Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) teams up with Hawaiian detective Harry Hoo (Joey Forman) to track down his old enemy, The Claw (Leonard Strong) in The Amazing Harry Hoo.

Written by Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso, this episode was first broadcast on 12 March, 1966.

The episode is a little problematic in that you have a white men portraying an Asian men, which means makeup and prosthetics. But it’s also done as an homage and send up of the Charlie Chan serials. It’s a fine line to walk. One that didn’t need to be walked in the first place. I’m sure there were several Asian actors who could have played both roles – some of whom are in the episode.

Smart and 99 (Barbara Feldon) head out to San Francisco, where the find Hoo working with the SFPD. And sadly Hoo is a horror stereotype. He is smarter than Smart, but it’s still an incredibly racist turn. There’s some simply horrible dialogue, and it’s sad, because this could have been a real satire if done right.

It all leads to a laundry being used by Claw as a front, and our heroes wrap up everything together. The racism in this one is a little tough to get over.

On the up side, the episode was directed by Gary Nelson (he shot a number of episodes) who would later to go on to direct the 1979 cult classic, The Black Hole.

Hubert’s Unfinished Symphony was written by Stan Burns and Mike Marmer. It was first aired on 19 March, 1966.

Chief (Edward Platt) and Smart go undercover as music critics to uncover the truth behind the murder of CONTROL agent, Hubert (Andre Philippe). The pair have to figure things out, and it all ties into the musical notations Hubert left about a plot that includes an exploding piano!

It’s fun watching the Chief and Max work together. Unfortunately, Max is a stickler for details and insists on using the portable cone of silence. And that is going to cause some problems for the Chief.

Can Smart figure out who the Mr. Big is for this KAOS plan? Happily all the answers are in Hubert’s Unfinished Symphony, which will be debuted tomorrow night!!

99 shows up to help poses as a singer and a harpist.

This one is goofy fun. It doesn’t do anything new, it’s just a run-of-the-mill episode but it entertains as KAOS and CONTROL continue their long game.

And I love the helio-coat!

Ship of Spies: Part 1 is the series first two-parter. It debuted on on 2 April, 1966. It was written by Buck Henry and Leonard Stern.

Max goes undercover aboard a ship in order to track down plans to a super-weapon, a nuclear amphibian battleship.

This two-parter won the writers an Emmy for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Comedy.

There’s a lot of fun to be had in this episode, the physical gags are top-notch, and I also like the fact that the story takes its time. Spread over two episodes, this episode has as much of a spy story as it does the slapstick humor we’ve come to expect from the show, and it work like gangbusters.

It still works as a send up of the superspy genre, and Adams is perfect.

Things escalate with the arrival of 99. There’s murder, femme fatales, rain slickers, portholes and word play. This one is a lot of fun.

And it gives us a cliffhanger ending with Max ending up in a gun battle that sees him falling overboard during a gun battle and 99 stuck in her room.