OK fans of 1960s sitcoms, time to get out your shoe phone and deploy the cone of silence because this week we feature Don Adams, a great standup comic who scored the role of a career when he was tapped to play Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, in the Mel Brooks/Carl Reiner classic Get Smart. Before becoming the world's most confident (and least capable) secret agent, Don was a regular on tv talk shows with standup that mixed satire, snark, and great character voices. Later Don would use his voice acting skills on kids cartoons such as Tennessee Tuxedo and Inspector Gadget (an homage to his Get Smart character). Find more Don Adams below and thanks for sharing our shows!
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Before (and after) Get Smart, Don was a top standup comic. He wasn't a rapid fire joke teller and he wasn't a modern observational comic. Rather he set up scenes that played to his voice acting talents. This set from the Steve Allen Show -- which Don guested on 15 times -- is a good example of his standup style. https://youtu.be/7vpkoqzd39s
Get Smart was a smash from day one, mixing great visual gags with groaners and featuring inspired parodies of the spy genre. This clip package does a good job at capturing what made the show unique. https://youtu.be/rEGA7eyWeAA
Don was typecast after Get Smart and couldn't get traction in unrelated sitcoms or periodic attempts at a reboot. One area in which he found continued success was voice acting and in Inspector Gadget he found the perfect role -- one that sounded suspiciously like one Maxwell Smart!https://youtu.be/bw1nuljvW