Titled once again as Get Smart, Don Adams reprises his role as Maxwell Smart although this time he is no longer Agent 86 of Control, he has been promoted as Chief of Control, with his wife 99 played by Barbara Feldon returning this time as a retired Control Agent now working as a congress woman.

This time round the Kaos organisation has a more corporate spin to it with the goal of total world economic domination; the end of the Cold War has meant that Kaos has turned itself into an evil corporation headed up by a woman whose identity is never revealed.

Control’s top agent is now Agent 66 played by Elaine Hendrix who it seems likes to work alone, but this all changes when the President grants Control all of the funding it requested meaning that Zach the son of Max and 99 gets promoted from a research analyst to a full agent (played by Andy Dick).

Some old characters from the original series also made a return with Agent 13 appearing in one episode in a bowl of coleslaw and now ex Kaos Agent Siegfried returned in the 6^th episode with his own daughter trying to get back at Maxwell Smart and Kaos at the same time attempting to start a new Cold War.

A lot of Get Smart fans including myself will find that this short lived series was an utter disappointment and lacked any substance from the original, basically ripping off its own original work. The series has a very 90’s feel about it (obviously being made in the 90’s) with the introduction of the sneaker phone and the general clothing worn looking back is now an embarrassment (remember those pants with the fluoro elastic running down them?).

If you are a die hard fan of this show you will most likely not just be disappointed but will loath this re-make, but for $12.99 from JB HI FI you might as well just add it to the collection anyway to make it complete. A better alternative would be to watch the latest film staring Steve Carell due for release soon.

The plan: to dump all of Australia’s landfill rubbish on top of Mr Kosciuszko to increase the height of the mountain by another 1000 feet and then re-name it Mt Steggle.

The Ice Dream Day 1 Introduction…

Of course one of the highlights from The Dream in Sydney 2000 was when Roy and H.G. took on the commentary work of their own, particularly in the area of gymnastics coming up with the technical terms of flat bag, closing the door and hello boys.

But winter is a whole different ball game, below is a video of their work on the pairs figure skating where some new terms were introduced with “showing the arse”, “staining the ice”, “tightening the nut”, “cutting the rug”, “69 on the way down”, and “blow of the flute”, and according to the boys all of the rigorous training regimes are all performed in the horizontal position before they can be performed vertically.

Another major feature of every nights episode was a special guest coming in to have a chat about all things Olympic or even non Olympic. Some of the main guests to come into the lodge were Rick Birch, Jacques Rogge the president of the International Olympic Committee, Stephen Bradbury the winner of Australia’s first Winter Olympic Gold Medal, and Alisa Camplin the winner of Australia’s second gold medal.

For those of you still not happy with the decision not to have Roy and H.G. at the Beijing Games can still catch them on radio station Triple J, and maybe Nine will come to their sensors and get them on board for 2010 in Vancouver, although there will be disappointment that Smiggin Holes missed out on winning the games. The Ice Dream wasn’t the last time though; there was still The Dream in Athens which will also hopefully soon be a future classic TV flashback.

Check out The Dream in Sydney here.

When viewing this video (probably 100 times already) I cannot help cracking up in hysterics every time, Hitchener is known for keeping cool under pressure and has been in the business for a very long time.

The video below shows Hitchiner trying to tape a news break in 1980, but frustration at not getting his lines right takes over, not helping the situation is someone behind camera distracting him.

Warning: If you don’t like naughty language then don’t watch…

The pilot episode was filmed in black and white, and the show was best known for its witty one liner’s usually always based around sex which in these days would be classed as sexual harassment, or the usual misunderstandings and the regular malfunctioning store display unit.

It would be seen as grossly unacceptable by the Grace Brothers board if the cast wasn’t introduced in the correct order, this was also a regular gag in the show about the order in which information was shared between co-workers. Starting from the top is the owner of Grace Brother department store Young Mr Grace played by Harold Bennett, Mr Grace comes in on the first Monday of every month and is always encouraging his workers telling them they are doing a very good job, while his driver tries to stop him from falling over.

