To an extent. The whole original idea behind Drebin in Police Squad! was that the absurd humor was perfectly deadpan; to the characters, this was just their everyday life. By the standards of their insane world, they were normal and the ludicrous events surrounding them were grim, harsh reality.
Which is what the Naked Gun movies got totally wrong, because they retooled it so that Drebin was a buffoon that the other characters were mocking or scorning for his ineptitude. He wasn't a skilled, levelheaded cop by the standards of a silly, bizarre reality, but just a bumbling clown in a more ordinary (if often comical) world.
And that's what Max Smart and Inspector Clouseau were. Both were inept, overconfident characters who somehow managed to stumble their way to success -- both over their enemies and with the opposite sex -- even while their superiors grew increasingly frustrated with their klutziness and inanity.
From what I've heard about the Get Smart movie, though, it didn't get that right. I gather the movie's Max is an insecure character unsure of his ability to succeed as a spy. The real Max was supremely self-confident, never doubting for a minute that he was a brilliant, cunning operative with tiger-like reflexes.
