Both Buck Henry and Mel Brooks were creators of the show.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong–but weren’t the early episodes of Get Smart filmed in Black & White? Is that the reason they’re never rerun on television?
Come to think of it, it might have just been the pilot that was in B&W…
Correct
Let me count the ways I love that show.
One of the brilliant things was to me an object lesson in humour namely this:
1/ If you do a poor joke once, it’s not that funny
2/ If you do a poor joke again, it’s still not that funny
3/ If you do a poor joke over, and over, and over, and over again, strangely enough rather than remain unfunny, it gradually becomes a superb metajoke: the joke’s no funnier, but the fact that you keep making it anyway, is funny.
I saw a rerun of an episode only last weekend.
Phone rings.
Caller: “Is this Maxwell Smart, Secret Agent 86, of Control, the top secret government agency?”
Max: “Yes, I’m Secret Agent 86”
Same damn joke, every episode, in fact generally more than once per episode. But for some reason, I still find it amusing. Why? Why? Why?
If I didn’t have Maxwell Smart, I don’t think I’d be able to communicate.
“Good thinking 99”
“I asked you not to tell me that”
“He says, get your knee of his chest”
“Would you believe…”
If I couldn’t use these, I’d have nothing to say.
Actually, that was what Perry White always said to Jimmy Olsen in the old Superman show.
Perry White also said “Great Caesar’s ghost!,” but that is a hijack.
Barbara Feldon won $64,000 on The $64,000 Question - her area of specialty was Shakespeare.
Remember the oriental villian with a claw for a hand? It was a horrible case of stereotyping, but he couldn’t pronounce the letter “l” - it always came out as “r”.
86: “It’s our old enemy The Craw!”
Villian: “Not Craw. Craw!!”
That bit always used to crack me up.
How about The Admiral? Remember him? His shtick was being the doddering old geezer who could leap up out of his chair but had lots of trouble sitting down.
The Admiral, reading a telegram: “I have the professor’s formula. Stop. I can destroy the world. Stop. Pay me one millions dollars or suffer the consequences. Stop. Me if you can.”
My favorite episode has to be the spoof of I Spy that they did (with Robert Culp in a cameo!) that had Max going undercover as a table-tennis champion! His black partner did this faux-Bill Cosby drawl that my friends and I still riff on: “They call me Kubeczek, cat!” “ACB - The Third Spy Network!”
Was this where the U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile got its name? That would be exceedingly cool. 
The Cone of Silence was the greatest! Loved the theme music, too.
RR
When I was very, very little, I wanted to grow up to be Donna Reed or Laura Petrie.
Then when I was ten or eleven, I wanted to be Agent 99 or Emma Peel or Honey West.
Now I want to be Margaret Dumont, or Mrs. Drysdale. My expectations are getting more realistic, anyway.
I can’t believe nobody’s cited this already…
“That’s the second biggest ______________ I’ve ever seen.”
A line that crosses all boundaries!
Last year, I played ** TruePisces ** a game of Trivial Pursuit [sub] she let me win [/sub]. One of the questions was along the lines of “This show had a robot named Hymie.” She missed, and said she had **NEVER SEEN THE SHOW **. (granted, she grew up in BFE upstate NY, and had few channels.) I looked at her and simply said “My FATHER’S name was Hymie!” She looked at me like I had two heads. [sup]1[/sup]
The next day ** Hampster stopped by for a visit. He’s about 20 years younger than me, and from a different country. Different worlds, right? I repeat the q to him. He says “My FATHER’S name was Hymie!” She started babbling “You couldn’t have set this up!
He just got here!” She didn’t understand. While women could and did watch and enjoy, this is a Guy Thing. We have to.
[sup]1[/sup] OK, 3 heads. Get your minds outa the gutter!
I’ve told you, **Eve **, I always pictured you more the June Cleaver type, and after having had the honor of meeting you, it was only reinforced.
I didn’t let you win. You won almost every game we played! And you still have that tape for me to watch of some episodes, so I’ll actually KNOW what you’re talking about 90% of the time!
There was one show where Max’s shoe phone stopped working, and he had to use an operator assisted payphone to call CONTROL. After telling the operator that this was a very secret phone number, and she was to forget it immediately and never give it out to anyone, and she agreed, he gives her the number.
She says “Oh, you want CONTROL.”