Next in line is the man who likes to think he is the commander of the ship, Mr Cuthbert Rumbold played by Nicholas Smith who was in charge of the entire floor. He was often subject to gags from his subordinates about his bald head, large ears and the fact that he took catch phrases literally. He was very quick to take credit for other peoples ideas, one such instance was when Captain Peacock suggested staging a fashion show, why Mr Grace asked who’s idea it was he jumped at the opportunity to say it was his, only to be told it was a terrible idea. It was obvious that Mr Rumbold’s ambition was to one day be on the board of Grace Brothers, every time he mentioned the boardroom he would look up to the roof as if he wanted to be there.

The man in charge of keeping order on the floor and steering the customer to their intended destination was Captain Stephen Peacock, played by Frank Thornton. Captain Peacock considers himself to be a bit of a ladies man, if Mrs Peacock is out of town he will try to organise plans with Mrs Slocombe only later to turn her down for the more attractive Miss Brahms who would reject his advances, then would try to get back into the good books with Mrs Slocomb. In the end he would always just end up back at square one but he then counter acts this rejection but reinforcing his senior position over everyone.

The very first head of the men’s department in the series was Mr Ernest Grainger who was played by Arthur Brough had been with Grace Brothers for over four decades and did not take too kindly to having to share his floor with the ladies department. Mr Grainger was best known for falling asleep while waiting for a meeting to start in the store with the only way of being woken up by Mr Humphries saying “are you free Mr Grainger?”

One of the most colourful characters was Mrs Betty Slocombe head of the ladies department and played by Mollie Sugden, best known for her ever changing hair colour from episode to episode. Another famous catch phrase from Mrs Slocombe was anything in reference to her cat Tiddles referring to it as her “pussy” which lead to lines such as, “I’ve got to get home, if my pussy isn’t attended to until 8, I shall be stroking it for the rest of the evening.” When ever she wanted to get a point across she would use her phrase “…and I am unanimous in that…” and call someone, most of the time Captain Peacock “weak as water” if she didn’t get her own way.

The most famous character to come out of the series would have to be Mr Wilberforce Clayborne Humphries, senior assistant of the menswear department played by John Inman. Mr Humphries sexuality was the main focal point of running gags in the show and was known for his strange walk and high pitched voice. Whenever he answered the phone he would put on a deep voice unrecognisable to everyone to say “menswear” and whenever asked if he was free to assist he would yell out “I’m Free”. Mr Humphries had a lot of strange friends, often men who had undergone some surgical procedure to become a woman. John Inman would later go on to revive his character Mr Humphries in the Australian version of Are You being Served?

Miss Shirley Brahms played by Wendy Richard was the junior assistant to Mrs Slocombe in the ladies department of Grace Brothers. She was known as the young and attractive assistant who would try and attract the attention of guys so she could get anything from a lift to work, to getting taken out to dinner so she wouldn’t have to pay for it. She was often hounded by Captain Peacock and Mr Lucas and never gave into them.

The always late Mr James Lucas played by Trevor Bannister was the junior assistant for the menswear department and would always be frustrated having to let Mr Grainger and Mr Humphries first crack at every sale. Most of his energy was spent trying to woo Miss Brahms but was never successful in his endeavours, or Mrs Slocombe would think that he is after her. Mr Lucas’ absence from the show was never explained fully with reference made by Captain Peacock that last time the department made no sales the junior was fired.

Mr Mash played by Larry Martyn was the first maintenance man later to be replaced with Mr Harman, both of which had no fear of telling their superiors ‘where to go’, both having extensive knowledge of there rights as employees. Often they would parade around the extra cash they had earned from working overtime, much to the displeasure of the floor staff.

Towards the end of the series many of the characters had been replaced with Mr Grainger, Mr Lucas and Mr Mash no longer being with Grace Brothers. However in 1977 a movie was released titled Are You being Served? The Move using the same characters it involved the store closing and everyone going on holiday together to a place called Costa Plonka in Spain, the movie was grossly unpopular.

These days Are You Being Served can be seen on The Comedy Channel on Sunday’s at 9pm and 11pm and sometimes on the Seven Network when Great Comedy Classics with Russel Gilbert is on.

But of course Russell Coight isn’t real and he is played by the very talented Glenn Robbins with the assistance of writers Tom Gleisner and Santo Cilauro.

