Today, we look at when (or if) you folks believe that Get Smart “jumped the shark.”
This is “Just Can’t Jump It,” a feature where we examine shows and whether they “jumped the shark.” Jumped the shark (coined by Jon Hein) means that the show had a specific point in time where, in retrospect, you realize that show was going downhill from there (even if, in some rare occasions, the show later course-corrected). Not every show DOES jump the shark. Some shows just remain good all the way through. And some shows are terrible all the way through. What we’re looking for are moments where a show that you otherwise enjoyed hit a point where it took a noticeable nose dive after that time and if so, what moment was that?
Get Smart was created by two legendary comedy writers, Buck Henry and Mel Brooks, as a mixture between James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, with Don Adams’ Maxwell Smart (Agent 86) being the incompetent, yet through sheer luck, also one of the most effective agents of CONTROL. He was paired with Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), who was just as competent as Max was INcompetent. Their “will they or won’t they” energy helped carry the show, but mostly, it was just a bunch of wacky missions that were mostly spoofs of famous movies or novels. I liked Get Smart, and I think it was a good show, but the fact that it was a two-time Emmy winner for Best Comedy just sort of shows how bleak the late 1960s were for sitcoms.
So first…DID IT JUMP THE SHARK? I’d say so, yes.
WHEN DID IT JUMP THE SHARK A lot of people point to Max and Agent 99 getting married, and I understand the impulse, but I really don’t think that that changed the show all that much (people really just have a hate on for couples getting together on shows. I once saw someone say that Cheers jumped the shark when Sam and Diane got together, so, according to this person, Cheers jumped the shark in its first freakin’ season?!!?). However, I think in Season 5, Agent 99 having twins, coupled with the show just running out of stuff to spoof, really did drag the show down. Note that Season 5 was the only season not to be nominated for an Emmy. So I’m going with Agent 99 having her kids (not the episodes leading UP to the kids, but the ones after she gave birth, so about a third of the way through Season 5).
Let me know what you think in the comments or on social media!
Feel free to e-mail me at brian@popculturereferences.com for suggestions for shows for us to do in future installments!
I would agree with the twins being the time it jumped the shark.
However, was he Agent 86?
Yes. Smart was 86 – . I agree twins as I fondly recall the Chief coming over for dinner and Max and 99 trying to remember what wedding present they got from him and end up displaying ALL the gifts to not hurt the Chief’s feelings. Of course, the Chief had not yet given a gift by then and was bringing it to the dinner!
Oops, yep, just a typo there. 8s and 6s look too similar, darnit! 🙂
The irony is that Maxwell Smart and 99 getting married, and then having kids, were stunts demanded by the networks. The writers/producers of the show didn’t want to do that, because they feared that some “standard domestic plots” would arise. And while they always did them with a “Smartian” twist, that is exactly what happened. NBC executives insisted on the marriage to goose the ratings, and when that didn’t work, they cancelled the show. But, GET SMART dodged oblivion by THIS MUCH!
Although I enjoyed the show overall, I’d agree that the last season was the worst. After all the drama to produce the twins, you rarely saw them; 99’s mother would just babysit them off camera a lot. It is also worth noting that the last season of GET SMART was also the only season of GET SMART that aired on CBS (after being on NBC for four seasons). Yes, season 5 was “the ol’ swapping networks when a show gets cancelled” trick, and by and large all that does is buy a show one more season. There are examples of shows thriving after they switch networks (“SUPERGIRL” and “LAST MAN STANDING” are easy modern examples), but by and large all it does is delay the inevitable by a year.
There’d been a number of attempts to revive the show (or give it a sequel) after it ended in 1970. Almost all of them tanked, although for my money I enjoyed the “GET SMART, AGAIN” TV movie from the mid-to-late 1980s. Though even it barely mentions the twins, since by then they’d grown up.