A Tale of Two Tails (2 Nov. 1968)

While working at the CONTROL spy school Max has two students trail 99 thinking that she is running errands. She is actually on assignment and she thinks that they are KAOS agents.

Director:

Jerry Hopper

Writers:

Allan Burns, Chris Hayward,

Stars:

Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, Edward Platt

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Don Adams	...	Maxwell Smart
Barbara Feldon	...	Agent 99
Edward Platt	...	Chief
Victor Sen Yung	...	Yamasaki
Clarice Gillis	...	Tina
Lavelle Roby	...	Beautician
Robert Karvelas	...	Larabee
Fred Willard	...	Lundy
Vic Greco	...	Caruso (as Vic Grecco)

Storyline

Max takes over as a substitute teacher at the CONTROL training school and is given the task of trying to help two failing recruits, Lundy and Caruso, graduate with their class. In last desperate attempt to help them graduate, he assigns them the task of tailing 99 who is on an assignment to gather various items containing an important formula while shopping for her and Max's wedding. However, 99 mistakes the two recruits for KAOS agents and now Max must tail his two students.

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Plot Keywords:

marriage ceremony

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Mystery

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Details

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 November 1968 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Talent Associates

Technical Specs

Runtime:

30 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The title comes from the Charles Dickens novel 'A Tale of Two Cities'.

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Goofs

When Max writes his name on the chalkboard with the invisible chalk, he inadvertently writes "Snart" instead of Smart. A cursive "m" has 3 humps not two.

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Quotes

Chief: Larabee, I need a couple of men for surveilance duty. Who's available? No, no wait a minute, on second thought, I'll look in the Control file of the graduating class.
Larabee: Why the, eh, Control graduating class, Chief?
Chief: Because KAOS knows what all our agents look like. Those Control bubblegum cards we came out with last year backfired.

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Connections

References A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

User Reviews

Life is a Kumquat

Very uneven episode looks like it was a possible pilot for the comedy team of Willard and Greco. The team broke up a year or so after this, with Fred Willard going on to Second City and the Ace Trucking Company and Vic Greco apparently leaving show business to work in education at Nazareth College.

Max and 99 are planning to go wedding shopping when the Chief assigns Max to be a substitute teacher at spy school, where his only two students are Lundy (Willard) and Caruso (Greco) (though Senor Sock would be remiss if he did not mention Russo's lovely girlfriend Tina, played by Clarice Gillis). They are failing in disarming and tailing, so Max gives them careful instruction. They have a funny pantomime bit about disarming and then Max assigns them to try and tail his fiancé, 99.

In the meantime, 99 has been assigned to collect all three parts of the top secret Gaul formula and to deliver it to Lum Fong, CONTROL's top cryptologist. When she makes Lundy and Caruso following her, she concludes they are KAOS agents.

I had no idea Fred Willard ever had a partner and its interesting to watch him as part of a team. Victor Sen Yung, who played Charlie Chan's number two son here plays the deadly master of disguise Yamasaki (he's Japanese but can fool everyone into thinking he's Chinese) and is good if you can overlook a bit of borderline racist dialog (the old "L"'s turn into "R's" trick). What's worse is that bit of dialog contains a "Lum and Abner" ("Rum and Abner") reference that was probably dated even then. The final fight with Yung dueling Adams with flat irons is easily the episode's highlight, although the Cone of Silence does make another appearance and we learn it was invented by Professor Cohn.