Russell Coight himself is one of the most comfortable people in front of a camera, you could say that he loves the camera a tad too much and has on many occasions appeared bare arsed not on his own accord. We get an insight into Coight’s personal life where he reveals unintentionally that he is no longer together with his wife and that he is completely over her, but as we see in the outtakes he is desperate to hear from her. He also reveals in an interview with Bert Newton on Good Morning Australia that his wife left him shortly after a whip cracking incident cracking at the wrong time near his genitals, which resulted in him as Bert put it “unable to crack it anymore”.

One of the great recurring gags in the series is the close-up of the handshake, when ever Russell would shake the hand of a black aboriginal the stock footage used would be of two white hands shaking, and when Russell shakes the hand of a white man the footage will show one white and one black hand shaking.

Recurring accidents Coight is best known for are falling off his camp chair, setting his ten on fire with one occasion he can be heard saying “oh no the ten’s on fire again”, setting his vehicle on fire, getting caught in self made animal traps and he always manages to find a way of having himself exposed.

Coight is also known for his outback bush demonstrations, which as you can imagine never really go to plan. One of them is when he is trying to demonstrate how to make water in the bush with green leaves a hole and a sheet of plastic, but he forgot to add the Billy inside the hole meaning he ruined the whole demonstration.

Another demonstration gone wrong is when he created a trap to catch a fox, he made a trip wire in the path of where the animal would walk, but late at night he wondered off upset and got caught into the trap. He even used dynamite, which of course went horribly wrong.

Another recurring gag in the series is that a person will be stranded on the side of the road with a problem usually with there car, and of course Coight offers a helping hand and always has the right tools for the job. However the person’s car always usually ends up for the worse with either a tree falling on it, falling down an embankment or tearing off a bulbar.

Russell Coight’s All Aussie Adventures aired for two seasons and also there was a TV movie titled Russell Coight’s Celebrity Challenge which took a group of celebrities into the outback where they were challenged to survive with Russell Coight by their side.

Even though the format was predictable and you knew what was coming around the corner each and every week you still couldn’t help yourself but laugh at the antics of Coight with his over egotistical self and was a big favourite when it was on screens. Russell also made appearances at the Logies, Good Morning Australia, The Panel and also Rove during his television career.

It is always nice to look at how people from outside the country view Australia, this series is not all about making a travel documentary but rather to show what life is like for Billy Connolly while on a typical tour of Australia. Below an episode guide of Billy’s tour around the country.

Episode One…
The journey begins in Sydney; however the first glimpse of Billy introducing the show is while he is in a place called Point Nepean, south of Melbourne. He then makes the trip up to Sydney and drives across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on his now iconic Harley Trike ironically on an iconic bridge. Billy then gets to experience what not many people got to do back in the day this was filmed and that was to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge, of course these days anyone can do it (for a hefty price).

Later on Billy goes for a sail on the harbour on a recreation of the ship the Bounty to have fish and chips, and pays a visit to an iconic Sydney restaurant named Doyle’s. Via Sea Plane Billy then flies over to well known Australian artists’ house Ken Done to explore his home and to get an insight into his artwork.

Episode Two…
In this episode Billy takes a trip down south to Botany Bay where you could say modern Australia’s story begins, as this is where Captain Cook claimed Australia for Great Brittan. He then heads down south some more to come to a place he makes no secret of hating and many Australian’s will agree with him dearly, this place being the capital Canberra. While in Canberra Billy takes a look at the exterior of Parliament House and a look down the streets that occupy the Embassy’s of other nations, making fun of them which he does best.

Billy then heads back to Sydney where he makes an appearance on the Nine Network’s Today Show, where you will notice a much younger Richard Wilkins interviewing Billy. While back in Sydney he takes the opportunity to witness some of the many street performers around, and also gets the rare opportunity to scale to the top of the Sydney Opera House.

Episode Three…
In this instalment Bill travels on his trusty Harley Trike up north to Newcastle, and being a welder and boilermaker before becoming a folk singer and comedian he feels very at home in this industrial town. While in Newcastle Billy goes for a spot of fishing on the beach near a shipwreck well known by the locals, and tells a funny story in his comedy routine about the earthquake.

He explains how when he came to Newcastle years before to perform that after the show he was out the back of stage with some bikers who told him about a friend of there’s who was in hospital undergoing surgery when the earthquake hit. Apparently the doctors ordered everyone out of the building and they proceeded to continue operating on the man while on the beach. During the surgery he woke up to see seagulls flying above him only to say, “It looks just like Earth”.

