Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Goodbye Inspector Gadget...




Don Adams, the wry-voiced comedian who starred as bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart in the 1960s TV spoof of James Bond movies, "Get Smart," has died. He was 82.

He was Maxwell Smart to my mother’s generation and the voice of Inspector Gadget for mines. This by the way was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid. His career spanned over 40 years but Maxwell Smart is the role for which he will be remembered the most.

"It was a special show that became a cult classic of sorts, and I made a lot of money for it," Adams once said in a 1995 interview. "But it also hindered me career-wise because I was typed. The character was so strong, particularly because of that distinctive voice, that nobody could picture me in any other type of role."

As big in its time as "Seinfeld," the "show about nothing," was in the 1990s, "Get Smart" allowed America to laugh about the world of spies that was the Cold War and the rapid pace of change in the 1960s. Spy gadgets inspired by and poking fun at the ones in the James Bond movies were a staple of "Get Smart," especially the shoe phone, Maxwell Smart's way out of many a tight spot — decades before cell phones burst onto the scene.



Posted by @ 3:57 PM
1 comment from:  Aisha,