Get Smart Episode: Tequila Mockingbird

This episode, first broadcast in January of 1969, has long been a favorite of mine, primarily because of two scenes, both of which brought me to hysterical laughter (I'll note them below). Back in the 1960s, while Oscar Beregi was not known to many people by name, his face WAS well known. Beregi was born in Hungary and almost always played "bad guy" roles, often Nazis, although in real life, Beregi was Jewish. Don Adams, whose real family name was "Yarmy," was also of Hungarian Jewish descent on his father's side, but he was raised Roman Catholic after his Irish and German mother's religion. I'm pretty certain I once read that his brother, Richard Yarmy, was raised Jewish, so the family was raised by tolerant parents who were willing to compromise. They also had a sister, Gloria (Yarmy) Burton. Richard appeared in two or three episodes of "Get Smart," and Gloria was one of the writers for two or three episode scripts for the series. Further, their father appeared briefly in an episode and Robert Karvelas, who played Larabee, was their cousin from their mother's side of the family.

This episode's title is a play on the book and movie, "To Kill A Mockingbird," both very popular during the 1960s, but it also uses the notion of "The Maltese Falcon," the famous Humphrey Bogart film. Last, but not least, it also has elements of a parody of the Clint Eastwood film, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly," which had been released less than a year before the filming of this episode. One other thing, Max and 99 had been married in an earlier episode, so they are husband and wife in this episode. I note this, because in those days, a couple of the scenes, including the ending, would likely have caused great hand wringing and promises of damnation and hell if the two characters hadn't been married. Even married couples were still shown on television as sleeping in separate beds. So at one point in this episode, it is made clear that Max and 99 are "Mr. & Mrs. Smart." Leaving the Middle Ages has been, and still is, difficult for some people... hell, leaving caves has been difficult for some.            

Cast:
Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 -----------Don Adams
Agent 99 -------------------------------Barbara Feldon
Edward Platt ---------------------------the Chief
Dietrick---------------------------------Oscar Beregi
Ignacio Valdez ------------------------Lewis Charles
Esperanza ------------------------------Poupee Bocar
Larabee ---------------------------------Robert Karvelas  

"Esperanza" is a CONTROL secret agent in Mexico. She gets hold of a valuable ceramic figure called "the Tequila Mockingbird." She works in a cantina (bar/saloon) as a dancer and castanet player. In one of the "special devices" used in this series, the castanets are used by the agent to send a message to CONTROL headquarters in Washington DC, where another set of castanets receives the message. As she performs her routine in the cantina, chief of police Ignacio Valdez and a KAOS agent named Dietrick discuss how to get the Tequila Mockingbird, but they are unaware of Esperanza's involvement with the Mockingbird at that moment. Dietrick has promised Valdez $500,000 for the valuable ceramic bird.* As the two men sit and listen to Esperanza, Valdez taps on the table to the castanets and Dietrick picks up that the sequence is a message. In a brief, but hilarious scene, Dietrick says to Valdez, "She's sending a message with those castanets, do you know who she works for?" Valdez asks, "Western Union?" (To this day when I hear this exchange, I can't help but chuckle and to think back all of those years ago and how that scene struck me so funny.)**  Of course Dietrick was looking for Valdez to answer, "CONTROL," and he orders Valdez to kill Esperanza.

Esperanza is killed before she can transmit where she hid the Tequila Mockingbird, so the Chief assigns Maxwell Smart and Agent 99 to go to Mexico and to find and bring back the Tequila Mockingbird. 99 uses the name Rosita Delgado, and she is hired at the cantina as the replacement for Esperanza. Max is sent as a down and out doctor, Earl Lybecker, and he arrives by burro rented from "Hernandez Rent-a-Buro." He quickly meets both Valdez and Dietrick, but then he gets into 99's room through the window. 99 is preparing for her opening performance, but the two find a clue that had been left behind by Esperanza when she had the room. The clue is a small ax with a red "w" on the handle. After Max leaves, 99 determines that the clue means the red candle (red 'w' + ax= red wax) on one of the barroom tables holds the secret to the Tequila Mockingbird's location.

99 goes out into the barroom to perform her songs. Max is seated at the table with the red candle, with Dietrick and Valdez standing nearby, and Dietrick has received a telegram telling him the real identity of Max and 99. In another hilarious scene, as 99 sings and dances, she tries to signal to Max to look at the candleholder, but he simply mimics the gestures she makes of pointing to the candle. Valdez too is caught up in 99's singing and dancing, and he doesn't get the signal she is giving to Max, but Dietrich sees what she is doing. 99 finally picks up the candle to light Max's cigarette, after which she turns the candleholder over to expose Esperanza's message that "the bird is in the fountain," located just outside the cantina. Max dashes outside as Dietrick gets the candleholder and sees the message too. Max gets the Tequila Mockingbird out of the fountain, but then Dietrick and Valdez approach. A "Mexican standoff" ensues, as the townspeople and 99 look on, and a man takes a siesta as the next move is awaited by the others. Dietrick wants the Tequila Mockingbird, and he no longer needs Valdez to help him get it, so he sees Valdez as expendable. Valdez now sees a chance to make a lot of money, and he can get it from any KAOS agent, not just Dietrick, so he doesn't need Dietrick either. Max wants to keep the ceramic bird for CONTROL. Finally Valdez starts to draw his gun, and Dietrick draws his gun and wounds Valdez, who fires and knocks Max's gun out of his hand. Then in a split second, the man who seemingly was asleep off to the side points and fires a pistol and wounds Dietrick. This man is the Chief, disguised as a Mexican citizen of the town. The Chief and Larabee take Dietrick and Valdez into custody and Max and 99 ride off on the "Hernandez Rent-a-Borro."

* $500,000 from those times is now equivalent to more than $3,500,000.

** For those too young to understand the connection between some clicking castanets and Western Union, it goes to Western Union being the main and best known telegraph company in the country and the world dating back to the about the mid 1800s. Telegraph used the dot and dash system of Morse Code, but in more modern times, as technology changed, telegraph usage went into decline, culminating in Western Union ceasing actual telegraph service in 2006, although the company is still in business with other services, including its long time business of money transfers.

 Picture is from the 2008 HBO Video release of "Get Smart: The Complete Series" (Season 4)

 

WORD HISTORY:

Castanet-This word, commonly used in the plural, "castanets," is related to "chestnut." Its ultimate origin is not known, but it goes back to transliterated Greek "kastáneia," meaning "chestnut." This was borrowed by Latin as "castanea," which passed to Latin-based Spanish as "castaña" (chestnut), and then produced Spanish "castañeta," meaning "castanet; a hollowed piece of wood or shell typically used in pairs fastened together at one end, then clicked together to provide a sound to keep time with music." English borrowed the word from Spanish in the mid 1600s.