Billy then heads back to Sydney for another gig and while back in the harbour city he visits the gallery of an old friend who is not deceased Brett Whitely.

Episode Four…
Billy now head down to Melbourne and starts the show off the same way he started in Sydney (below the harbour bridge) by going below the West Gate Bridge. He highlighted how 30 odd men died in the ‘70s while constructing the bridge, after which he drove over the top to show off the 360 degree view. The next visit it to the Old Melbourne Gaol the place where Ned Kelly was hung and well as taking a stroll around looking at the various artworks in Melbourne and riding of the famous trams.

I love this Full Frontal sketch in the below video…

Later on Billy heads down south from Melbourne to the Mornington Peninsula and around to Point Nepean where Harold Holt famously lost his life to the surf. Next on the agenda was a helicopter ride to the top of Mt Dandenong to where the William Ricketts Sanctuary is located.

Episode Five…
Now it is onto Adelaide where Billy meets up with Aboriginal artist Jimmy Pike and takes a keen interest in the world of Aboriginal artworks, while trying his hand at playing the didgeridoo. While in the South Australian capital he gets himself a famous “pie floater” which is basically a runny pie in a bowl, it is requested by many celebrities while performing in Adelaide.

Next it’s off to Perth where Billy gets himself onto a boat and heads over to Rottnest Island and also gets to experience what it is like to swim with the dolphins.

Episode Six…
Brisbane is the next port of call for Billy as he takes us on a tour of the streets of Brisbane and explains how the place has changed dramatically since he was last there 20 years prior. He takes a walk through a rainforest which was built in the centre of the city for a garden expo but was never dismantled.

Billy then puts his brave face on and jumps into a glider, doing the loop to loop and other tricks, it is later revealed in his comedy routine that they had to do it twice because the battery ran out. Later on Billy gets on the trike and heads up to Fraser Island which is entirely made out of sand, making it the worlds biggest.

Episode Seven…
Now for a different change of scenery as Billy heads into the centre of Australia with the first stop being Coober Pedy, looking at how Opals were mined in the past and how it is done now with the help of explosive and machinery.

Next he headed up the highway to Alice Springs where he looked at the river running through the town, which by the way has no water. He explains the every year the locals hold a boat race where the competitors run in mock looking sail boats, only the problem is that on two occasions the boat race was cancelled because there was water in the river.

Episode Eight…
In the final episode Billy heads up to Darwin where he gets to experience what it is like to feed a crocodile and how fast it take a tropical storm to come. He also heads over Bathurst Island to meet the local people who show him there ways of living and how they catch their food.

Finally Billy heads back to Sydney where he finishes his tour where he started. In addition to the Australian tour he has also gone to Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales and most recently New Zealand, but personally I enjoyed the Australian series the most (call me biased). This is different from any normal documentary series where it will show you the regular attraction, but this way it is Billy Connolly’s own personal experience which makes it all the much more special.

I am of course talking about The Dream with Roy and H.G. which was on the air every night of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, which lead onto The Ice Dream for the 2002 Winter Olympics and finally The Dream in Athens in 2004.

The Dream was presented by Roy Slaven (John Doyle) and H.G. Nelson (Greig Pickhaver) who would take a humorous look at all the day’s Olympic action, most notably there commentary on certain events, most memorable being the Gymnastics inventing the terms “Flatbag”, “Hello Boys”, “Battered Sav”, and “Close the door”. The show also had a great opener by making a parody of the official Seven Network opener for the games used everyday (see above video).

During the games the duo came up with their own mascot to replace the three official mascots of Sydney who were Millie, Olly and Syd or as his was renamed “Dickhead”, but Fatso was by far the most popular going around at the time known as “the people’s mascot”. Later on after the games Fatso would be immortalised into a bronze statue at Sydney’s Olympic Park and the original was auctioned off for charity and bought by Seven Network C.E.O. Kerry Stokes for $80,450.

Where ever Fatso went controversy would follow with the AOC nearly banning athletes from showing off Fatso because of his popularity and taking the spotlight away from the official mascots.

