Season 4, Episode 1: The Impossible Mission

Season Four starts off with an episode filled with a rich variety of locations and props. Lots of fun details hidden in this famous episode.

The episode starts off quickly with a shot of Max driving to a bus station. This is actually two different buildings. I don't know what it is but it doesn't look like a bus station. Some foreign flags in front, perhaps an embassy?

Here's the center of the building. 

The next shot is of an actual bus station, with a Greyhound sign.

The camera quickly pans down, briefly revealing a sign for Thrifty Rent-A-Car.

It wasn't that hard to identify this - it was the Los Angeles Greyhound & BTD Bus Terminal, on 6th Street and Los Angeles Street. 

The building still stands today, but it is now a mall.

We get some great Greyhound interior shots too, I am assuming from the same terminal.

A quick glimpse of the locker area and arcade.

The actual scene with Max and the lockers takes place in a studio. There are real travel posters on the wall for Rome, Japan, Chile and Tahiti.

I was able to find three of them online.

 

 

In the next scene we see Max going through some 8 X 10s. Here's Alfred P. Neuman.

David Brinkley.

Tiny Tim.

In the airplane sequence, we can clearly see the TWA logo when the plane takes off.

However, the shot when the plane is in flight not only cuts off the plane's tail, but there is a little white smudge inked onto the film, moving a bit from frame to frame, to cover the TWA logo.

The landing, takeoff, and gear-retraction shots give some interesting airfield shots. Nothing to indicate which airfield, however.

 

I could make out a Mamas and Papas poster behind Max in the record store scene.

The same poster is above Aunt Rose. Maybe someone who knows 1960s music better can ID the other posters and the records.

An SF&F thread poster has identified one of the records from this shot.

It's Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits.

The KAOS agent runs across the street to a TV studio.

I had a feeling it might be a real TV studio, and I believe I've found it. 4115 Radford Avenue, a side entrance to CBS Studio Center. Get Smart started filming here in Season 3, even though the show didn't move to CBS until Season 5. Some sources, including IMDB, state that the show wasn't filmed there until Season 5, but that is incorrect.

The Golden Rooster Summer Follies, the home to CONTROL's secret lab. This looks like a real sign, though I couldn't find anything else with this name.

Dr. Simon has an interesting periodic table poster in her lab.

This table groups the atoms according to the number of outer (valence) electrons. It is the 1956 edition published by W.M. Welch Manufacturing. Founded in Iowa in 1880, in 1968 the company merged with E.H. Sargent to become Sargent Welch. That company was acquired by Ward's Science, which is retiring the Sargent Welch name next month.

Finally, a fun Easter egg - check out the curtains! The CBS logo is another giveaway that this was a CBS Studios shot. I guess that means the Herb Talbot and the Tijuana Tin TV Special aired on CBS.