Get Smart The Movie The First One
The original TV series by the same name had a creative team that was larger than life. The combination of Mel Brooks, Leonard Stern and Buck Henry was formidable and it was this team that made it possible for the series to be so well remembered, winning two Golden Globes and seven Emmys along the way. It was also nominated for fourteen more Emmys. This was comic genius at its zenith and it's the kind of stuff that it is so hard to copy much less attempt a remake of.
The series was set in the time of the Cold War and what it did was to make the war seem a little lighter than it was. This tongue-in-cheek parody of the war showed an agent that was bumbling and an idiot when all agents were shown as classy, blasé and very, very capable.
From 1965 to 1970, it amused and engrossed thousands of viewers who would wait for the next episode. It made fun of everything - more so of all the slick-action spy movies of the time. So there was Maxwell Smart, played by Don Adams, who was as unlikely an agent as you could ever find. His partner was the smart Agent 99 played by Barbra Feldon, who he later marries in the serial and they have twins.
The script had fun with the secret spy genre of movies and the humor was incredible and kept a whole generation in splits. The chief of CONTROL who is once referred to as Q is called simply that - Chief by all his agents. And CONTROL and KAOS don't really stand for anything except perhaps 'control' and 'chaos'?
What the series also makes fun of is all the secret weapons that the spies in the movies of that time had access to. Well, Maxwell had weapons galore too! He needed a weapon, maybe he would find it in his sandwich or his pen! His shoe phone with its loud ring became a matter of guffaws from the audience. Then there was the Cone of Silence under which the agents had to speak so that no one could listen in to what they were saying. There were also Max's one-liners which became so very recognizable.
The movie spawned a number of products in its wake - cars, books, comics and of course, now, a remake. Will it get into the hallowed zone of the older series? Now that's hoping for a bit too much!