Posted By Dan Greenfield on Sep 18, 2025 | 8 comments

An ANNIVERSARY TWO-FER…

By PETER BOSCH

If there was anything we had too much of in the 1960s, it was spy movies. Altogether, it has been estimated there were about 250 secret agent films during the decade. All the way from Sean Connery in Dr. No to comedians Allen & Rossi in Last of the Secret Agents? And when there were not enough movie screens to show them on, they spilled over into television: Mission: Impossible, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Blue Light, I Spy, The Double Life of Henry Phyfe, It Takes A Thief, Danger Man/Secret Agent, The Champions, The Avengers, The Prisoner, and — well, you get the picture.

There were two more shows, very memorable to us baby boomers, that were polar opposites in approach, but both very enjoyable. Exactly 60 years ago this week, on succeeding nights, The Wild Wild West and Get Smart debuted.

The Wild Wild West had its CBS premiere Sept. 17, 1965, with stars Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. The program was similar to the tone of the Bond movies, only it was set in the Old West, and instead of serving Her Majesty, the Queen, they were answerable to President Ulysses S. Grant.

Then there was Get Smart. Kicking off on NBC on Sept. 18, 1965, it was the last word in secret agent stories. Would you believe Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) was the greatest secret agent in the entire world? No? Would you believe he was the second greatest? How about Maxwell Smart was the most bumbling of all spies and CONTROL was the most incorrect word to label the frantic group of nitwit characters on the TV screen since F Troop? OK, yes, but they were a delight to watch! The show provided so many laughs that we were in stitches — and… loving it!

Opening and closing credits. By the way, to achieve the effect of Smart dropping in the phone booth, elaborate plans involving machinery were discussed… until Don Adams suggested just dropping to his knees.

In honor of their twin 60th anniversaries, here are 13 things to enjoy:

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1. The Wild Wild West had a good spy in James West, a man who never made a wrong step… except for always standing exactly where a trap door would open up at his feet.

In this pair of photos, Robert Conrad looks shorter than Don Adams, but that’s the way it really was. Conrad was 5’8” and Adams was 5’9”.

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2. However, when it came to secret agents like James Bond, Harry Palmer, and John Drake, Get Smart had the definitive antithesis in Maxwell Smart. He was brave and earnest, willing to leap into danger against KAOS without a moment’s thought to his own safety. But he was a walking disaster area. Max was definitely not cloned from James Bond. If he could be compared to anyone, it would be Inspector Clouseau of The Pink Panther movies.

3. And then there were their partners.

Ross Martin (left) and Robert Conrad

West had Artemus Gordon, who was a master of disguise and a great inventor of spy gadgets. Speaking honestly here, Artemus Gordon was a much more enjoyable character to watch each week than James West was. You never knew how Artemus would look and Ross Martin, in addition to creating the disguises, gave the character a sense of fun that was missing in Conrad’s always-unbreakable stiffness.

Yes, Conrad was the star of the show but, based on his shows before and after, he always seemed to be playing Robert Conrad. Martin had a much more diverse background, including Broadway, and a look at TV and movie screens would find him in many different roles, including frightening everyone as an asthmatic, sadistic killer in Experiment in Terror (1962) and charming others as a charismatic-but-deadly swordsman in The Great Race (1965).

Barbara Feldon and Don Adams

Maxwell Smart, on the other hand, had Agent 99. Ahh, Agent 99. OK, she wasn’t a master of disguise, nor was she a great inventor of weapons, but she could defend herself… and she loved Max right from the start.

Of course, Max was sometimes slow at realizing the obvious – such as in the first program where it took him half of the story to realize his new partner, 99, was a woman. And she really was as winsome and lovely as anyone could hope. Barbara Feldon was a perfect hire for 99, even if all you can remember now of her dialogue from Get Smart was her sighing and saying, “Oh, Max…”, which would then be followed by a look of loving acceptance at his incompetency.

Surprisingly, Feldon’s earlier rise to fame was not as a demure type. She got noticed as a spokeswoman in a commercial where she lay upon a tiger-skin rug, telling male viewers how much she liked it when they used Revlon’s Top Brass hair cream.

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4. Since he was the head of CONTROL, I should have mentioned Edward Platt sooner. Sorry about that, Chief! Platt did a stupendous job on the show, playing the part straight, which made things even funnier. Platt had an excellent resume of serious Broadway, movie, and TV credits, including Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Surprisingly, prior to that, Platt had been a vocalist with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, one of the most famous jazz bands in the country at the time.

Edward Platt

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5. While James West and Artemus Gordon seemed to be practically the entire Secret Service (other agents only served as fodder to be killed off before that particular episode’s opening credits), CONTROL had a whole slew of agents. At least 99 if they were assigned in numerical order. I should say at least 100, because there were two Agent 13’s. One was played by Dave Ketchum, who would always be found in odd places of concealment for reconnaissance, including a street mailbox, lockers, a sofa, and vending machines, just waiting to pass information on to Max when he came by. The other was K-13, a dog better known as Fang. (Red, the dog that played Fang, was cut from the show for being uncooperative during filming.)

