Maxwell Smart Before Maxwell Smart

Before there was Maxwell Smart, Don Adams got a lot of mileage out of his Maxwell Smart voice. In fact, he used it in two TV series in 1963. One was on Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales on Saturday mornings on CBS. The other was the lesser-known The Bill Dana Show on Sunday evenings.

Tennessee had a reasonably long life. It was repackaged and syndicated for years until enough newer cartoons came along. The Dana show lasted two seasons. Dana attempted to take a sketch comedy character with a catchphrase or two and stretch it into a half-hour. I’ve never understood why anyone thought Jose Jimenez was screamingly funny to begin with, but Dana sold a lot of comedy records doing him.

Dana was more than a comedian. He was a writer, too, and he basically wrote Maxwell Smart into existence. Adams supplied the voice and delivery, then took it to Mel Brooks and Buck Henry in 1965 and — would you believe? — turned him into a huge hit.

Adams talks a bit about his Dana version in this syndicated newspaper column of September 17, 1964. At the time, he was also doing some of his stand-up routines on another show. Adams apparently hated stand-up and preferred to spend his time at the race track instead of on stage or in front of TV cameras. Word is the track ended up with a whole pile of money Adams earned on Get Smart.

You Really Know How to Hurt a Guy, Don't You?
By HARVEY PACK
NEW YORK — Don Adams, who plays Inspector Glick the ineffective house detective on NBC’s “Bill Dana Show,” arrived early for our interview . . . one full day early. Apparently Adams, in typical Glick fashion, had the wrong date for the appointment and he spent the better part of an hour checking the faces on the restaurant’s customers hoping to find somebody who might be the reporter sent to interview him.
By the time we got together the following day Don had worked the entire incident into a routine and — typical of Don Adams — it was quite funny. When he’s not Inspector Glick, Adams is an “In” comic with a loyal cult of followers including ex-comedy writer Bill Dana.
This reporter has been a member of the Adams cult for years and I was delighted when he cropped up last season on a few episodes of the “Bill Dana Show.” His first appearance when, as Glick, he gave Jose’s hotel maximum security and inadvertently robbed a bank on behalf of some larcenous guests was easily the best of the Jose Jimenez adventures and won Don critical plaudits as well as a spot in the future plans of producer Sheldon Leonard and star Bill Dana.
In New Time Slot
When the show squeaked through and was given a new life and a better time slot (Sundays 8:30-9:00 p.m. beginning this week), Don Adams and Inspector Glick were signed on as regulars.
Although he will be seen on eight of the first 13 shows, Don still lives in New York and fills in his time with six appearances on ABC’s “Jimmy Dean Show.” I asked him why he feels the need to do the Dean show which probably does not have an audience geared for his type of comedy.
“I have a lot of fun doing it and It’s giving me a chance to get some sort of identity,” he explained. “Wherever I go, people come up to me and say I’m very funny and then ask my name. Outside of a small handful of fans . . . like Johnny Carson who shares a frequency with me and has been a great help with guest spots . . . nobody knows who I am.
“But on the Dean show I’m given a free rein and I’ve been able to use one of my favorite expressions . . . ’You really know how to hurt a guy’ ... so often that Jimmy's audience knows when it’s going to be a punch line and laughs before I deliver it. When they can identify you by a phrase or an expression they don’t forget your name.”
Loves Glick Character

As far as his own series goes, Don has been offered many of them but he loves the character of Inspector Glick and he's quite pleased at the way things are working out with Bill Dana.
“I go back a long way with Bill Dana,” said Adams. “I think I had one routine and a lot of ambition when I first met him. He liked me and wrote most of the material I used in my act.
“Now, on his program, I know I’m working with an ace comedy writer, I’ve done a lot of writing myself, Sheldon Leonard knows comedy, most of our directors are experts and this means that even a weak script can be sharpened before we film it. I like those odds.”
Adams’ three best routines are the locker room pep talk (“A good shortstop and a good second baseman go hand in hand, men. But not off the diamond.”), the hilarious re-creation of the confrontation scene from the old "Thin Man” movies where the hero locks the suspects in one room and solves the crime, and his courtroom bit where the defense attorney tries to win the case for his very guilty client. The latter routine has been incorporated into an upcoming “Bill Dana Show” episode.
Why He Became Comedian
Don became a comedian be cause he didn’t think he had the physical attributes necessary for success as a straight actor. Now that he’s made the complete circle and is an actor he’s turning down as many nightclub jobs as possible.
“I've spent a lot of years in clubs and I want out,” he said. “I don’t mind doing an occasional one-nighter, but I'd like to try my hand at directing — which I hope to do this season—and continue as a comedy character actor.”
Just before the interview ended Don confided to us that if he ever left show business he could easily make a living by betting at the racetrack since he’s one of the finest handicappers in the world. We didn't argue with him at the time, but the following Saturday at Aqueduct we wandered around the clubhouse until we found a dejected Inspector Glick staring mournfully at a pile of losing tickets.
We then asked him if this was how he was going to earn his bread and he looked us right in the eye and said, “You really know how to hurt a guy, don’t you?”