Decades, 12:00 p.m. ET
From noon ET today for the rest of the weekend, DECADES is filling the weekend with episodes of the brilliant TV comedy spoof Get Smart, which eviscerated the secret agent spy craze that had launched just a few years earlier with Sean Connery as James Bond 007. This 1965-70 series stars Don Adams as Maxwell Smart and Barbara Feldon as his ultra-patient, ever-adoring Agent 99, with Edward Platt as Max’s increasingly frustrated Chief (think Herbert Lom, driven to tics and tears by Peter Sellers as Inspector. Clouseau). The three make for a perfect ensemble, aided by Bernie Kopell’s Siegfried, Dick Gautier’s Hymie the Robot, and others. Get Smart was co-created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, at a time when both those very funny men were enjoying rarefied creative comedy peaks. Midway through the five-year run of Get Smart, in 1967, Henry wrote and appeared in The Graduate – while Brooks wrote and directed his first film version of The Producers. But before both those film classics, these two were playing together on television, working behind the scenes to concoct such unforgettable inventions as the Cone of Silence (watch for it) and Max’sn ever-present Shoe Phone, which predated individualized remote telephone communication by at least a generation.
Freeform, 9:25 p.m. ET
This 2016 animated musical Disney film is delightful, and proudly presents its own modern Polynesian fable, in which an island chieftain’s only daughter takes it upon herself to remove a curse that has descended upon their land. She finds the demigod responsible, then embarks with him on a journey to restore his heart – by restoring someone else’s. Auli’i Cravalho is a determined and indefatigable heroine as Moana (Disney released this movie three years after Frozen, and clearly had learned all it needed to know from that experience) – and the surprise scene-stealer is Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. The Rock, who’s a total riot as Maui the demigod, and has a fabulous song solo, too. Among the others giving voice to the characters are two actors and singers with very diverse backgrounds. The voice of Sina is provided by Nicole Scherzinger of The Pussycat Dolls, and the voice of Tamatoa is provided by Jemaine Clement, one-half of the comedy folk-rock duo Flight of the Conchords.
