Some Don Adams Miscellany

It looks like I'll be post-poning my consideration of preferable pulp until Tuesday: tonight our family drives to Kitchener-Waterloo, where my older daughter will be playing in a ringette tournament. If you're concerned because you recall my feelings when I first encountered the sport, I assure you the weekend should be a lot of fun. We'll be connecting with family, including grandparents.

In the meantime, here are some miscellaneous Don Adams facts cluttering up my brain-pan, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Apparently Adams (then known as Donald James Yarmy) lied about his age and joined the Marines at 16, was wounded at Guadalcanal, contracted malaria and nearly died from it. He was the only member of his platoon to survive the war, and he later became a drill instructor. This guy definitely, as they say, had snakes in his basket.

While Get Smart was in its hay-day, Adams turned down a salary increase in favour of 33% of the show's profits -- an incredibly shrewd move for the time (consider the original cast of Star Trek, and how burned they felt when they saw their goofy show take off in syndication, years after they'd spent the money they'd made from the job).

Also: In October of 2006 comedian Bob Newhart (appearing on Larry King Live) credited Adams with his entry in stand-up comedy. At first, Newhart tried his hand as a comedy writer specifically developing a routine with Adams in mind. He then sought out Adams and ran the routine by him, only to be told the material wasn't worthy. A few days later when he saw Adams perform the exact same routine, verbatim, on "The Tonight Show" he decided he might as well try his hand as a performer with his own material.

Sounds like the war proved to be a good training ground for show-biz.