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Don't Tell Me It's More 55th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing!
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Get Smart
"Strike While the Agent Is Hot"
Originally aired September 24, 1966
Wiki said:
A CONTROL agent contacting Max is shot on duty. Before he dies, he puts Max in charge of the "Spy's Guild" labor negotiations.
Max makes contact with Agent 47 (Pat McCaffrie) at an airport via adjacent phone booths, trying to glean intel about counterfeit money being smuggled into the country to fund KAOS. 47 is shot by two men using the old silenced revolver trick, and when Max goes into his booth, 47 is more interested in prepping Max to take over for him as head negotiator of the Guild for Surviving CONTROL Agents, making him take the oath and showing him the secret handshake. Finally, with his dying breath, 47 leaves a cryptic clue.
Max chairs a secret labor meeting of agents who are all hiding in pieces of furniture in a storage room. The Chief crashes the gathering with the help of Fang, and when dragged into discussing labor issues, ends up trying to reason with pieces of furniture that don't have agents in them. Later, with a potential strike impending, 47's clue leads to a children's book, causing Max to go to a bookstore manned by Madame Verna (Lisa Pera) and a fellow KAOS agent (Dino Natali), who think he's their contact and draw his attention to a specific page, but CONTROL can't make anything out of it. On a follow-up visit, Max is given another book and page number of interest before a third agent (Alan Dexter) identifies Smart while he's on his way out.
The third agent confronts Max at his apartment at gunpoint and explains how the page numbers were the clue, to a location in the store's bookshelves. Max's apartment gadgetry works for once and the agent ends up being shot in a struggle over his gun. The dying KAOS agent describes his organization's benefits for wounded and killed agents in great detail, which makes Max green with envy. Max and the Chief sneak into the bookstore at night and find a bus depot locker key at the indicated location, only to be confronted by the second agent and a fourth. The opposing agents engage in a gunfight around the shelves, and Max and the Chief are caught at gunpoint by the second agent when Max notes that it's almost midnight and insists that he'll be going on strike unless the Chief signs the new contract...which the KAOS agent contributes to, before the Chief relents. Then Max takes the agent's gun, thinking that it's out of bullets, only to find that there was one left.
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Get Smart
"A Spy for a Spy"
Originally aired October 1, 1966
Wiki said:
The Chief is kidnapped by KAOS Vice President of Public Relations and Terror, Siegfried (Bernie Kopell, in his first appearance in this recurring role). Max retaliates by kidnapping KAOS's top assassin. After this, a war of kidnappings takes place, which culminates in Max and Siegfried being the only ones who haven't been kidnapped.
A magician is shot by Siegfried backstage, so that the KAOS agent can take his place entertaining at the restaurant where Max and 99 are throwing a birthday party for the Chief, which includes a cake with a message in invisible icing. Siegfried invites the Chief to participate in the vanishing booth trick and causes them both to disappear, leaving behind a note crediting KAOS. Max takes charge of CONTROL against the protests of lab head Carlson (Stacy Keach) and administrative head Standish (Pitt Herbert)...which involves an unsuccessful call to the man at the top, who's engaged in an emergency meeting at his ranch. Max then receives a call from Siegfried arranging for a nighttime meeting at a park. After concealed weapons start falling out of each of their trench coats, they take turns checking equivalent weapons...Max lending Siegfried a switchblade to toss in the pile when he doesn't have one. Siegfried wants the X-11--having to tell Max what it is, natch. When the exchange takes place, Max exchanges a dummy X-11 for a dummy Chief.
Max goes after top KAOS assassin Danker (James Lanphier), engaging in a running firefight against his briefcase gun, in which 86 eventually manages to gain the advantage. When Max calls Siegfried to arrange an exchange, the competitive kidnappings quickly ensue, with Max using a tally board to keep track of who's got which agents. Eventually he and Siegfried have to arrange a negotiation meeting because each has all of the other's operatives, and they discuss exchanging the agents a pair at a time, starting with Danker and the Chief. At the exchange, Siegfried and Max each attempt to gain an advantage on the other via ledgerdemain, but neither succeeds...
Max: The old lighter in the gun in the rabbit trick!
And Max almost blows the negotiations by offering to re-exchange the Chief and Danker as hostages, but ends up leaving with the Chief anyway. The mass exchange takes place between two buses in a parking lot, with Siegfried covertly swiping CONTROL's bus driver.
There's a running gag in which Max repeatedly breaks his shoe phone when returning Siegfried's German-style heel click.
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I Asked You Not to Tell Me That!
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Never bring a missile to a gunfight. Or something.
At least not crappy missiles that don't work right.
After Stephen Stills and Neil Young left to form Crosby, Stlls & Nash and Young went to work with Crazy Horse, the remaining members of Buffalo Springfield formed Poco. Poco is one of the missing links in the country rock trains that leads from the latter-day Byrds to the Eagles, with stops including the Flying Burrito Brothers and Michael Nesmith and the First National Band.
I didn't realize there was a Buffalo Springfield / Poco connection.
Today I'd thought I'd do 'Pioneers Of Rock'
If all of this were on an American show, I'd say it was a sign of '50s retro coming in, but it's hard to say when it's coming from overseas.
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55 Years Ago This Week Overflow Special
Also recent and new on the chart the week of August 12, 1967:
"Glory of Love," Otis Redding
(July 29; #60 US; #19 R&B)
"Run, Run, Run," The Third Rail
(Aug. 5; #53 US)
"Groovin'," Booker T. & The M.G.'s
(Aug. 5; #21 US; #10 R&B)
"You Know What I Mean," The Turtles
(Aug. 5; #12 US)
"Things I Should Have Said," The Grass Roots
(Aug. 12; #23 US)
