I just found this out today, but Don Adams (Maxwell Smart for those who don’t recognize the actor’s name) died last weekend. Here’s the story.

I always found him hilarious as Smart, and think of him fondly, even though the rest of his career was less impressive. I’d certainly rank Get Smart as one of the funniest TV shows ever, though that owes as much to the writing (by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry) as to Adams. There’s a lot I didn’t know about him, and found out from the news reports, such as his service in WWII.

I originally found out about this from the message boards at the comics site Sequential Tart. As one of the posters there suggested, let’s observe a moment in the Cone of Silence.