Get Smart
Is This Trip Necessary?
TV Flash files “Is This Trip Necessary?” as hour 124 of 138 in the TV Flash guide — Get Smart (1965–1970) on NBC/CBS, season 5, episode 12, aired 1969-12-12, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E12: listed hour 124 of 138 in the Get Smart guide, hour 12 of 26 in season 5. It aired 1969-12-12 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Age Before Duty” (S05E11). Next is “Ice Station Siegfried” (S05E13).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Everyone important in Washington suffers bad dreams and the president orders CONTROL to discover why. At that moment, KAOS' Mad Pharmacist Jarvis Pim appears on TV to demand $50 million in ransom. If he doesn't get it, he'll use his new hallucinogenic drug on the entire population of the city. Max and 99 track Pim to the Dartfoot Spring Water Company, where Pim captures them using "the old mortar in the mortar trick."
Viewer FAQ
Where does Is This Trip Necessary? sit in the Get Smart guide?
S05E12 is listed hour 124 of 138 — hour 12 of 26 in season 5, season 5 episode 12.
When did Get Smart S05E12 air?
Is This Trip Necessary? aired 1969-12-12 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Do I need to watch Get Smart in order?
Mostly no. It is episodic spy farce. Recurring gadgets and the Smart/99 partnership reward a little sequence, but you can hop after the pilot grammar clicks.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch a spy satire that loves its gadgets enough to mock them. Adams' timing, Feldon's cool, and farce that still understands tension — proof a laugh can share a frame with a ticking briefcase without dropping either assignment.
The cone still matters more than the catchphrase. Get Smart, 1965, is a spy novel that keeps tripping on its own gadgets and somehow still completes the mission. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry built a CONTROL agent who is both the punchline and the plot: Don Adams's Maxwell Smart, Barbara Feldon's Agent 99, Edward Platt's Chief. Bond mania had already sold the tuxedo. This series sold the gag without throwing away the thriller's timing. That dual assignment is the craft. Plenty of satires love the joke and forget the…
Filed against
- Don Adams as Maxwell Smart
Don Adams played Maxwell Smart — Agent 86 — on Get Smart, spy satire so sharp the shoe phone still works. Nasal bravado and cone-of-silence timing made 1960s gadget mania hilarious. TV Flash salutes the original bumbling superspy who…
- Barbara Feldon as Agent 99
Barbara Feldon’s Agent 99 outclassed Maxwell Smart on Get Smart — spy satire so sharp the shoe phone still works, and she was usually the brains in the cone of silence. Cool competence made 1960s gadget comedy sing. TV Flash files her as…
- Edward Platt as The Chief
Edward Platt played The Chief on Get Smart — CONTROL's straight man in a gadget farce that loves its toys enough to mock them. Cone of silence, shoe phone, a briefing that has to survive Don Adams' miss. TV Flash files him as the…