Besides putting their commentary skills to good use especially in the Gymnastics, Roy in particular used Australia’s friendly rivalry with New Zealand to highlight juts how many medals they had won. It took a while for New Zealand to win a medal and when they finally did it was Gold in the rowing with Roy commenting that “New Zealanders were only good when they are sitting down on their arse and going backwards”.

The duo also had ongoing fun at getting into American television network NBC about their Olympics coverage as it was delayed by a vast amount of time, say that whenever something happened if they were receiving coverage from NBC they wont know the result back at home for another 3 weeks.

Another on going gag for the two weeks was that there were hidden cameras in the veteran athlete’s village rooms, with them demonstrating how they have many cameras around Sydney and the final one being placed in Herb Elliot’s room. Another gag was the continuous blaming of basically everything on a Canadian IOC official Dick Pound and later on Jacque Rouge, now the IOC president.

Each night on the show they would have a Seven News segment where they would get a well known person to read out there own headlines, with notable people including athletes, entertainers or basically anyone they could get, with most of the time Roy and H.G. appearing on a plasma screen behind the one presenting.

A favourite part of the show was at its conclusion in what they would call “Hearts of Gold” and it is where ordinary people can sing a song they wrote that they feel should have been included in the opening ceremony. The most popular was a song called Go You Good Thing Go and on the last night of the show was sung by John Farnham, which can be seen in the video above.

Each night athletes were lining up to be a guest on the show and not just Australian’s but athletes from all countries wanted their chance to make an appearance with some of those being Pat Rafter who Roy and H.G. wanted to smoke a “piece pipe” with Mark Philippoussis as there was a bit of a rift in the tennis team at the time of the games, and Garry Hall Junior also made an appearance.

Finally one of the classic moments was when they staged a competition with all of the mascots of the games in the “Bombing”, Millie, Olly, Dickhead, Boxing Kangaroo and Fatso all competed against each other in the event.

Sadly The Dream will not be back for the Beijing Olympic Games and with the Olympics going to the Nine Network next time for London lets hope that they sign the duo up so that they can make a return in a new show. Roy and H.G. did perform at the Allan Border medal last year so that is a good sign that they have appeared on Nine, so fingers are crossed.

If you remember this show from eight years ago what were your favourite parts or memories and would you like to have seen it return?

Stars of the show include Peter Phelps and Kate Kendall who remained with the show for its entire eight season run, as well as other notable names of Ian Stenlake, Anita Hegh and later in the series Garry Sweet.

The series Stingers was inspired by real cases from a deep undercover division of the Victorian Police with the series not only following the members work lives but their personal lives also, in some cases they crossed the line with a relationship after hours between Pater Church and Ellen Mackenzie.

One of the best episodes from season one is when the whole unit is placed under investigation by the order of the Assistant Commissioner, while the unit is being investigated into its operations it emerges that their leader Bernie Rocca cannot account for an extra $40,000 in cash and the only 14% purity in heroin recently purchased that was originally tested at 97% pure.

It eventually emerges that the unit was really investigating the man in charge of investigating the undercover unit who had been using his former connections when he was in charge of the drug squad to sell drugs for himself. The episode keeps you guessing all along with an outcome not expected and that is why this show was so good back in its day.

Stingers can still be seen on Foxtel’s The Hallmark Channel but for those who are not privileged enough can read some information about the DVD release of Stingers click here.

The series aired in 2003 and the sketch comedy show would focus on lampooning films, TV shows, current affairs and sport. Some of the most remembered sketches are “The Extreme Darren” who is performed by Chris Lilley and follows a teenage kid making films about “sick stunts” on his skateboard, BMX and scooter.

Back in the day when this show was aired you may remember a show called The Surprise Chef, well one of the skits by Andrew O’Keefe was called “Surprised Chef” where he would play a clumsy Aristos (chef).

One of the weekly segments was a send-up of National Nine News, SBS World News Tonight and community television news. For Nine they would impersonate the Sydney news reader at the time Jim Waley, for SBS Lee Lin Chin and for the community television station someone by the name of Tee Pee Moses.

Andrew O’Keefe got his chance to take the place of Eddie McGuire by hosting Who Want’s to be a Millionaire.

