Would you believe… Don Adams, the actor behind Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, died on Sunday in Los Angeles, aged 82. I’m sorry about that.
Get Smart, the creation of Buck Henry and Mel Brooks, was a spoof on the James Bond movies and the TV series, The Man from UNKLE. It first went to air in 1965 and finished in 1970.
I grew up with Get Smart as my entry point to the cold war, in black and white of course. Phrases like “missed it by that much” and the “old (whatever) trick” became part of my family lexicon. And of course the ‘cone of silence’, the shoe phones and spies hiding in any imaginable place.
As a youthworker I introduced a number of youth groups to the wide game, “Chaos versus Control”. We’d divide the group into two teams and send them into the night for two hours of espionage and stealth.
And now… Don Adams has gone through his final door.