Grant Tinker (1926-2016)
The blog spent some time viewing a 1998 Archive of American Television interview with Grant Tinker, who spent part of his career as an NBC executive as well as being co-founder (with his then-wife, Mary Tyler Moore) of MTM Productions.
In particular, the blog viewed portions of the interview dealing with Tinker’s role as a West Coast-based NBC executive in the 1960s. In that capacity, he dealt with producers such as Norman Felton (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.), Sheldon Leonard (I Spy) and Leonard Stern (Get Smart).
Tinker didn’t spent much time talking about Norman Felton (he referenced other shows Felton made). But he discussed I Spy and Get Smart in some detail.
I Spy: “I remember the very day” that Sheldon Leonard “walked into my office and said, he wanted to travel a show. He hadn’t done a dramatic show that I could remember. He wanted to cast (Robert) Culp and (Bill) Cosby.”
The interviewer asks if Tinker had pause about casting an African American actor in such a key role. “It didn’t give me pause….Bill was an established comedian.” Tinker said he was more skeptical about containing costs for a series that would have actual location filming in Europe and Asia.
As it turned out, Leonard had $400,000 in cost overruns for the first season (which involved location shooting in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Mexico). Today, that’s quaint. Regardless, Leonard “was such an honorable guy. He was wondering if we could help with that. Of course, we did. We picked it all up.”
Get Smart: An agent brought Tinker a script after the network had spent all of its development money for the upcoming television season. The script had been turned down by ABC.
“It turned out ABC had paid $7,500 for Buck Henry and Mel Brooks to write it. It was Get Smart. I read it that night.”
Tinker called his superiors, telling them they had to secure the property. “We have to find the money to do one more pilot.”
NBC had Don Adams under contract and he became the star. “We didn’t know what else to do with him, so we put him in Get Smart,” Tinker said. “It was just so funny.”
To watch the part of the interview dealing with I Spy, go here starting around the 24:26 mark.
To watch the part of the interview about Get Smart, go here starting around the 3:38 mark.
Filed under: The Other Spies | Tagged: Buck Henry, Get Smart, Grant Tinker, I Spy, Mel Brooks, NBC, Sheldon Leonard |
The Spy Command 
Because Tom Poston was under contract to ABC, he was supposed to star in “Get Smart” originally, if it got picked up there. By ABC turning it down, and NBC picking it up, the result was that Don Adams became a huge star.
Right. And NBC had Don Adams under contract. The Brooks-Henry script got tweaked to include some Adams bits such as “would you believe?”.