Sorry about that, Chief
The Cone of Silence has descended for the final time.
Don Adams, known to my generation as ineffectual superspy Maxwell Smart on the '60s TV comedy Get Smart, and known to my daughter's generation as the voice of the animated cyborg detective Inspector Gadget, is dead at age 82.
Would you believe 79?
(As is often the case with actors born before the Information Age, there's some question as to the year of Adams's birth. Some sources say 1926, others 1923. Usually the oldest date is correct. Since the Internet Movie Datebase shows Adams as being born in '23, that what we'll run with.)
Like the recently departed Bob Denver, Adams (whose real name was Donald James Yarmy — supposedly he adopted the surname Adams because he kept getting called last for auditions when he called himself Don Yarmy) spent most of the past few decades struggling to overcome the typecasting associated with a memorable character. Max Smart's original incarnation brought laughs because in him we all saw someone we knew — that person who isn't as sharp or debonair or capable as he or she thinks. Often, that person is the one we see in the mirror.
But it seemed a little sad to watch Adams trying to resurrect Agent 86 to miserable effect in the wretched 1980 theatrical flick The Nude Bomb (the premise involved an explosive device that made people's clothing disappear — hilarious, huh?) and the even more desperate TV revivals of Get Smart in 1989 and 1995. (The latter costarred comic Andy Dick as the stumblebum son of Max and his wife, Agent 99. That should tell you everything you need to know about how awful it was.)
I was intrigued to read in one of Adams's obituaries that he developed that familiar, often-imitated staccato speech pattern while a drill instructor in the U.S. Marines, and that he was a survivor of the Battle of Guadalcanal. I would never have envisioned Maxwell Smart as a Marine d.i. Just goes to show how fully Adams embodied the character that made him famous.
My fondest memories of Don Adams, though, are of his work as the voice of Tennessee Tuxedo, the smart-aleck penguin featured in the classic early '60s cartoon series, Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales. The indomitable Tennessee (his trademark catchphrase was "Tennessee Tuxedo will not fail!" delivered in the adenoidal, clipped notes Adams would later use as Maxwell Smart) and his not-too-bright walrus friend Chumley frequently sought helpful advice from a scientist named Phineas J. Whoopie (try to get away with naming a character "Mr. Whoopie" on a kids' show today), who showed them short educational films on his three-dimensional blackboard (the 3DBB, as it was known).
Tennessee Tuxedo, like other cartoons of the day such as Underdog and the various works of Jay Ward (Rocky and Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle), never talked down to its audience, and could be enjoyed (and even learned from) by viewers of all ages.
We'll miss Don Adams...by that much.
Don Adams, known to my generation as ineffectual superspy Maxwell Smart on the '60s TV comedy Get Smart, and known to my daughter's generation as the voice of the animated cyborg detective Inspector Gadget, is dead at age 82.
Would you believe 79?
(As is often the case with actors born before the Information Age, there's some question as to the year of Adams's birth. Some sources say 1926, others 1923. Usually the oldest date is correct. Since the Internet Movie Datebase shows Adams as being born in '23, that what we'll run with.)
Like the recently departed Bob Denver, Adams (whose real name was Donald James Yarmy — supposedly he adopted the surname Adams because he kept getting called last for auditions when he called himself Don Yarmy) spent most of the past few decades struggling to overcome the typecasting associated with a memorable character. Max Smart's original incarnation brought laughs because in him we all saw someone we knew — that person who isn't as sharp or debonair or capable as he or she thinks. Often, that person is the one we see in the mirror.
But it seemed a little sad to watch Adams trying to resurrect Agent 86 to miserable effect in the wretched 1980 theatrical flick The Nude Bomb (the premise involved an explosive device that made people's clothing disappear — hilarious, huh?) and the even more desperate TV revivals of Get Smart in 1989 and 1995. (The latter costarred comic Andy Dick as the stumblebum son of Max and his wife, Agent 99. That should tell you everything you need to know about how awful it was.)
I was intrigued to read in one of Adams's obituaries that he developed that familiar, often-imitated staccato speech pattern while a drill instructor in the U.S. Marines, and that he was a survivor of the Battle of Guadalcanal. I would never have envisioned Maxwell Smart as a Marine d.i. Just goes to show how fully Adams embodied the character that made him famous.
My fondest memories of Don Adams, though, are of his work as the voice of Tennessee Tuxedo, the smart-aleck penguin featured in the classic early '60s cartoon series, Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales. The indomitable Tennessee (his trademark catchphrase was "Tennessee Tuxedo will not fail!" delivered in the adenoidal, clipped notes Adams would later use as Maxwell Smart) and his not-too-bright walrus friend Chumley frequently sought helpful advice from a scientist named Phineas J. Whoopie (try to get away with naming a character "Mr. Whoopie" on a kids' show today), who showed them short educational films on his three-dimensional blackboard (the 3DBB, as it was known).
Tennessee Tuxedo, like other cartoons of the day such as Underdog and the various works of Jay Ward (Rocky and Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle), never talked down to its audience, and could be enjoyed (and even learned from) by viewers of all ages.
We'll miss Don Adams...by that much.
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 12:58 PM
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