1965’s “Get Smart” TV show had the right attitude toward high tech

Satirize it. Associated Press has a story on the how the TV show (1965-1970) and the upcoming movie version play with our obssession with gadgets. The original series, created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, starred the late Don Adams as secret agent Maxwell Smart, who somehow always managed to bungle his way to victory (Steve Carrell has the role in the movie) Probably the best-known gadget in the original was the shoephone — a lace-up leather shoe that could be converted into a wireless portable phone. Cool. There was only one ring tone: a blaringly loud one. Smart loved the gadgets and put his faith wholeheartedly in them. Only to be repeatedly let down, embarrassed, disappointed, even betrayed by them. Yet his faith endured. The movie, due out June 20, updates the gadgets. The shoephone apparently is being replaced with a toothphone [insert nerdy Bluetooth joke here]. According to AP, the director, Peter Segal, thought the devices were all made up. “I said, `That’s too silly. I don’t think people will buy it,'” he recalled telling the writers. “Then they Googled it and it came up as an actual thing.” The reminder that high tech gadgets are so often not just unworkable, but manifestly useless, and even more importantly, the cause of unintended (and negative) consequences is even more needed today. Technology as talisman. Because all the really important stuff, you never see.