On Wednesdays, I take a look at a series that lasted one season or less. This week, I am looking at 1995's Get Smart!
January 8, 1995 - February 19, 1995
7 episodes
FOX
Starring: Don Adams, Andy Dick, Elaine Hendrix
Based on: Get Smart created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry
Developed by: Michael J. DiGaetano and Lawrence Gay
Plot: An updated version of the classic 1960s series. Maxwell Smart (Adams) is now Chief of CONTROL, which is still fighting KAOS in 1995. His son, Zach (Dick) is a young agent for CONTROL with partner, Agent 66 (Hendrix). Barbara Feldon returns in a recurring role as 99 and her character is now a congresswoman.
I'm a big fan of the original Get Smart. It's been a favorite of mine for a long time. Even though it is a silly 60s sitcom sometimes, it is also a sharp satire with a flair of creativity not seen in many of its fellow 60s sitcoms. Despite being a fan of the original, I had never given a look to the 90s revival until now. It reeks of all the problems that plague many revivals to this day. It tries too hard to pay homage to the original and simultaneously update everything and the result is a show that is halfway between feeling tired and trying too hard to feel new. That being said, I don't think Get Smart is a horrible premise to update. The 2008 movie did a pretty nice job at it and even this revival seemed to understand the context of how KAOS could be a problem in the 90s. But when you bring back the original stars, it's always a fine line to walk and this revival struggled with that.
It was fun to see Don Adams again though I was surprised at how little he was used in the pilot. While he wasn't quite as capable of physical comedy, he still had sharp delivery. And of course there was even less of Barbara Feldon, who didn't come back full time to the show. So as a result, the pilot focused heavily on Andy Dick and Elaine Hendrix's characters. Hendrix was solid but Andy Dick was super annoying. He was clearly trying to be the heir apparent to Adams but his general comedic style did not lend itself to the case because his brand of humor is such a detached and ironic style and Maxwell Smart was earnest though incompetent. I had a hard time believing Dick's character cared at all about the cases and it was much more of a vehicle than I would have liked. The canned laugh track was jarring in a show that really didn't need it.
The revival of Get Smart came well before TV's current trend of revivals and reboots. After its acclaimed original 1965-1970 run, the series had never really left public consciousness. A theatrical release in 1980 - The Nude Bomb - was a flop at first but became a cult classic while a 1989 TV movie called Get Smart, Again! had been better received and was a factor in the pickup of this revival series. Meanwhile, the original series was a hit on Nick at Nite during its run on the network from 1991-1994. The series premiered at the odd time of 7:30pm on Sunday nights on FOX. FOX was still a network struggling to carve out a lot of hits besides their big success stories and airing at 7:30pm meant it was going against CBS's extremely powerful 60 Minutes.
The original series won Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys multiple times but reviews were not kind to the revival. Variety used a famous line from the original series to state "would you believe there is very little to laugh about in this return of Get Smart?" Original creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry were not involved and the series limped along to low ratings for seven weeks before being cancelled. The property came back once more in 2008 with the feature film starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. Meanwhile, Andy Dick had hedged his bets on Get Smart and also filmed a pilot for NBC - Newsradio, which proved to be more successful and ran for five seasons.
Tomorrow: A look at Season 5 (Part 2) of Happy Days!
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