it", "missed it by that much", and "would you believe...". The show was followed by the films The Nude Bomb, a 1980 theatrical film made without the involvement of Brooks and Henry, and Get Smart, Again!, a 1989 made-for-TV sequel to the series, and a 1995 revival series and a 2008 film adaptation. In 2010, TV Guide ranked Get Smart s opening title sequence at number two on its list of TV's top 10 credits sequences as selected by readers. The show switched networks in 1969 to CBS. It ended its five-season run on May 15, 1970, after 138 episodes. The Museum of Broadcast Communications found the show notable for "broadening the parameters for the presentation of comedy on television".

Premise

The series centers on bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart (Adams), also known as Agent 86, and his unnamed female partner, Agent 99 (Feldon). They work for CONTROL, a secret US government counterintelligence agency based in Washington, D.C., fighting against KAOS, "the international organization of evil". While Smart always succeeds in thwarting KAOS, his incompetent nature and insistence on doing things "by the book" invariably cause complications. The enemies, world-takeover plots, and gadgets seen in Get Smart were a parody of the James Bond film franchise. "Do what they did except just stretch it half an inch", Mel Brooks said of the methods of this TV series.

Home media and rights

All five seasons are available as box sets in Region 1 (United States, Canada, and others) and Region 4 (Australia, New Zealand, and others). The Region 1 discs are published by HBO Home Video, and Region 4 by Time Life Video. Each Region 1 box contains 4 discs. Region 4 editions have a 5th disc with bonus material. Region 4 editions are also available as individual discs, with four to five episodes per disc. The Season 1 set was released in both regions in 2008. Seasons 2 and 3 box sets were released in Region 4 in July 2008. Seasons 4 and 5 were released in Region 4 in November 2008. Seasons 2–5 in Region 1 were released throughout 2009¹. Another box set of the complete series is available in both regions, first published in 2006¹ by Time Life Video. In 2009, the Region 1 edition was replaced by an HBO edition, and became more widely available. All editions contain a 5th disc for each season, with bonus material. The set has 25 discs altogether. The first four seasons were produced for NBC by Talent Associates. When it moved to CBS at the start of Season 5, it became an in-house production, with Talent Associates as a silent partner. The series was sold to NBC Films for syndication. Over decades, US distribution has changed from National Telefilm Associates to Republic Pictures, to Worldvision Enterprises, to Paramount Domestic Television, to CBS Paramount Domestic Television, to CBS Television Distribution, to the current distributor, CBS Media Ventures. For decades, the syndication rights of all but a handful of the fifth-season episodes (that season being originally co-owned by Talent Associates and CBS) were encumbered with restrictions and reporting requirements. As a result, most of that season was rarely seen in syndication. They were shown with more regularity on Nick at Nite and TV Land. The distribution changes, including the loosening of restrictions on the fifth season, were the result of corporate changes, especially the 2006 split of Viacom (owners of Paramount Pictures) into two companies. HBO owns the copyrights to the series itself, due to Time-Life Films' 1977 acquisition of Talent Associates. Home videos are distributed by HBO Home Video. For a time the DVD release was only available through Time-Life, a former Time Warner division. Warner Bros. Television owns international distribution rights. In August 2015, the entire series was officially released on digital streaming platforms for the first time in preparation for its 50th anniversary.

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