That was all part of the role of the hidden spy, Agent 13, on the mid-to-late ‘60s comedy show, Get Smart.
He was played by Dave Ketchum, who has passed away at age 97.
Ketchum’s fame in the 1950s was pretty much restricted to southern California. The San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune of May 24, 1952 notes he was a speech student at San Diego State College who was 11 days from starting a movie career in October 1950 when he entered the army with a National Guard group. He was discharged the day before the story was published as a sergeant at Camp Roberts where he wrote 42,000 pages of script and emceed shows at the camp and toured with the USO.
He then put together, as the Sacramento Bee of Dec. 1, 1956 calls it, “The Dave Ketchum Show, a singing, dancing and comedy revue which has played to service audiences all over the world.” A year later, the revue was in Alaska. Included in the company was folk singer Louise Bryant, whom he married. In November 1955, he was in the cast of KRCA Kapers “an experimental showcase to comics and writers who are trying to develop into big-time pros,” as columnist Hal Humphrey called it (the February 28, 1956 show was broadcast in colour).
Ketchum wrote a column about called “Assignment Hollywood,” distributed by New Era Syndicate. A squib in the Valley Times of August 30, 1957 mentions Ketchum was headed to Mexico City to interview people for the column before returning to play a comedy role in Will Jason’s film Desert Massacre. I can’t find that it was released.
As the new decade came, Ketchum landed some roles on network TV. He appeared on I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster before David Swift cast him in another comedy series, which had an animation connection. Here’s a column from the Newspaper Enterprise Association that appeared in papers starting in late September 1965.
Zany Comedy Makes Series ‘Incomparable’
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD (NEA)—Don't fire until you see the whites of their pies.
In proof that there's reaIly nothing new on television this fall, the show business trade paper Variety recently listed the new shows. In one way or another, each show resembled one of last season's hits.
But one new show, NBC-TV's "Camp Runamuck" did not appear on the list.
"And I think that's a good sign," says David Ketchum, the lean, likable comedian who stars as Spiffy in the series. "If nothing else, we are incomparable and I think that's something on television these days."
Wild really is the word for "Camp Runamuck" with silent movie comedies, Red Skelton and pair of one-time Disney studio animators being responsible for its zany approach.
This may be news to Skelton, but he is at least responsible for David Ketchum's career as a comedian.
"If you can make people laugh by falling down, why don't we try it," Ketchum said to a student pal. With that both lads 'fell' into show business by taking lessons in the art of falling and then putting together a rambunctious act for servicemen's camp shows which led to night clubs, TV and movies.
After 24 years, Ketchum is still falling down for laughs.
The format of "Camp Runamuck”—a boys' camp under the supervision of four experts in chaos—tells only half the "incomparable" label. Ketchum tells the other half when he says:
"The show really is 75 per cent sight gags—the chases, falls, stunts, and other mishaps right out of old silent movie comedies. In the first six shows we have sent a fellow across a lake on a surfboard equipped with a jet engine, shot a fellow into the air from a giant bow and arrow, recreated the gunfight from High Noon with pants falling down had an entire house collapse on us and flooded the entire camp with soap suds.
"The show is mad, mad, mad. There's only one thing I can compare it to and that's the movie, 'Mr. Hulot's Holiday.’ We don't stop between gags to try to make sense." The pre-planned sight gags of the show are developed in special story-board technique, a skill the show's creator David Swift acquired early in his career as a Disney animator. Still another ex-Disney sight gag man, Cal Howard, is the show's full-time "animator."
In the Swift-directed movie, "Good Neighbor Sam," Ketchum was the Hertz car man in a spoof of the TV commercial. Everytime he slid down the wire he missed the car and fell on his face.
"But," laughs Ketchum, "that was tame compared to 'Camp Runamuck’.”
Runamuck was run off the NBC schedule after one season. He told the press at the time it was likely because CBS’ The Wild Wild West kicked them in the ratings, and some affiliates delayed airing the show.
Ketchum was quikly cast in Get Smart after Victor French, who played a similar role as Agent 44, left. He evidently made an impression on newspaper columnists, as a number of them talked to him about the show. This is from January 1967.
Dave Ketchum Proves to Be A Very Versatile Performer
By ERSKINE JOHNSON
HOLLYWOOD (NEA)—In the new role of Agent 13 on television's Get Smart this season, Dave Ketchum turns up la the strangest places.
