50 free Get Smart trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Get Smart trivia quiz covers the Mel Brooks and Buck Henry spy spoof from its NBC premiere in 1965 to its final CBS season in 1970, plus the follow-ups: The Nude Bomb, Get Smart, Again!, the 1995 Fox revival and the 2008 Steve Carell film. Expect questions on Don Adams's Maxwell Smart and Barbara Feldon's Agent 99, Edward Platt's Chief, Siegfried and Starker, Hymie the Robot and Agent 13, the shoe phone and the Cone of Silence, the Sunbeam Tiger, the catchphrases ('Missed it by that much!'), the Emmys and the network that called the show 'un-American'. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has watched the reruns, a third are medium, and the rest are for fans who know why Max is Agent 86 and what the Chief's first name is. Would you believe... 50 questions? Every one has been checked against an encyclopaedic source and links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which two comedy writers created Get Smart?
Mel Brooks and Buck Henry
Brooks called it 'an insane combination of James Bond and Mel Brooks comedy' and largely left after the first season.
Q 02Who played Maxwell Smart?
Don Adams
He also directed 13 episodes and later voiced Inspector Gadget in much the same voice.
Q 03What is Maxwell Smart's code number?
86
Brooks chose it after the bar slang for throwing someone out.
Q 04Who played Agent 99?
Barbara Feldon
She had won the grand prize on The $64,000 Question in 1957 answering questions on Shakespeare.
Q 05What is the name of the secret US agency Smart and 99 work for?
CONTROL
It's based in Washington, D.C., and fights KAOS, 'the international organization of evil'.
Q 06What is the name of the enemy organisation?
KAOS
Its vice president in charge of public relations and terror is the recurring villain Siegfried.
Q 07Which of these is NOT one of the show's famous catchphrases?
Book 'em, Danno
'Book 'em, Danno' belongs to Hawaii Five-O; the 'Would you believe' routine came from Adams's earlier hotel-detective role on The Bill Dana Show.
Q 08On which network did Get Smart premiere in September 1965?
NBC
It moved to CBS for its fifth and final season in 1969.
Q 09Which network first turned the show down as 'un-American', demanding a lovable dog and Max's mother?
ABC
Brooks fumed that 'Max has no mother. He never had one.' The dog, Fang, made it in anyway.
Q 10How many episodes of Get Smart were made over its five seasons?
138
It ended on May 15, 1970, having cracked the Nielsen top 30 in its first two seasons only.
Q 11Who played the Chief?
Edward Platt
His first name was revealed to be Thaddeus, and his field code name had been 'Q'.
Q 12What is the Chief's first name?
Thaddeus
He sometimes uses the cover name 'Harold Clark' with outsiders, which the agents know isn't real.
Q 13Where does Max keep his most famous concealed telephone?
In his shoe
He has to take it off to answer it; the heel also housed smoke bombs, explosive pellets and a suicide pill Max thinks is for the enemy.
Q 14Where does Agent 99 hide one of her concealed phones?
Q 21Which of Max's colleagues is always stationed inside absurdly small hiding places like cigarette machines?
Agent 13
David Ketchum played him; Agent 44 did the same job in season one and returned in season five.
Q 22Larabee, the Chief's dim assistant, was played by Robert Karvelas, who was Don Adams's what?
Cousin
Adams's real brother Dick Yarmy, father and daughter all appeared on the show too.
Q 23Agent 99's real name is never revealed. What happens when the minister says it at her wedding to Max?
An admiral snores over it
Earlier she'd used 'Susan Hilton' and denied being 'Ernestine', but neither was real.
In her fingernail
She pretends to bite her nails nervously while actually talking; her makeup compact hides another one.
Q 15What is the joke behind the Cone of Silence?
Those inside can't hear, everyone outside can
The scene was shot before the rest of the pilot and used to sell the show to NBC.
Q 16Which car does Max drive most often in the series?
A red Sunbeam Tiger
Adams kept the car for ten years after the show; in the pilot he'd driven a Ferrari 250 GT.
Q 17Why does Max drive a VW Karmann Ghia in the opening credits of seasons three and four?
The carmaker became a sponsor
It never appeared in the body of the show; when Buick sponsored season five, the car became a gold Opel GT.
Q 18Who played the recurring KAOS villain Siegfried?
Bernie Kopell
He'd later be Doc on The Love Boat, and he cameos in the 2008 film driving the old Opel GT.
Q 19What is the name of Siegfried's henchman, whose name he pronounces 'Shtarker'?
Starker
The name is German and Yiddish for a strong man, with a hint of dim-wittedness in the Yiddish.
Q 20Hymie the Robot was originally built by whom?
KAOS
Max turned him on his first mission; Hymie's flaw is taking instructions far too literally.
Q 24How many consecutive Emmys did Don Adams win for playing Maxwell Smart?
Three
The series itself won seven Emmys in all and was nominated for 14 more.
Q 25Don Adams's real surname was what?
Yarmy
He was born Donald James Yarmy in Manhattan in 1923 and served in the Marines in the war.
Q 26Adams borrowed Max's voice and "Would you believe...?" routine from which earlier role as an inept hotel detective?
Byron Glick on The Bill Dana Show
He'd later recycle the same voice for the animated Inspector Gadget.
Q 27Which animated bungling cyborg detective did Don Adams later voice in a near-identical voice?
Inspector Gadget
He got a cameo in the 1999 live-action Gadget film starring Matthew Broderick.
Q 28The actress who played 99 nearly lost the role because of what?
She'd done a deodorant commercial for a rival brand
The show's sponsor was a deodorant soap; her big break had been a much-parodied Revlon 'Top Brass' hair-pomade advert.
Q 29Which talk-show host appeared as a 'special guest conductor' in the episode 'Aboard the Orient Express'?
Johnny Carson
He came back uncredited as a royal footman in 'The King Lives?'; Bob Hope, Milton Berle and Phyllis Diller also did cameos.
Q 30Where did Max supposedly disappear to during 'Ice Station Siegfried'?
Adams was in Vegas paying gambling debts
It's the only episode where the character is close to absent.