Not Get Smart

For the record, I have the complete DVD set for the Get Smart TV show and have watched all 138 episodes, plus many of the interviews that were included in the set.

And I'm not going to be one of the people attending the new Get Smart movie, even though Mel Brooks apparently likes it. Remakes of movies are questionable enough, but here, Don Adams is way too closely identified with the character of Maxwell Smart (and Barbara Feldon with 99) to redo the show as a movie with new actors. To say nothing of having to modernize the show from the 1960s.

I really don't see the point. There's plenty of room for comedy in spy movies. Why not an original movie with original characters? There's no point in trying to make this something it isn't.

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Visitors of the day -- 3/31

Name a person who talks and is a shoo-in and a person who talks in a shoe.



Well, some people say he stinks as a candidate...

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Alice Ghostley, R.I.P.

From the Associated Press: "Alice Ghostley, the Tony Award-winning actress best known on television for playing Esmeralda on 'Bewitched' and Bernice on 'Designing Women,' has died. She was 81."

One of her little noticed gems was a role in one of my all-time favorite Get Smart episodes. She plays Naomi Farkas, a Kaos agent planted next door to the newly married Max and 99. Mrs. Farkas and her husband, played by Tom Bosley, bug the Smarts' apartment, which gives her an opportunity to show up at the door at the right moment. She's the quintessentially nosey but excessively friendly neighbor who, whenever 99 calls her "Mrs. Farkas," protests, "Naomi!"

By bugging the apartment, Mrs. Farkas discovers that Max has invited the Chief over for dinner. 99 has an elaborate meal planned but tells Max she knows the Chief loves dessert and she has none for him. Right on cue, Mrs. Farkas appears at the door to offer 99 some chocolate mousse, which she's poisoned -- not enough to kill them but enough to make them sick so she and Tom Bosley can get into the apartment to photograph the secret documents the Chief has brought with him.

The Chief and Max finish dinner while 99 goes back to the kitchen. The Chief tells Max that 99 is a terrific cook. I'm quoting from memory here -- "terrific Beef Wellington, artichokes vinagrette beyond compare" -- here, he takes a bite of the poisoned dessert -- "and terrible chocolate mousse!" Max and the Chief start groaning. 99 returns to the dining room, and Max tries to disguise the groans -- "ohhhhh!!" -- by singing "Oh, Susannah!" with the Chief groaning loudly behind him.

But back to Alice Ghostley/Naomi Farkas. She and her husband get into the apartment while Max and the Chief go off to check the medicine cabinet. 99 walks into the living room and sees Mrs. Farkas pointing a gun at her. 99 exclaims in surprise: "Mrs. Farkas!" Mrs. Farkas protests: "Naomi!"

This line is a continuing joke with my mother and siblings (see paragraph 2). Alice Ghostley was a stitch.

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Sunday linkfest

1. "[F]or 40 days and 40 nights, there has been no showering, no hair washing, no teeth cleaning and no deodorant."

Noah's Ark? No, just some moronic British chick who's decided to ditch all her toiletries, lotions, etc., to do "the first scientific experiment of its kind, designed to find out how she will look and feel without the aid of the avalanche of expensive modern beauty products."

Sure, people can overdo the make-up and "beauty products," but whatever happened to Aristotelian moderation? Is it always all or nothing? Extremism in the defense of poor hygiene is a vice in my book.

And from the "Way Too Much Information" Department: "Before starting her experiment, Nicky called in scientists from the Skin Research Centre at the University of Leeds. They took swabs from her armpits, mouth and groin to test levels of bacteria and yeasts, the results of which would be compared with identical swabs taken at the end of the six weeks." (via HotAir)

2. Normally, given my compulsion to write about the death penalty, this would have received its own post: "Private eye gets five years for fake documents in death row cases." But I'm afraid I'll have to leave the analysis to you. It's pretty self-evident, anyway. Oh, by the way, the fake documents were in aid of the murderer, just in case that wasn't clear. I wonder how many "innocent death-row defendants" are not so innocent, after all.

Bonus: Ken Starr makes an appearance.

(via Patterico, and check out some of the comments there)

3. A few weeks ago, my wife and I, who rarely watch TV, decided to watch a couple of cooking shows, including one with the famous Emeril character. We missed this one, which was mentioned in the N.Y. Times:

Ingrid Hoffmann, the latest arrival on the Food Network — her show "Simply Delicioso" is shown on Saturday mornings — seems to be quickly staking her claim as the country's pre-eminent cleavage cook.

I'm struggling to avoid asking how you cook cleavage -- bake it, roast it, or simply warm it gently.

Anyway, I still haven't seen the show, but I did check the Food Network page about it. If you're really interested, go here and check out some of the short videos.

This is how I knew the Times article was written by a woman, without even checking the byline:

Ms. Hoffmann cooks with her whole body, as if every occasion to chop some cilantro were also an opportunity to show how well she might fare as a backup dancer for Rod Stewart. She appears less covered up to marinate a chicken than Ms. De Laurentiis does to go jet-skiing.

And if you think I'm being mean, consider this and tell me I couldn't tell:

It is a hallmark of the contemporary cooking show, of course, that no failures are acknowledged. "Wow, I must have overdone this pork loin because it tastes like an old Volkswagen": that is the sort of comment we never hear emanating from TV kitchens. But even in this context, Ms. Hoffmann's self-regard is annoyingly hardy. It isn't simply that she finds fault with nothing. She finds everything she makes uniquely amazing, "yummy" and "delicioso." And yet it appears to the viewer as mediocre takeout.

No man would ever write that about a woman. Am I right?

4. I thought this N.Y. Post headline about the Lisa Nowak case would be the best: "Space Gals in a Close Encouter," but Court TV's headline definitely had it beat: "Astronaut's lawyers want diapers, weapons in her car kept from jury."

Here's a description of the action in court. More: The detective who searched Nowak's car came under attack by her lawyer:

Detective Becton stood by his methods and said he had fully informed Captain Nowak of her rights. He called his hours with her the hardest interview of his career.

“I realized I was dealing with someone who was more intelligent than I was, and more educated,” he said, and added, “I felt like I was playing a game of chess” with an opponent who answered his questions with questions and tried just as hard to extract information from him.

Answering questions with questions, eh? Now I know why I've had visitors based on searches for "Lisa Nowak Jewish."

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Would you believe a sex-offender program?

A reader who works at the Justice Department (yeah, they're monitoring your blog, too) wrote to tell me about a sex-offender program DOJ runs called "SMART." You can see a description here.

He was amused to learn that the email address for the program is GetSMART -at- usdoj -dot- gov. When he asked, he was told by someone affiliated with the program that the email address was indeed an allusion to a certain TV show.

I don't remember a single episode of Get Smart having to do with sex offenders, but I can tell you this: If you've ever seen the Justice Department building, in the Federal Triangle area of D.C., you'll know how distinctive its entrances are, and I'm sure that one episode of Get Smart actually opens with Max walking into that building. Not the famous introduction with Max dropping down through the phone booth. I'm talking about the show itself.

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Pillage TV

If I ever start talking about doing TV, please say this to me: "It's been done."

Seriously. Pillage Idiot, the cartoon, described thus:

Animated cartoon about a dim-witted Viking and the various 'secret weapons' with which he plans to obliterate his British Adversaries. Unfortunately, these ingenious devices never quite work as intended.

Sure, I can do the Hun, but that's been done, too.

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