My Top 25 Favorite TV Shows: #12!

Yes, the TV show.

I repeat. Yes, the TV show.

One more time. Yes, the TV show.

There is only one "Get Smart." It is the TV show from the 60s. Yes, the TV show.

I look askance at anybody who has gone to see the current movie allegedly based on the show. I am astounded by those youngsters in the audience who think that this is just one more creation from the semi-fertile mind of Steve Carell. Hopefully, they all can get exposed to the original. Because it clearly was one of the best TV shows ever.

Yes, a TV show.

Okay, I'll stop.

Not only is "Get Smart" a cherished memory from my TV childhood, it also is probably the single reason why my parents finally relented and bought me a portable TV set for my own room. Back when, "Get Smart" was broadcast by NBC on Saturday nights. I immediately bought into all the silliness and lunacy. I felt like I was watching a Looney Tune cartoon with actual human beings. I loved the jokes. I loved, loved, loved Barbara Feldon as Agent 99. I was a buyer. Except for one wrinkle...

I rarely got to watch it. I lived in a two family house with me and my parents upstairs and my grandmother downstairs. Multi floors and, more importantly, multi TV sets. Two, to be exact.

And both were tuned to the freakin' "Lawrence Welk Show" which was on at the very same time. To this day, my hatred for all things Welk continues. "Wannerful, wannerful." Bullshit! I still cringe whenever I see either the Lennon Sisters, dancers Bobby and Cissy, and champagne bubbles. They were all keeping me from my beloved Max and 99.

Since I could be as obnoxious as a child as I purportedly am now, I did my darndest to show my displeasure at this flagrant brand of oppression. Why did two TV sets in one house both have to be tuned to this creepy old Dutchman? Where was the justice for me? I really made a pest of myself.

They couldn't take it anymore. Finally, at last, they Christmas gifted me with a portable TV. One of those big clunkers with the antennas you had to swing around depending upon whichever channel you were trying to connect to.

Two antennae which I promptly broke.

Uh oh.

But, not to be deterred, I figured it all. Even though they were not secured firmly to the top of the TV, they still worked if you somehow let them make some contact. And to get Channel 4, one had to be pointed one way and the other had to be resting against the closet. I had an intricate plan for every channel. Thank God there were only 5 or 6 channels to actually formulate. There was one station where the antennae had to be placed against the closed door of my room. Of course, everytime Mom or Dad entered, they got whacked in the eye. Oh, well. I had my "Get Smart."

My fandom was so fierce that I used the show's characters in a homework assignment. Some English teacher asked us to write an original satire, which meant 90% of the class didn't know what we were doing. After I figured out that satire translated to funny, I wrote myself a little short story about Max and 99. I have no idea what ultimately happened to it, but I know I'm still writing and that teacher is probably now dead.

"Get Smart" featured some of the smartest comedy writing ever seen on TV. And they managed to do things that you could certainly not get away with today, especially in light of the politically correct shackles we all must wear. Take, for instance, this wonderful bit from the episode with "The Craw."

They are putting out the box sets for the series. If all you know about "Get Smart" is what you saw in that stupid movie now littering our multiplexes, do yourself a favor and try the TV show. It was phenomenal.

Okay, would you believe....very good?

Dinner last night: Hollywood Bowl hot dog.