With sudden abruptness Agent 13 appears inside a popcorn dispenser or from out of a trash can, inside a foot locker or out of a mail box, inside a sofa or out of a picture frame.
Guessing where he will be next week has become a game with regular fans of the show.
Off screen Dave Ketchum also keeps Hollywood guessing about where he will show up next. The other day even a man from NBC guessed wrong about Dave’s presence on the Get Smart set. There had been a last-minute change in the shooting schedule, it was explained, to permit Dave to play a role in another TV series.
We found him, four miles away, playing the part of a real estate salesman on The Andy Griffith Show. For a rival network yet.
"I like to be a moving target,” Dave kidded about a career which has been booming since he starred in the short-lived Camp Runamuck series after first winning TV fan attention in I’m Dickens ... He's Fenster.
Some actors belittle commercials and cartoon voices, but Dave welcomes them. He says, “I once read that the Hollywood Screen Acton Guild has a membership of 10,000 but that only 1,000 members work full time in the industry. I’m proud of the fact that in this basically insecure business I’m a full-time worker. To be one, it's necessary to be versatile.”
That, of course, is the story of his show business career which started on a San Diego, Calif., radio station before he invaded Hollywood television.
Since turning to writing TV scripts (with Bruce Shelley) Dave says his eyes have been opened to a new advantage for him as an actor.
“Writing scripts,” he explains, “has taught me to recognize good parts which I might otherwise have turned down. Writing scripts teaches you how to read scripts from a different viewpoint.”
About his TV commercial work, he said:
“It takes two days to film a one-minute commercial. It's just like making a big-time movie and I think there’s more real creative talent behind some commercials than in many TV shows. For young unknowns, a one-minute TV commercial is better than a major studio big screen test”
This piece likely came from the producers as there is no byline. It also appeared in papers in January 1967.
Hollywood—Dave Ketchum may have been destined from birth to appear in strange places. He was born in an elevator.
Today, he may be found in mailboxes, lockers, washing machines, garbage cans, cigarette machines and grandfather clocks.
Ketchum, as Agent 13, has been hiding inside these various containers while awaiting contact with other operatives in Get Smart on the NBC-TV Saturdays.
"I'm not bothered by claustrophobia," said Ketchum, "But I have a slight tendency towards motion sickness."
The only time this problem seems to arise, however, is when he's spinning around inside a washing machine.
Asked what's more his speed, he said:
"F-11 at 125."
As any shutterbug knows, this is shoptalk for a standard lens opening. Ketchum, who has handled a camera since he was a youngster, would just as soon take pictures than be in them.
"I'm often in the dark room until three and four in the morning," he said. "It's a great place for getting away from it all."
He's ALWAYS had a hideaway of some kind. As a youngster it was a friend's hut.
"Once we saw a movie with a steam room scene," said Dave. "We decided to turn our hut into a steam room. We didn't know how to make steam so we used dirt instead. We poured buckets of dirt into the hut and sat around breathing dust."
In time Dave came to Hollywood.
The room's major virtue was the cost—five dollars a week.
Dave has done many things and popped up in many places. He was a student at UCLA, an entertainer with the Armed Forces and for the Defense Department, and currently he is one of the busiest and most versatile talents in show business.
"I haven't been on unemployment for years," said Ketchum.
His last series was Camp Runamuck. When camp closed, he packed his bags, slipped out of his tent and became the peek-a-boo agent on Get Smart.
WHEN NOT HIDING behind his role or in the dark room, Ketchum hides behind a typewriter.
"I've written 10 scripts in one year," said Ketchum. "I've also written a television pilot. I write with Josh Shelley. We were in the Army together."
They work in a small room, naturally.
"We started out in a larger room," said Ketchum. "But we had a hard time getting started. So we moved to a smaller room. I work better in small spaces."
Some people say their life is an open book. Ketchum puts it differently,
"My life," he said, "is a little room."
After Get Smart, it appears Ketchum focused more on writing than performing. It’s too bad. Even in the most over-the-top roles, Ketchum was never-over-the-top. As Yogi Bear might rhyme: “As a hidden spy, he was a regular guy.” That, to me, was appeal during his time on the small screen.
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