One of the classic sketches from the show is called Undercover Mongrels which was a take off of the Seven Network show Undercover Angels which was hosted by Ian Thorpe. The Mongrels would go around performing good deeds for people in needs, one of them being a boy who wanted a new bike so the Mongrels stole a bike from another kid; this resulted in the kid receiving the bike getting in trouble for having stolen goods.

Finally it is the place where Mr Greg Gregson or Mr G was first introduced, made famous by Chris Lilley in the hit ABC show Summer Height’s High. This time before Mr G becomes head of Performing Art’s he has the task of coming up with a performance in the Rock Eisteddfod, he comes up with a show called Vietwow. The show is based on the Vietnam War and he even gets a Vietnam veteran to talk to the children, while acting out what he was saying behind him.

These are some of the main sketches or the more memorable ones, others include a spoof of the Harry Potter series called, Harry Potter and the Unbelievably Secret Chamber of Secrets, The Secret Life of Us and also the series 24.

Get Smart is a cult classic with a host of catch phrases still in use to this very day, and the most iconic part of this series was the famous shoe phone, which in this day and age of mobile phones is nothing. Series one of the show premiered on American television in 1965 on NBC and lasted for four seasons before moving over to CBS for the fifth and final season. In 1980 the first Get Smart Movie was created titled the Nude Bomb which was a flop in the cinema, however in 1989 ABC created a Get Smart telemovie which was very successful, and because of this success lead to a short lived sixth series on FOX, also a failure. This made Get Smart the only program in history to air on all four of the major American television networks. In Australia it aired on the Seven Network.

The pilot episode was the only one to air in black and white, titled Mr. Big the episode introduced Control the secret government organisation established to defeat a new evil organisation called Kaos. Mr. Big is the new leader and is holding Control ransom for $100 million if not payed he will use an inthermo ray to blow up the Statue of Liberty.

Maxwell Smart is the shows main character and is best known as the clumsy, incompetent secret agent who ironically is the Control organisations top agent. He is also know for his various catchphrases such as “missed it by that much”, “and… loving it” as well as the various would you believe phrases such as, “You better drop that gun because this yacht happens to surrounded by the seventh fleet… Would you believe the sith fleet?… How about a school of angry flounder?”

The best thing about Max is the various relationships he has with each of the people surrounding him, such as always frustrating the Chief but deep down the Chief has a soft spot for Max.

MAX: I’m sorry I’m late Chief, but I was stuck in the car for almost twenty minutes.
CHIEF: I know 86, the traffic.
MAX: No, the seat belt. I can never get that darn thing unbuckled.

The Chief is in charge of the Control organisation only answerable to the White House itself, the Chief joined Control back in the days when agents were assigned letters rather than numbers and was known as Agent Q.

CHIEF: Just don’t get caught Max. Capture means certain death.
MAX: Suicide mission eh Chief? Well you picked the right man.
CHIEF: I hope so.
MAX: You hope what? That you picked the right man? Or that it’s a suicide mission?

Agent 99 is the one who keeps Max in line you could say, she is the brains of the operation however Max gets to take all the credit for it. Eventually she would become Max’s wife and the mother to twins while still having an active role within Control.

Max shoots a window washer suddenly…
99: Max, what did you do!?
MAX: Just eliminated a Kaos agent.
99: Well, how could you be sure?
MAX: Because 99, my eagle eye picked out a few things that the ordinary person might not see. First of all his sponge was absolutely filthy. Second he was using horizontal strokes instead of vertical strokes. And finally, he was holding his squeegee with an overlapping lacrosse grip.
99: Besides its raining, and window washers don’t work in the rain.
MAX: I wasn’t finished 99.
99: Sorry Max.
MAX: Besides its raining, and window washers don’t work in the rain.
99: Good thinking Max.

Larabee is the Chief’s right hand man and just as clueless as Max with other agents wondering if the two are related. Larabee is always in contact with his wife on the phone telling her every little detail that happens at the office, but at the same time doesn’t want to go home to her.

MAX: I’m going to have myself kidnapped.
99: No Max, I’m not going to let you sacrifice yourself like that.
LARABEE: She’s right Max, let me go.
MAX: Are you saying that because I’m married Larabee?
LARABEE:No Max, I’m saying that because I’m married.

