Herkie the Dog's World Musings
Would You Believe...?
I'm not old enough to have seen Get Smart in its first run, but I watched it all the time as a kid. I absolutely loved the show. It had a great theme and opening title sequence with Maxwell Smart, CONTROL Agent 86 walking down a hallway, steel doors closing behind him, to a normal looking phone booth containing a trap door that dropped him into CONTROL Headquarters. You could tell which season the episode was from because the sequence varied slightly from year to year.
Like any spy series, there were the gadgets. But of course, being a comedy, these gadgets were very tongue in cheek...and memorable. There was the shoe phone, probably the definitive item from the show, and the cone of silence, which when lowered to foil potential surveillance devices also resulted in Smart and the Chief not able to hear each other. The show was full of jokes like that, ranging from laugh out loud to absolute groaners, but certainly recognizable as Mel Brooks' style of humor.
Get Smart was a shared experience with my friends and family, mostly with my good buddy Paul. Many memories came from our interest in this show, from cartoons that we drew, to going to see the Maxwell Smart movie and all the way to the sense of humor that we developed.
That's why today's announcement of the passing of Don Adams caught my attention more than the usual announcement of the loss of any other Hollywood legend. No longer are these people simply just names that I had heard from somewhere. They are now starting to be the ones that peppered my youth and helped create nostalgic memories of home. They mean something to me. To me, it's not just Don Adams passing away, but Maxwell Smart, Inspector Gadget and Tennesee Tuxedo also. And in a way, it feels like it's taking bits of my childhood and putting them away in the attic, stored in boxes to remind me that we're all moving on. But we all know that what goes in the attic can be unpacked later and relived. And the next time I see an episode of Get Smart or the cartoons Adams did, I can reopen that box, unpack the toys, smile and remember what it was like to play with them.
Like any spy series, there were the gadgets. But of course, being a comedy, these gadgets were very tongue in cheek...and memorable. There was the shoe phone, probably the definitive item from the show, and the cone of silence, which when lowered to foil potential surveillance devices also resulted in Smart and the Chief not able to hear each other. The show was full of jokes like that, ranging from laugh out loud to absolute groaners, but certainly recognizable as Mel Brooks' style of humor.
Get Smart was a shared experience with my friends and family, mostly with my good buddy Paul. Many memories came from our interest in this show, from cartoons that we drew, to going to see the Maxwell Smart movie and all the way to the sense of humor that we developed.
That's why today's announcement of the passing of Don Adams caught my attention more than the usual announcement of the loss of any other Hollywood legend. No longer are these people simply just names that I had heard from somewhere. They are now starting to be the ones that peppered my youth and helped create nostalgic memories of home. They mean something to me. To me, it's not just Don Adams passing away, but Maxwell Smart, Inspector Gadget and Tennesee Tuxedo also. And in a way, it feels like it's taking bits of my childhood and putting them away in the attic, stored in boxes to remind me that we're all moving on. But we all know that what goes in the attic can be unpacked later and relived. And the next time I see an episode of Get Smart or the cartoons Adams did, I can reopen that box, unpack the toys, smile and remember what it was like to play with them.
posted by Jon at
10:25 PM
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