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Get Smart (1965)

Sheer comedy brilliance

Get Smart stands as the single most brilliant television comedy EVER. Before Hot Shots!, before Frank Drebin, before Airplane!, before Kentucky Fried Movie, before Young Frankenstein, and before Blazing Saddles, there was Get Smart, the creation of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. This show, which would go on to inspire Police Squad!, arguably the second most brilliant television comedy ever, presented in Maxwell Smart the most completely asanine leading man thus far in television history, and as a result provided for more stupid jokes than ever before. Perhaps the first moment in television where comedy did not require a laugh track (though it did USE one, it would have flown fine without one), this show would inspire nearly every film by Mel Brooks and Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker. Can we really imagine Hedley Lamaar from Blazing Saddles without Maxwell Smart having preceded him? Can we really imagine Frank Drebin without Maxwell Smart having preceded him? The answer to these questions MUST be "no." Get Smart was a rare moment in television comedy history, and it has given us a truly rich comedic tradition ever since. Thank you, Buck, Don, and Barbara!