The pilot for the TV series Get Smart was directed by my old friend, the late Howard Morris. Howie was best known as an on-camera actor — for his work with Sid Caesar and for playing Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show, among other roles — and he also did lots and lots of cartoon voices. But he also directed TV shows, movies and tons of commercials, and he helmed the Get Smart pilot.
One of his many contributions was to suggest Ed Platt for the role of The Chief. Not long before, Howie had directed an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Actually, he directed several (and appeared in one) but the one we need to mention here is the one where Rob accidentally used a deck of marked cards in a friendly game of poker. Mr. Platt was in that episode and when the time came to cast The Chief, Howie remembered how good the actor had been in it.
A week or two before the Get Smart pilot was to be filmed, the producers decided to shoot one scene. Once in a while, the programming needs of a network time out such that they really don't want to wait for an entire pilot to be filmed and edited before they commit to a new series…so they buy from a "demo" of one or two scenes. The agents handling Get Smart thought there was a chance NBC would do that this time so a scene was hurriedly filmed, edited and shipped off to New York. It was so well received that the network tenatively bought the project based on this. The rest of the pilot was filmed a few weeks later.
Here's some (not all) of the scene in question. The voice you'll hear on the intercom is that of Mr. Howard Morris. Gee, I miss that little guy.