Modern Time Machines, a Los Angeles-based alternative rock band, recreated a sequence from Get Smart's "The Groovy Guru", along with a hand-drawn cel animated version of the Get Smart opening theme, in the band's music video for their song "Freefall" in 2018.
All the shop windows on the street set used when Max and 99 are waiting for a cab have French names and occupations (avocat, fournisseur).
Masterminded by the evil intelligence agency KAOS, the "Groovy Guru" is a front for a mind-control operation that uses psychedelic music and motifs to turn teenagers into mindless, dancing zombies. And while it makes for an amusing fictional story line, it has its basis in fact.
In the early 1950s, the American Central Intelligence Agency launched a sweeping operation, code-named MK-ULTRA, that explored various aspects of mind control and manipulation as part of the Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union. Among other goals, MK-ULTRA tested various psychoactive substances such as LSD in search of a "truth serum" for interrogations.
The program also solicited volunteers from the general public who were unaware of the CIA's connection. Among them were poet Allen Ginsburg and novelist Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"). Kesey was inspired to launch his own LSD "acid tests" in the early 1960s. A band called the Warlocks played at and participated in Kesey's acid tests; they later became the Grateful Dead. Many of the drugs the CIA tested in the 1950s became staples of the psychedelic revolution in the 1960s, in turn inspiring plot lines for TV shows like Get Smart (1965).
In the early 1950s, the American Central Intelligence Agency launched a sweeping operation, code-named MK-ULTRA, that explored various aspects of mind control and manipulation as part of the Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union. Among other goals, MK-ULTRA tested various psychoactive substances such as LSD in search of a "truth serum" for interrogations.
The program also solicited volunteers from the general public who were unaware of the CIA's connection. Among them were poet Allen Ginsburg and novelist Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"). Kesey was inspired to launch his own LSD "acid tests" in the early 1960s. A band called the Warlocks played at and participated in Kesey's acid tests; they later became the Grateful Dead. Many of the drugs the CIA tested in the 1950s became staples of the psychedelic revolution in the 1960s, in turn inspiring plot lines for TV shows like Get Smart (1965).
Barry Newman plays unnamed assistant to the Guru, would soon star in cult classic movie 'Vanishing Point' as a drug runner and then get TV series 'Petrocelli'.