YMMV / Get Smart

The original series

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Happens in-universe in the Season 1 episode "Aboard the Orient Express." Max protests against the Chief sending 99 on a dangerous assignment to deliver a briefcase. After hearing the Chief tell her how only the agent receiving the case has the key to open the handcuffs, Max ends up handcuffing the briefcase to his own wrist. Was this just Max making one of his usual ditzy mistakes, or was it, as 99 assumes, a deliberate ploy to protect her by making sure he would have to make the delivery instead of her? The "Hmmm..." look he gets in his eyes right before picking up the handcuffs suggests she may be right. (He does seem to instantly regret putting the cuff on his wrist, but that could be either because he didn't intend to or because he realized he hadn't thought through the consequences of his decision.)
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: One episode shows Max become horrified when he discovers 99 just saw him unbutton his collar; in another, he refuses to let her watch him lower his sock below the ankle. Is the joke about the absurdity of a Casanova Wannabe being so shy, or a satirical jab at the Moral Guardians of the time?
• Anvilicious: Subverted/parodied. In one episode, after Smart blew up the bad guy with a cigarette, 99 ponders whether or not Control's methods are any better than those of KAOS. Max's response?
  "What are you talking about, 99? We have to shoot and kill and destroy. We represent everything that's wholesome and good in the world."
• Broken Base: Almost all of the episodes are either universally loved or universally hated. The one major exception that has half the fandom disagreeing with the other is the Season 4 premiere "The Impossible Mission," where Max and 99 get engaged. Half the fandom finds it forced, unnatural, and out-of-character for Max; the other half finds it genuinely sweet and romantic, well written, acted, and executed, successfully hitting all the marks, regardless of the fact that it was mandated by the studio and not the creative team's idea.
• Common Knowledge: Siegfried is the leader of KAOS. This has been stated as fact in books referencing the series, referenced in Bernie Kopell's cameo on Boy Meets World,^note  Ted Lange: "You do know you're not the leader of an international spy group called KAOS, right?" and even the movie. In the actual show itself, it's said he's a high-ranking member of the group yes, but he still answers to superiors. ^note  In fact, unlike Control, KAOS didn't have one singular leader, but had a number of them during the show's run, including the ironically named "Mr. Big" (played by the little person actor Michael Dunn) in the pilot In one episode, he had the title of "Vice President in Charge of Treachery". Also, why would the supreme *leader* of an organization be out doing field assignments that can be done by normal trained agents? ^note  On the other hand, field work is something the Chief of CONTROL was shown doing an awful lot of.
• Fair for Its Day: The episode "Washington 4, Indians 3" is rather cringeworthy by today's standards. However, it supports the Native Americans and shows understanding of their situation, if not their culture. In the end, Max agrees that the White House should be attacked.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series was and still is popular in Latin America, thanks to the excellent dubbing work of the Latin American Spanish voice cast in Mexico, to the point that Maxwell Smart's Latin American Spanish VA, Mexican voice actor Jorge "El Tata" Arvizu, reprised his role as Smart in the Latin American Spanish dub of the 2008 movie.
• He's Just Hiding: Given the show's Bloodless Carnage and how plenty of characters survive seemingly fatal wounds, it's nice to imagine that scores of characters on both sides who seemingly die (heroic agents Tamara, Forysthe, Agent 25, and Prewitt, KAOS defectors Vogel and Wolfgang, bumbling KAOS interrogator Seidlitz, etc.) are Not Quite Dead.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In "The Impossible Mission," Max gets his assignment in the form of a tape recording from the Chief, which ends with the warning, "As usual, this tape will self-destruct." An obvious reference to Mission: Impossible at the time, but now doubly hilarious thanks to Max actor Don Adams's later role voicing the title character in Inspector Gadget, which was the first exposure plenty of 80's kids had to the "this message will self destruct" business. Then there are the two times in Season 1 where Max faces a villain called "the Claw"...
  • In "Too Many Chiefs," the Master of Disguise villain pretends to be the Chief and confuses Max by changing the Trust Password.
    "I say 'apple,' you say 'Macintosh.'"
  • In one episode, Max and 99 try to sneak past Sigfried in a cardboard box.
  • In the Nude Bomb movie, Sylvia Kristel plays Agent 34. The film was obviously made years before the internet came up with Rule 34 ("if it exists, there is porn of it, no exceptions"), but it still is a hilarious coincidence that that number was given to a character played by an actress best known for starring in one of the most famous softcore porn movies ever.
• Memetic Mutation: Every Catchphrase the show brought us.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: 99 giving her kidnapper a black eye and effortlessly escaping from her cell undetected in "And Only Two 99."
• Parody Displacement: The TV series parodied other spy shows airing at the time, such as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy and The Avengers (1960s), but has been in reruns so long that most people assume it to be a James Bond parody.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Don Adams (Maxwell Smart) went on to voice the title character in Inspector Gadget.
  • Victor French had a recurring role as Agent 44, Agent 13's predecessor. French is best known for playing Mark Gordon on Highway to Heaven and Isaiah Edwards on Little House on the Prairie.
  • Al Molinaro appeared twice as a different Agent 44, Agent 13's replacement. Molinaro is best known for playing Al Delvecchio on Happy Days and Officer Murray Greshler on The Odd Couple (1970).
  • Bernie Kopell (Siegfried) later played Adam Bricker on The Love Boat.
  • King Moody (Shtarker). Moody is also best known as one of the many actors who played Ronald McDonald for McDonald's.
  • James Komack directed 11 episodes and wrote an episode. Komack is best known as creator and executive producer of Chico and the Man and for playing Norman Tinker on The Courtship of Eddie's Father.
  • James Caan is in "To Sire with Love" as the usurper Rupert of Rathskeller. Caan was afraid that being associated with television would hurt his film career, so the character was credited "As Himself."
  • Richard Donner directed two episodes.
  • Arne Sultan wrote 34 episodes and served as executive producer. Sultan is best known as co-developer and co-executive producer of Too Close for Comfort.
  • Leonard Stern wrote 17 episodes and was an executive producer. Stern was later creator and executive producer of McMillan & Wife.
  • Allan Burns wrote 11 episodes. Burns is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, and Lou Grant.
  • Sam Bobrick wrote two episodes. Bobrick is best known for creating Saved by the Bell.
  • Earl Barret wrote an episode. Barret is best known as co-developer and co-executive producer of Too Close for Comfort.
  • Dale McRaven also wrote an episode. McRaven is best known as creator and executive producer of Perfect Strangers and as co-creator, producer, and supervising producer of Mork & Mindy.
  • Julie Sommars, later of Matlock, guest stars in "The Reluctant Redhead."
• Special Effects Failure:
  • In "Weekend Vampire", when Max and 99 are getting out of their car in the middle of the storm, you can see the top of the set in the background.
  • "A Man Called Smart" has a sequence where Max is rolling down the street strapped to a wheeled gurney, but there are a few very obvious dummy shots.
• Unintentional Period Piece: One episode has a fight in an airplane cockpit that repeatedly turns the "no smoking" sign on and off, with the passengers in the smoking section reacting accordingly. This comes off very strange after smoking was completely banned on airplanes two decades later.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Agent 13 (the agent who's always hiding inside objects or behind hidden panels to help Max). He complains about his cramped quarters almost every time he appears, and is occasionally the subject of Innocently Insensitive jabs from Max, in a comedic attempt to draw sympathy from viewers. However, he frequently indulges in Be as Unhelpful as Possible, taking forever to give the necessary information due to his complaining, trying to extort money from Max, and almost never even provides any actual useful information. His predecessor, Agent 44, averted this.
• Values Dissonance;
  • One episode features a group of Asian KAOS agents who have been kidnapping blonde white women. While the punchline that they had one target and were grabbing the wrong women since all Americans look alike to them may be a decent satirical reversal of Racial Face Blindness, the main villain, the Claw, speaks with a Chinese accent that makes him continually struggle to communicate to Smart that his name is not "the Craw", which comes across as completely tasteless today. The Asian criminals are also referred to as "Orientals", a term that is considered offensive today.
  • One episode features a group of Native Americans with stereotypical costume and weapons and broken English, some very clearly played by white actors, and are the antagonists for wanting to start a modern uprising against the USA. All of the leads' attempts to distinguish that the group are American Indians are accompanied by them briefly imitating a stereotypical whooping cry to make the distinction. Smart also dons the stereotypical gear to infiltrate the group, which looks more awkward today than it was already meant to be. While the episode acknowledges that the US has no real argument to give the Native population and the heroes step aside, the Natives' big attack is still framed as a joke. It would be much harder to get away with portraying US-resenting Native Americans as the bad guys in such a serious and simultaneusly mocking way today, and regardless of morality, such stereotypical portrayal of Native groups would also get huge backlash today.
• Viewer Name Confusion:
  • Some people think Siegfried's assistant is named Shtarker. Actually, it's Starker— the confusion comes from the fact that Siegfried, who is the one who commonly addresses Starker, has a lateral lisp.
    • This is also a Genius Bonus: "Shtarker" is Yiddish for a strong, heavily-muscled guy, and used especially when the guy is officially "muscle", such as a mob enforcer.
  • Agent 99 once claimed her real name was Susan Hilton, but that was just an alias. Nevertheless, some people think that's her name.

