We added some terrific characters and actors later. Hymie the Robot was played by Dick Gautier. I had first seen Dick in Bye Bye Birdie. His timing was impeccable. I loved him so much that when I did When Things Were Rotten, the television show based on the legend of Robin Hood, I immediately thought of Dick to play Robin Hood. Bernie Kopell was cast as KAOS agent Baron Von Siegfried, who was Max and 99’s frequent nemesis and a brilliant addition to the show.
After the first season NBC sadly informed us that the ratings didn’t warrant its being picked up for another season. They had made several new pilots and tried them out that summer, thinking that one of them would be a good replacement for Get Smart. Once again luck was with us; the new pilots didn’t test well. “The powers that were” at NBC decided to give Get Smart a shot at another season.
From there on, it took off. Sometimes, getting the audience into the habit of watching a new show is just as important as its quality.
As I look back at Get Smart, if I had to do it again now, I would have maybe trimmed a few jokes, but would have basically kept it the same. It holds up because we were having fun with inept idiots. Inept idiots will always be fun. I’m very proud of the bold wit we laced through the pilot script and the other scripts I wrote. We never condescended to the lowest common denominator with the goal of getting the best ratings—the standard network concept of the lower the brain level of the script, the more people were going to watch it. We never gave in to that. Buck and I decided that it was only what made us laugh, and that would also make the world laugh.
In the end, I think we were right.
* * *
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What Get Smart’s success meant for me personally was that at last I was getting a steady paycheck. So on August 5, 1964, I was able to marry Anne and pay the bills. I was not only able to take her out to dinner, but now she didn’t have to slip me money under the table anymore to pay the check—I could actually pay for it.
We went down to city hall in lower Manhattan to get married by a justice of the peace. We were in such a hurry that I forgot two things: one, a ring and two, a witness! We were lucky on the ring, Anne happened to be wearing hoop earrings and she took them off and we used one of them for the ring. But a witness, where would I get a witness? There was a couple at city hall that had just been married, so we asked to borrow their witness. They called over this kid named Samuel Boone.
Here we are, newly married and standing in front of our first home together in Greenwich Village.
And I walked up to him and said, “Sam, we don’t have a best man or anything. Could you stand up for us?”
He said, “Yeah. Sure.” And then he said, “But I want to warn you. Let me tell you about the clerk who is gonna marry you. He just married my friends, and he has a really crazy voice. We had a tough time not breaking up when we heard that loopy voice.”
I said, “Well, we’re in show business. We can deal with that, whatever it is.”
So we get in front of this clerk and the kid was right. The clerk had the wackiest voice I had ever heard. He started with, “Dooo youuuu Anna Marie Louise Italianoooo…”
And already we were in big trouble. For the rest of the ceremony Anne and I never looked at each other, because if we did, we knew we’d crash to the floor laughing. Somehow, we got through the ceremony. All’s well that ends well.
We took a cab back home to the village kissing each other and both kissing the earring that had become our wedding ring.
Chapter 10
The Producers
Once Get Smart sold to NBC, I didn’t have to worry as much about making a living and instead, I could think about what I really wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to write a play on Broadway, all about a play on Broadway.
Like I said earlier, the main character in The Producers, Max Bialystock, had been forming in my subconscious ever since I worked for that larger-than-life Broadway producer Benjamin Kutcher, when I got back from the war in the late forties. The thrust of the plot was bold and simple: You could make more money with a flop than you could with a hit.
I wrote a brief synopsis of a three-act play called Springtime for Hitler. Why Springtime for Hitler? Well, I knew I needed a terrible play for the producers to achieve their goal of a play that would close on opening night. Remember—you could make more money with a flop than you could with a hit.
So I was blessed with an inspiration: How about a musical called Springtime for Hitler—A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden? That would surely send the opening-night audience fleeing the theater before the first act was over, and certainly garner the worst notices the critics had ever bestowed on a Broadway play.