Red, who played Fang, was on more comic book covers than Barbara Feldon. Get Smart #4 (Jan. 1967, Dell).

(Side note: In fairness to The Wild Wild West, other agents were shown in Season 4 stepping in for Artemus, who they said was on assignment elsewhere. In actual fact, Ross Martin missed several episodes that season because of a broken leg and a heart attack.)

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6. There was one other very special agent of CONTROL: Hymie the Robot.

Adams and Dick Gautier

Hymie’s first appearance came in the initial season, and though he only appeared five more times he was one of the series’ most memorable characters. Hymie was actually built by KAOS to be an undercover agent within CONTROL, but switched sides because Max was the first person to treat him like a human being. When it came to the casting of Hymie, it’s really quite amusing that they chose Dick Gautier to play the stiff, lifeless robot. Prior to Get Smart, Gautier had originated the role of electrifying, hip-swinging, and pelvis-gyrating Conrad Birdie (think Elvis) in the Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie.

Gautier pictured during the recording of the original Broadway cast album for Bye Bye Birdie in 1960.

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7. And it wasn’t just the agents at CONTROL who proved to be odd choices. Let’s never forget — the Cone of Silence.

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8. And now we turn to the villains (aka “guest stars”) — and The Wild Wild West truly got some of the best! However, there was one who was small in size yet stood well above the rest, and that was Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless (played by the marvelous Michael Dunn), the diminutive menace who threatened the world and James West in 10 episodes of the series.

Michael Dunn and Robert Conrad.

Appearing as his henchwoman in six of those shows (and singing with him) was Phoebe Dorin, Dunn’s partner in nightclub and café performances.

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9. Other notables who played bad guys in The Wild Wild West were Boris Karloff, Agnes Moorehead, Ida Lupino, Richard Pryor, Burgess Meredith, Martin Landau, Leslie Nielsen, Ed Asner, and even Yvonne Craig.

Boris Karloff

Get Smart also had famous performers appearing in either story roles or in cameos, and not always as bad guys: Carol Burnett, Vincent Price, Robert Culp, Johnny Carson, Martin Landau, Bob Hope, Phyllis Diller, Buddy Hackett, and Don Rickles. And, of course, the delightful Bernie Kopell was Siegfried, the head of KAOS.

Bernie Kopell as Siegfried.

Oh, and one more must be mentioned: Our favorite villainous actor, Michael Dunn, played “Mr. Big” in the very first episode. (1965 turned out to be a very good year for Dunn. In addition to those TV roles, he appeared in the movie Ship of Fools, for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.)

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10. Speaking of that first episode of Get Smart, it was written by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. However, initially, the pilot script was written with Tom Poston in mind as Maxwell Smart. It was intended to be more to Poston’s brand of physical comedy, rather than verbal humor.

But — and this “but” changed everything — NBC had Don Adams under contract and was paying him, but they had nothing to put him in. The script was rewritten for Adams and the rest is history. (Tom Poston missed it by that much.)

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11. Both of the TV series received comic book tie-ins, with The Wild Wild West published by Gold Key and Get Smart by Dell.

Get Smart #7 (Aug. 1967, Dell). The Wild Wild West #1 (1966, Gold Key).

The first two issues of The Wild Wild West in 1966 had good artwork by Al McWilliams. However, it would not reappear on the newsstand again until its third issue in 1968 and was cancelled with its seventh issue in 1969, around the same time as the TV series.

Get Smart, on the other hand, ran for eight issues (with #1 to #7 having cover dates between June 1966 and August 1967, and #8, which reprinted the first issue, cover dated October 1969). Art for the first issue was by Dick Giordano and then #2 and #3 were drawn by Steve Ditko. Henry Scarpelli handled the majority of the artwork for the rest of the run.

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12. Other merchandising included games and lunch boxes.

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13. The last episode of The Wild Wild West was April 11, 1969. CBS had decided to not renew it for a fifth season after governmental pressure was put on them about violence on television. Over at NBC, Get Smart also got the ax that year… but not due to violence. Rather, it was due to love. For years, fans had wanted just one thing, for Max and Agent 99 to get married, which they did in the fourth season.

However, after getting what they wanted, viewers stopped watching. NBC’s cancellation was not the end of the show, though; the series was picked up for a fifth season by — ready for this? — CBS, which had dropped The Wild Wild West.

The two series would both have reunion TV-movies years later, as well as theatrical films.

Wait, don’t tell me we’ve run out of space for this retrospective?!

We have?

I asked you not to tell me that!

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MORE

— LOST IN SPACE: 60 Years of Far Out Adventure — and Groovy Memorabilia. Click here.

— CLAYTON MOORE: His Career With and Without THE LONE RANGER’s Mask. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is out now. (Buy it here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.