Mr. Big

In this, the pilot episode of "Get Smart", CONTROL agent Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) gets a call from the Chief (Edward Platt) to rescue a scientist who's invented something that's in the hand of the criminal organization called KAOS. He is to meet Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) at a certain place. From there, the fun begins...With today being the general release day of the new movie version of "Get Smart" with Steve Carell in the title role, I thought I'd finally watch the very first episode of this classic television comedy series that Mel Brooks and Buck Henry created some 43 years ago. And yes, there's a "and" instead of a "with" in the writing credits when the two get credited here. This is where we first see the shoe phone and the cone of silence, hear Max's famous lines "And loving it!" and "Would you believe..." (while Smart says sorry a few times, there's no "...about that, Chief!" yet) And it's here that he-and we-first see 99 and though we know it's a woman, Max doesn't realize it yet since she's in uniform with a cap on. Plenty of funny lines abound with some of my favorites during the cone of silence sequence which turns into a "Who's on First?"-type of confusion dialogue concerning the number "57" and "Hong Kong". Also loved the code sentence being about the Mets winning so when Max hears a little boy say it, he asks if he's 99. "No, I'm six and a half," comes the reply. And then there's the meeting with Mr. Big... If there's some quibble here, it's that 99 seems a bit too kowtowed to Max for my tastes and the fights are soooo fake here. Still, this was quite an entertaining beginning for the beloved comedy series that lasted five seasons on the air. P.S. Was that female enemy agent called Zelinka named after executive producer Leonard Stern's former writing partner Sydney Zelinka when they wrote for "The Honeymooners"?