 Maxwell Smart's Shoe Phone - Spy phone
built into secret agent Maxwell Smart's left shoe on the espionage
comedy GET SMART/NBC/1965-70.When Max needed to use or answer his
shoe phone, he took off his shoe, removed the rubber sole to reveal
the rotary phone dialing device. His shoe phone number was 306. When
he dialed the number 117, his shoe would convert into a gun.
Max's shoes also contained deadly weaponry. Housed in a small compartment
of his left heel were two pellets-the small one explodes when thrown
or heated; the larger one was a suicide pill which killed painlessly
in twenty seconds when swallowed. Max's right heel concealed a
smoke-screen pellet which left a trail of heavy smoke when crushed.
Telephones were concealed in a number of other objects including a
hair comb, a boot, a shepherd's staff; clock, magazine, a garden
hose, cigarette lighter, and a sandwich. In the movie spin-off
The Nude Bomb, a.k.a. The Return of Maxwell Smart (1980), the
shoe phones were updated to include touch-tone dialing and an
answering machine.
TRIVIA NOTE: The origins of the shoe phone gimmick can be traced
back to comic writer Mel Brooks who one day answered his shoe when
all of the phones in the office began to ring at once. People still
remember the phone skit and when Adams is in restaurants, or driving
in his car...avid fans of the series still take off their shoe and
say "Here, it's for you."
On February 17th, 2002, the shoe phone used by agent Maxwell
Smart was included in a display entitled "Spies: Secrets from CIA,
KGB and Hollywood," a collection of real and fictional spy gear that
exhibited at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley,
California.
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