Get Smart/Awesome

TV series

• Once in a blue moon, Max would actually do something intelligent. This was so rare, they all become Crowning Moments of Awesome by default.
  • A subtle but effective one that sneaks up on you -- one time KAOS tries to discredit Max as a court witness by making him appear legally insane, even getting him to show up at a formal affair in a chicken suit... but Max manages to uncover the plot anyway.

(Max puts on the head of the chicken suit in court) "Can you see my face in this?"
"This is ridiculous! I will not..."
"Answer the question! Can you see my face?"
"Of course not!"
"Precisely! Why would you say 'I know who that is!' BEFORE removing my mask?"

• • In one episode, a mole steals a gas that causes adults to mentally revert to their childhoods then pretends someone else took it and used it on her. She does this by skipping rope and babbling about how much she loves watching Captain Kangaroo. Max figures out she's faking it because Captain Kangaroo wasn't on when she was a child.
  • One time KAOS frames Max for armed robbery and murder by having one of their agents wear a lifelike Max mask for the robbery. Max is tried and convicted but manages to escape. He tracks the imposter to a cheap motel, narrowly avoiding the police, who then surround the motel. Max tells the imposter the motel is surrounded by CONTROL agents, tricking the imposter into putting on the Max mask. The imposter rushes out, is killed by the police... and the real Max steps forward and removes the mask, proving his innocence.
  • There was an episode in which the Chief started to explain how CONTROL would enable infiltration of a certain area: "We've arranged for a storm." Max stared at him and said, "You've arranged for a storm?!" and 99 began to cheerfully "explain to him" what a storm was, before she trailed off, realizing his reaction had been the more reasonable response to that statement.

2008 film

Agent 86: Would you believe, in the piano?

• Also at the end, where Dhalip, having since befriended Max and taken too much of Siegfried's shit, punches him out the car and into the river, with The Dragon remarking upon his hangtime.
• Max has two other big moments this editor can think of:
  • One, at a point of the film where we know Max is a great analyst but are still unsure whether he's a competent agent or just a bumbler, he and 99 are cornered by an armed henchman, when 99 kicks a machine gun lying at her feet towards Max, and in one smooth motion he catches it and gives the henchman a single bullet through the heart. And he does it as though it were nothing.
  • Two, and more impressively, there's his escape from a CONTROL holding cell. Not only is his plan clever and pulled off skillfully, it involves getting beaten by a pair of guards. Yes, it is part of the plan that he gets a beating. Then once he's escaped he has the sheer guts to go and deliver his crucial information directly to the chief of CONTROL -- that is, the man from whose cell he just escaped.
• The moment where Max convinces Dalip not to kill him and 99. By giving him relationship advice.
• The moment where The Chief finally gives the Vice President the beating he's "been waiting since Nixon!" to give.
  • And then when the Chief slugs a Secret Service agent who makes the mistake of being a bit snotty towards him: "Speak up, son. I'm an old man, you know."
• Max gets one earlier, when he fends off what he thinks is an invasion of the base with little but a fire hose and a fire extinguisher. Sure, it was just his fellow agents, but that doesn't make it any less awesome of a plan.
• Agent 99 is being held captive by The Mole, and making things difficult for him:

Agent 23: See, this is your problem. Some men like women who are feminine!
Agent 99: [Disbelieving outrage] I'm not feminine?!
Agent 23: Nooo.
Agent 99: I'm not feminine?!?!

[Kicks him in the face -- from the back seat of the car]

• For this longtime fan of the original series, there were two in rapid succession: Max finally getting in the classic car (even if that plan backfires), followed immediately by Bernie Kopell's cameo.
  • The vast majority of the film had me doubled-over in nerd rage, but even I couldn't help but cheer at Carrell's Max driving the iconic Sunbeam Tiger heroically out of a freaking building, theme music blaring behind him. (And incidentally, Kopell is driving an Opel GT, Max's season 5 car, as a VW Karmann Ghia (Max's car in all but the opening in seasons 3-4) passes behind them. Continuity Porn FTW.