HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AGENT 99!

Barbara Feldon (born Barbara Anne Hall; March 12, 1933) is an American actress primarily known for her roles on television. Her most prominent role was that of Agent 99 in the 1965–1970 sitcom Get Smart.

Would you believe Barbara Feldon is 91 years young today, March 12, 2024?  I confess I had a big crush on her from the very first time I saw her on TV, which was not in her debut as 99 on the GET SMART show but rather as Mandy Stevenson on another spy series: THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.

IMDb and WIKIPEDIA can offer you her entire biography and career filmography so I won't dwell into that. All I can say is that Barbara Feldon had the most beautiful and tantalizing eyes I had ever seen and she stole my heart from the very moment I saw her on my TV set. Today, I am thankfully glad she's still with us, although the chance of meeting her in person is extremely remote since she lives in New York and from what I've read, she's a very private and laid back person nowadays. Anyway, I am happy to visit her via my DVD collection...and loving it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BARBARA FELDON AND LONG LIVE AGENT 99!

VETERAN'S DAY, 2023!

 Today is Veteran's Day! In observation of this day, I'm watching episodes of the only four World War series I used to follow as a youngster back in the 1960s.

My top Number One favorite was COMBAT! 

Starring Vic Morrow as Sgt. Chip Saunders and Rick Jason as Lt. Gil Hanley it also featured as regular members of their squad, Jack Hogan as Kirby, Dick Peabody as Little John, Pierre Jalbert as Caje, Tom Lowell as Billy, Steven Rogers as Doc # 1 and Conlan Carter as Doc # 2. 

Who can forget the immortal phrase: "Checkmate King 2, This Is White Rook, Over"?

THE RAT PATROL was another great favorite of mine, and since each episode was only half an hour long, you could be sure the action was going to be non-stop!  The show starred Christopher George, Gary Raymond, Lawrence Casey, Justin Tarr and Hans Gudegast (later known as Eric Braeden) as German Captain Dietrich, who never won a battle against these four soldiers.

                        

GARRISON'S GORILLAS was inspired by the successful 1967 Lee Marvin movie, THE DIRTY DOZEN and starred Ron Harper and Cesare Danova along with Rudy Solari, Brendon Boone and Christopher Cary. 

 

The misadventures of a PT Boat crew in the South Pacific, McHALE'S NAVY was a very funny comedy show with a distinguished cast of performers headed by Ernest Borgnine and featuring newcomer Tim Conway along with Joe Flynn, Carl Ballantine, Gavin MacLeod, Yoshio Yoda, Edson Stroll, Billy Sands, Gay Vinson, John Wright and (not pictured) Bob Hastings.

These are the only war themed shows I enjoyed watching during those years although, of course, there were a few others more like TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH, COURT MARTIAL, CONVOY,  JERICHO,  NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS, HOGAN'S HEROES and THE GALLANT MEN but I didn't care much for those.

Whatever the case may be, war TV shows generally speaking, were never as popular as Westerns, Sitcoms, Private Detectives, Crime or Sci-Fi series so it seems to me that the usually moderate ratings explain why these type of programs were so scarce during those days.

Would you believe GET SMART premiered 57 Years Ago?

 On September 18, 1965, the celebrated, funny, Emmy Award winning and still famous TV series GET SMART premiered on NBC. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, produced by Leonard B. Stern, Arne Sultan, Jay Sandrich, Jess Oppenheimer, Burt Nodella, Chris Hayward and starring Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 of CONTROL, Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 and Edward Platt as the Chief, ran for 5 seasons and 138 episodes until 1970.

The premise of course was simple: a spoof of James Bond films and the entire spy thriller genre, featuring a bumbling secret agent working for an ultra-secret organization known as CONTROL. The series would feature memorable characters sharing the TV screen with Maxwell Smart such as Agent 99, a beautiful female spy who's smarter than Smart; The Chief, head of CONTROL who keeps sending agent 86 on important and delicate missions in spite of Smart's customary bungling; Hymie the Robot, an almost human robotic agent; Larrabee, an agent who is even dumber than Max; Ludwig Von Siegfried, a recurring archvillain who is the vice president in charge of public relations and terror at KAOS, the comedy counterpart of 007's SPECTRE; Stryker, his henchman, among several other equally remarkable characters.

Barbara Feldon (Agent 99) and Don Adams (Agent 86)

The (perennially out-of-order) Cone of Silence

Edward Platt as the Chief, head of CONTROL

Bernie Kopell as KAOS chief operative Ludwig Von Siegfried

The great theme song written by Irving Szathmary:

GET SMART opening credits

Dick Gautier as Hymie The Robot

Robert Karvelas as Larrabee

Many catchphrases from the show became part of American pop culture like:

 "Sorry about that, Chief!"

Maxwell Smart: You see the moment I suspected there was something wrong with this old scow, I immediately telephoned headquarters and I happen to know that at this very minute seven coast guard cutters are converging on this boat. Would you believe it? Seven.

Mr. Big: I find that pretty hard to believe.

Maxwell Smart: Would you believe six?

Mr. Big: I don't think so.

Maxwell Smart: How about two cops in a rowboat?

Beautiful Barbara Feldon in the premiere episode of GET SMART

The TV Show also spanned a series of comic books and paperbacks.

There is an almost infinite list of great bits of dialogue, funny gags, ridiculous gadgets, hilarious characters and bits of business to write about but the best way to remember GET SMART is by watching and rewatching the show which I never get tired of doing!

MY FAVORITE MARTIAN

Mars will be closest to the Earth in a decade and a half today, on the night of July 31, 2018. The Earth will have the Red Planet and the Sun on either side, with the three celestial bodies in a straight line. Though the two planets will be at closest distances to each other, they will still be 57.6 million km apart. This will be the closest distance between Mars and Earth until October 2020, but the Red Planet’s visibility as good as today's only every 15-17 years. 

Those facts are completely irrelevant to the actual reason for this post. One of my favorite shows when I was growing up in the 60s, was MY FAVORITE MARTIAN, which premiered on September 29, 1963, and lasted until May 1st, 1966. The show told the adventures of a Martian who crash-lands his spaceship on Earth and is taken in by a young newspaper reporter named Tim O'Hara. Disguising himself as Uncle Martin, the alien from space tries to repair his ship hidden in the garage, but Tim's nosy landlady, Mrs. Brown, takes a liking to Uncle Martin making it very difficult to keep his true identity a secret.

The show starred Ray Walston as the Martian and Bill Bixby as Tim O'Hara and also featured Pamela Britton as Mrs. Brown and Alan Hewitt as a suspicious police detective named Brennan.  The show seems quite mild and tame by today's standards and the comedy isn't that hilarious...but it has a distinctive charm and appeal all its own. 

So, here's my tribute to MY FAVORITE MARTIAN!

MY FAVORITE MARTIAN is available on DVD from Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/My-Favorite-Martian-Bill-Bixby/dp/B011MU9ZIY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1533055406&sr=8-4&keywords=my+favorite+martian