The 2008 film

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Agent 23. Despite not appearing for most of the film, his portrayal by Dwayne Johnson is widely considered one of the best parts of the movie.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • While sneaking through the sewers, Max mentions that he never saw James Bond "in rats or poop, let alone rats AND poop". The next two films in the Bond franchise feature rats as a prominent Animal Motif.
  • Given how that from the The Fast and the Furious films onwards, Dwayne Johnson infamously demands in his film contracts that none of his characters ever lose fights, look weak, or are portrayed as villains, it’s ironic that in this film he’s a villain who is not only defeated by Steve Carell of all people but in a pretty embarrassing fashion. Even the manner of his demise (a burning out of control car hitting a oncoming train) is similar to a Fast and Furious movie.
• Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: Agent 23 being The Mole isn't much of a surprise, seeing as he's absent from the mission for most of the movie despite being played by one of the film's most famous actors.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • The plus size woman Max waltzes with in a hilarious yet tender scene.
  • The vice-president who gets into a shouting match with The Chief.
• Squick: The barf bag scene.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: This version of Larabee is definitely a Jerk Jock... but it's hard to see Bruce and Lloyd, the nerdy analysts he's feuding with, as any nicer. Not only are they very petty in their revenge, the methods they use are often nastier than the verbal jabs Larabee delivers. They also gloat arrogantly about how obsolete the field agents are going to be as soon as their robot comes in.
• Values Dissonance: The amount of fat jokes at past Max's expense can come off as a little cruel in the 2020s, not to mention Agent 99 trying to pass Max off as simple-minded by saying he's deaf.
• Vindicated by History: The film did not great reviews when it first with people claiming it was unfunny, especially fans of the original series whom trash it throughly. In the years since then however many people have showered the film with praise acknowledging that it’s actually pretty damn funny with many great performances and Steve Carell did nail the mannerisms of Don Adams.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Due to the president being based on George W. Bush.
• Woolseyism: The Latin American edition replaced most of Max's jokes with ones that made cultural references which this audience would get.

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