Hymie is a Control robot who was stolen from Kaos by Max and converted from evil to good. He is programmed for neatness and even a small bit of cigarette ash on the carpet is enough to get this robot angry with Kaos.

MAX: You’re sluggish. You’re run-down and out of tune. You go around all the time half-charged. If you’re not careful, terrible things could happen.
HYMIE: Like what?
MAX: Well you could end up as a cab in South America.

Harry Hoo was a favourite of mine, although only appearing in two episodes he was a great character. Harry Hoo is a famous Hawaiian detective who is serving with the San Francisco police force and is known for his love of wearing white suits, as well as the phrase “moment please” when he starts a conversation.

HARRY HOO: As Confucius say, “Stick and stone may break my bone, but name will never hurt me.”
MAX: Confucius said that?
HARRY HOO: As a child.

Ludwig Von Siegfried would be the most well known and famous Kaos agent who considers himself to be one of the instrumental parts of the Kaos organisation, he is one of the smart ones but is continuously out smarted by Maxwell Smart. His best catch cry would have to be “This is Kaos, we don’t bbbbbpppppphhhhhh here!”

SIEGFRIED: Give me one good reason why he shouldn’t trust me.
MAX: Because you’re a rotten, vicious, cruel, cunning, maniacal murderer.
SIEGFRIED: All right, that’s one. Now give me another.

But Siegfried wouldn’t be the man he is without his bumbling sidekick Shtarker who claims to be the all-time track star of the Third Reich and the second man to escape from a POW camp in El Alamein, Egypt, right behind Siegfried.

Some of the most recognisable Kaos agents are below, excluding the first one who is Billet a former actor who threatens to destroy New York City if he is not payed $50 million, but behind him is the iconic Kaos logo.

The Claw or as Max like to call him the Craw is the leader of the Chinese branch of Kaos who has a false arm with a magnet attached in the shape of a claw. He appears in two episodes, one where he uses the front of the Shanghai a-Go-Go disco tech and the other a Chinese laundry.

Dr Yes has razor sharp fingernails with one of them containing a poisonous tip; he is responsible for making missiles run off course launched by the US Government. He operates within a power station at the bottom of Lost Lake only accessible by swimming under water in scuba gear.

The Groovy Guru is a hippy DJ who plans to use hidden messages in the lyrics of rock songs performed by a band called the Sacred Cows.

Waxman is the owner of an amusement attraction at a theme park called the Chamber of Horrors, a wax museum which is a Kaos front. He attempts to turn Max and 99 into wax dummies.

Another Kaos killer is the diabolical Leadside who is confined to a wheelchair; he destroys Control’s ARDVARC Computer and plots to destroy Control in three stages. Stage 1, to escape from the custody of Max, stage 2 to destroy Control by blowing up ARDVARC and stage 3 to kill Max.

My favourite episode out of all five seasons would have to be the one titled Schwartz’s Island where Max and 99 go on there honeymoon sailing on a yacht when Max blows up the engine by lighting a match too close. The life raft is then blown up by Max with a flair gun meaning that Max and 99 need to swim for land eventually finding an abandoned island. On the island they are unable to find any food so they take a walk only to discover a giant magnet and the headquarters of Kaos’ Siegfried and Shtarker.

The plan is then explained that a Kaos scientist Schwartz is the creator or synthetic islands and plan to use the giant magnet to run aground the United States 6^th fleet. The Chief then comes to the rescue of Max and 99 only to be captured himself, then all three are placed in synthetic sand while Siegfried and Shtarker make their escape.

Eventually all three escape and with no way of getting off the island, they use the Chief who is still in his inflatable diving suit as a life raft. This episode was filmed on the set of Gilligan’s Island with the name Schwartz poking fun at the shows creator.

June 26^th a new Get Smart movie will be released into cinemas staring Steve Carrel, it doesn’t look all that fantastic and more of a film for Warner Bros to make a quick profit but we shall see anyway and all indications from Get Smart fan site Would You Believe is that it doesn’t do the TV series any justice.

The DVD of Get Smart has been out in Australia for over a year now and is only available through Time Life. It is an impressive collection however a big rip off with Time Life charging an arm and a leg to be able to own the whole collection, compared to the American release it is highly inflated. But in June it will be available in shops for the first time and will be released in volumes according to season and not individual episodes like the Time Life collection.