They don’t make movies like they used to

I think I’m becoming my father. He’s constantly saying they don’t make movies like they used to, then launching into a reverie about “Stagecoach,” the 1939 version; now that was a flick.

Well, the release of “Get Smart” in theaters has me thinking the same way.

“Get Smart” — now that was a TV show; and from an era full of them.

You had to love Smart’s Cone of Silence and his shoe phone — and that time the bad guy had him hostage, and told Smart he could choose the way he would die. So Smart suggested, “How about old age?”

I think every 11-year-old boy back then wanted to be a secret agent, and would have done it had Woodstock and the counterculture not taken away the CIA’s glamour.

For me, it was all about “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”

Napoleon Solo, played by Robert Vaughn, was my hero. He paired with Ilya Kuryakin, who of all things was a Russian agent, this at the height of the Cold War. But it was logical because the two were fighting something greater than any enemy nation: The evil international conspiracy called THRUSH. This was far worse than the SMERSH of James Bond fame. THRUSH was going to take over the world and only Vaughn and Kuryakin could stop them, chiefly by administering karate chops while wearing nicely tailored suits.

They were very resourceful, like the time they got locked in a bathroom that was filling with poison gas, but grabbed a shaving-cream can, wrapped it in a hand towel, set the package on fire and it blew off the door. I would get very defensive — still would today — if anyone called scenes like that unrealistic. Don’t you dare say that about Napoleon Solo.

I’ve clung fast to my worship of Vaughn, even as he’s become the spokesman for law firms wanting you to call them after a slip-and-fall. He can do no wrong. About 10 years ago, when I was hosting a Sunday-morning TV interview show, he was in town, and we landed him as a guest. The whole time, I kept thinking, “I am not worthy.” Afterward, the show’s producer, who knew the backstory, gave me a photo of the two of us live on camera. On it, he’d drawn a thought balloon over my head saying, “This is the high point of my life.” Over Vaughn’s head was a thought balloon saying, “This is the low point of my life.”

Spy or cowboy?

I had to wrestle with whether to be a spy or a cowboy, in part because of “Gunsmoke.” That was one of the last shows unashamed to showcase traditional gender roles. If anyone was the icon of the strong but decent male, it was Marshal Dillon, keeping the peace in Dodge City. And as another columnist once pointed out, the show’s tavern manager, Miss Kitty, knew how to take a compliment without filing charges of sexual harassment. Those were the days.

Of course, there was the mother of all scary shows, “The Twilight Zone.” Recent horror franchises like “Halloween” are thin gruel in comparison. Rod Serling, its creator and writer, knew you didn’t need a chain saw to frighten people. I still get the creeps when I think back to the episode about a little doll that began by saying cheerful things like “I’m Talky Tina, and I love you,” and moved on to, “I’m Talky Tina, and I’m going to kill you.” I just freaked myself out writing that last sentence.

And they don’t make ’em like “Bonanza” anymore, about white-maned Ben Cartwright running the Ponderosa with his three sons. Though I never really did get what happened to his wives. I remember him being widowed three times. If that show was made today, it would slowly come out that he’d poisoned them or something for their insurance. Or more likely, the plot would turn on predatory women with implants and belly-button rings trying to seduce the old coot for his cattle.

I totally related to Beaver Cleaver, since my own older brother had friends like Eddie Haskell. He was the guy who fawned over the household parents until they were out of earshot. Remember the old, “Hello, Mrs. Cleaver, you’re looking truly lovely today ... hey, Beav, you little jerk.”

I could also relate to the Smothers Brothers, a comedy duo who kept arguing which of the two their mother liked best. Even today, when I call my own parents, I announce it’s their favorite son, and then have to correct them when they say, “Nicky? Matthew?” No, it’s Mark.

The other profession besides spy and cowboy I considered was soldier, because of “Combat,” a series about an American infantry squad in World War II. It in part spurred me to spend endless hours behind my house using my baseball bat as a sub-machine gun to go after imaginary Nazis I was convinced were lurking in the backyard next door. Which has me wondering: How come you don’t see boys today hunting down al-Qaida with their lacrosse sticks?

X Patinkin writes for the Providence Journal. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.