TV Series
Fridge Brilliance- Max makes a one-off comment at one point that people keep asking to use his Shoe Phone for personal calls. This was back in the 60s, when mobile phones weren't a thing; if people got past the weirdness of someone having a phone inside a shoe, it would seem like something very convenient as an alternative to a pay phone. Assuming Max frequents the same few establishments, word might get around, and he'd become "that guy with a convenient cordless phone in his shoe".
- Related to the above, no civilians ever question Max speaking into his shoe, or any other sort of odd secret agent stuff he does (until guns start getting fired). If you're walking down the street and you see someone talking into his shoe, what do you do? You keep walking, possibly wondering if that guy's mentally unwell. (Well, unless you're familiar with the Shoe Phone trope and slightly paranoid.)
- When you think about it, Max is an amazing agent despite being generally incompetent, at least in terms of taking on KAOS. Proof: in Siegfried's debut episode, it is all but stated that Max was able to capture every single KAOS agent by himself - starting with their number-one man, who had backup! No wonder KAOS hates him so much.
- One time, Max accidentally takes a truth pill and is rude to the Chief. At first, this makes it seem like the jovial relationship he has with the chief is all a lie... until you realize that truth serums in fiction don't necessarily make you tell the actual truth so much as they make you not mince words and at that moment, Max was angry with the Chief for the truth pill apparently not working.
- Plus, it's not hard to imagine Max is secretly annoyed that people make fun of his quirks despite him always saving the day, and often the country or world, in the end.
Fridge Horror
- In the 1989 Made-for-TV Movie, Max says that the twins are both in college. In the 1995 Sequel Series, their daughter is nowhere to be found. Which is worse — that she's dead, or that they had some horrible falling out and are now estranged?
- Or the twins are the older siblings to a second set of twins — Andy Dick and the twin sister he mentions to Siegfried's daughter.
- Apparently, had the show gone on longer, it would have been revealed that their daughter was now working for KAOS.
2008 Film
Fridge Brilliance- I winced all the way through the the scene in the Get Smart movie where Max is in the airplane bathroom, trying to undo his twist-tie handcuffs with the weird little ballista tool in his Swiss Army knife. It seemed so stupid, so weird and gratuitous and painful-looking and I just couldn't figure out why it was in the movie at all, other than for shock value. Then three hours later at dinner I realized that the joke was that it was a Swiss Army knife, and he could have cut the handcuffs off at any time with its perfectly normal function. DUH. Suddenly a nauseatingly painful and unfunny scene became hilarious. — kenaz
- Note the scene of someone watching Batman Begins. A show with a cheesy TV series in the '60s and a more realistically grounded depiction in a recent movie. Sound familiar yet?
- The movie has a huge amount of Adaptation Personality Change, especially regarding Max. In the series, Max is a bumbling goofball, while in the movie, he's smart but inexperienced - but the biggest change is in his dialogue: his Cloud Cuckoo Lander tendencies are heavily toned down in favor of a dry wit and Deadpan Snarker attitude, to the point where even the way he uses his catchphrases (such as "Would you believe..." or "Missed me by that much") comes off as far less goofy and more deliberate. Doesn't seem like as big a change when you realize that by today's standards, a lot of Max's Comically Missing the Point and otherwise idiotic sayings (and, yes, his catchphrases) from the series can be construed as him being deliberately snarky and witty, even in inappropriate situations, as this line from the series shows:99: Max, this is bad!Max: Yeah, it is. (gestures to water pistol he used as a bluff) I'm out of water.
Fridge Logic
- While attempting to cover up KAOS' nuclear lab, 23 states that there is no evidence of a weapons lab and that it was just a bakery. A bakery defended by machine gun-wielding security guards who shoot on sight. No one addresses this.
- Could have been a gang safe house that was used to make it look like a legitimate weapons lab. Somehow I think the Russian mafia would have a similar shoot-on-sight policy to KAOS.
- Actually justified due to 23 being The Mole, as he likely warned the lab techs before arriving, and lead the search to deliberately avoid any evidence.
- That doesn't justify why 99 never says anything, though. She was getting shot at, after all.
- After Max escapes custody in the lab, he tells 99 they've been compromised. Did she not clue in when he was shown surveillance footage of her and said she must be lost, or when he tried to bluff about their having backup?
- I figured that was just Max being Captain Obvious
- She did seem to be shocked. I figured the radio really only worked when Max spoke feedback-inducingly loud.
- The radio only hears what's inside Max's mouth. Max only ASSUMED he had to be really loud.
- It's possible she might have assumed, or at least hoped, that Max would take down the people who had figured him out, which would buy them more time at least. His confirmation meant someone got away.
