STUDIO: HBO Home Video
RELEASE DATE: August 5, 2008
STARRING: Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, and Edward Platt
CREATED BY: Mel Brooks & Buck Henry
FEATURES: None

Audiences may have fallen for Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway in the mediocre big-screen remake of Get Smart, but the film doesn't even shine the shoe-phones of the original, one of my favorite shows in the history of the medium. Even the people who made the new Get Smart would bow at the altar of one of the funniest and most clever comedies that television audiences have ever seen. Get Smart is a classic, but with its forty year-plus age, young people probably aren't willing to give it a chance. Heck, there are probably twenty and thirtysomethings who still consider Get Smart a relic of their parent's generation and something that wouldn't appeal to them. Teenagers probably consider it a relic of their grandparents' era. With the new one making nearly $200 million worldwide, there must be thousands of fans of the new flick who haven't seen the source material. Scratch that - there are probably thousands who don't even know there IS source material. Do your part for pop culture karma. Find one of those people and introduce them to the first season of Get Smart, newly available from HBO Home Video in a four-disc set. The comedy Gods will thank you.

Last year, Time Life Home Video released the entire series collection of Get Smart and the release went on to win universal acclaim, including TV Guide's Top Ten for that year and the DVD Critics Award for Best TV Series. It was a beauty of a release with 9 hours of bonus material including never-before-seen bloopers, interviews, and commentaries. And it was sold in a special phone booth collector's box. But fans could only get the 25-disc set online or over the phone (night owls are surely familiar with the Time Life game plan) and for a whopping $199.95. The news that HBO would be breaking apart that release into individual season sets that could be picked up at your local store was a good one, assuming that people would get the same bonus material and technical quality. The latter is surely true - the episodes look great - but the former is one of the great unexplained tragedies of TV on DVD.

If you're a real math whiz with a knowledge of Get Smart, you'll notice that the five seasons of the show in a 25-disc set should have made for a five-disc release for season one of the show, but HBO is only giving us four, completely eliminating the disc of bonus material in the Time Life release. So, all that remains are two commentaries - one by Brooks & Henry on the premiere and one by Feldon on "Kisses for KAOS". The fifth disc is a tragic loss and probably due to legal reasons and not a willing decision - Time Life probably had the rights to the bonus material - but hardcore fans will want to order the complete set and pass this one by. This release is primarily for fans of the movie looking to sample the show, not collectors, or, I suppose, for those odd collectors who are looking for LESS special features.

What those samplers will find is comedy genius that is still fresh forty-three years since its debut. All 30 episodes from the first season have been digitally restored and remastered in beautiful full frame presentations. Don Adams and Barbara Feldon star in Get Smart, a show created by two of the funniest writers in the history of the word, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and one that would prove to be massively influential on the next forty years of TV. If you're wondering why the movie took so long to get in production, just watch the pilot, "Mr. Big". People were scared. How do you top this? You don't and the first season release of Get Smart is just further proof that great TV comedy doesn't age, it just becomes a classic.