The 10 Funniest Spy Gadgets in Movies ... Ever

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One of Hollywood’s most classic geeks—a man as gadget hungry as he is clumsy, as surprisingly suave as he is accident-prone—crashes back into theaters today with Get Smart, an adaptation that does the 1960s cult TV hit justice in both the knee-slapping and shoe-talking departments. Maxwell Smart has always been something of an anti-Bond: For every Sean Connery mission gone right, there was a Don Adams mishap-and-a-half. From Bunsen-burner phones and steering-wheel phones to watch cameras (thank you, Dick Tracy) and briefcase guns (you’re welcome, Desperado), the original program parodied the tedious impracticality of spy gizmos better than anything on TV before or since. But Daniel Craig is no longer the silver screen’s only secret agent with supped-up technology—Steve Carell’s got exploding dental floss, for crying out loud!

Perhaps in spite of Bond’s near perfection, or because Peter Sellers took satirical ops to such new heights, or just as the world gets increasingly obsessed with shiny new toys, Hollywood’s spy genre has developed more laughs in conjunction with more high-tech gear. And the new Get Smart, with the return of the classic shoe phone, plus the addition of a tooth radio and what might be the world’s most insane multipurpose tool since the one that graced the cover of Popular Mechanics last year, represents that evolving combination of contraptions both ludicrous and hilarious. Here, then, is my entirely subject list of laugh-out-loud gadget lust in 007-esque movies—mostly from spoofs, but plenty from more “serious” flicks that simply missed the mark ... or that break down in the wonder of hindsight. Scroll down to see if Get Smart made the cut, then leave your faves in the comments section below.

10. Contact Lens Videocamera /// I Spy (2002)

Like Get Smart, this Eddie Murphy-Owen Wilson comedy was based on a show from the 1960s, originally starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp as a secret agent and a tennis star teamed together to, well, save the world. Unlike Get Smart, however, the silver-screen version of I Spy was, um, not so much. But it did feature a few memorable scenes involving super-spy and his gear. In an assignment briefing, Wilson doesn’t get his hands on any of the gee-whiz stuff, like an exploding pager and “monofilament phone descender.” Instead, he receives equipment that looks like it was last used in the early 1950s. In the flick’s funniest bit, Murphy offers Wilson lessons in seduction via a contact lens rigged with a camera and microphone that functions as a 21st century Cyrano de Bergerac. How else could you get Wilson to deliver the lyrics to “Sexual Healing” to Famke Jansen completely straight-faced? Well, let’s not count the ways....

9. Briefcase-Strapped Eagle /// Top Secret! (1984)

This movie, from the parody dream team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker (the trio behind Airplane, The Naked Gun series and more), stars Val Kilmer as a rock star enlisted to help foil East Germany’s plan for—you guessed it—world domination. A slight stray from the classic secret-agent plot arc, Top Secret’s strategy for lampooning the James Bonds of the world is to remove all cool, technologically advanced gadgets from the scene. To infiltrate a castle, the heroes dress as cows and, better yet, send secret messages via bird—a eagle carrying a miniature briefcase in his mouth, to be exact. Who needs a shoe phone—hell, an iPhone—when you’ve literally got an eagle of death metal at bay.

8. Lighter With 83 Options /// Our Man Flint (1965)

This was the original Austin Powers: a parody of James Bond with a hero in James Coburn who was surrounded by beautiful women, battled many an anonymous henchman with a sick Judo chop and fended off a sinister group of scientists making demands via TV. This particular spy generally preferred to work sans gadgets, but he made exceptions for his watch/alarm clock/microscope—and his lighter, which, he tells his supervisor, has “82 functions; 83, if you count the lighter.” (He did, however, refuse to carry along a briefcase loaded with 65 weapons). Some of the lighter’s functions include a high-powered laser that could cut through a bank vault and the ability to cause a small explosion anytime its owner so much as dropped it.

7. Red-Light, Green-Light Gum /// Mission: Impossible (1996)

Some might find Brian de Palma’s TV-adapted thriller difficult to watch, but I tend to view the film as a worthy American answer to James Bond—particularly on the technological front. Aside from the impressive and incredibly lifelike masks and glasses embedded with small camera, you’ve got to love favorite the “Red Light, Green Light” chewing gum. It looks like a normal piece of Wrigley’s, except one side is green and one side is red, and when they combine together, it’s more than just a taste explosion. Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt first deploys it to escape capture in Prague, then finally offs Jon Voight’s baddy in the film’s climax, a fantastical explosion featuring a tunnel, a speeding train and a helicopter. It’s the type of absurd action sequence the film’s detractor’s love to mock, and makes the gum a comical and lethal gadget. Just don’t chew it.

6. Costume Introduction /// The Incredibles (2004)

Even the WALL*E faithful must be thinking it: The Incredibles? That ain’t no spy movie! They’re superheroes! You’re right, but I’m also not wrong. The Pixar classic takes plenty of its aesthetic cues from your standard Cold War adventure. There’s the hero, working for a large government agency known as “The Company,” in urban and suburban environments reminiscent of the 1950s; the bad guy, whose headquartered on a remote Island lair, aided by uniformed henchmen, monologuing while he sets up elaborate ways to kill the protagonist (and failing every time); and the introduction of enough gadgetry to make James Bond’s Q proud. In this case it’s Edna’s demonstration of the costumes, which are flame-retardant, bulletproof, frictionless, stretchy, invisible and, of course, machine-washable—a new feature.

5. Ghetto Blaster /// The Living Daylights (1987)

Here comes our first entry from the Grand Poo-Bah of spy franchises, 007 himself. The James Bond movies are why gadgets have become so important to this genre—always helpful, mostly ingenious and sometimes silly. But good ol’ hindsight lets us look back at some of these inventions as examples of comedy on a more unintentional scale. Timothy Dalton’s first romp as MI:6’s top agent is pretty underwhelming from start to finish, but it does offer this comedic nugget: the “Ghetto Blaster,” a boombox that, while blasting rap, can also launch a rocket—just in case things ever got particularly dicey for Flava Flav and Co.

4. Truth Serum Pen /// The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997)

This underrated riff on the secret-agent genre follows Bill Murray take part in the “Theater of Life” (think of a less horrifying version of what Michael Douglas undertakes in The Game), accidentally falling in to the middle of a plot to destroy Anglo-Russian peace talks and rekindle the Cold War, suddenly transforming into the very ageent he thinks he’s supposed to be playing in the Theater. Jokes about spy gadgets and lifestyle ensue. Speaking with a police officer who believes Murray is a real agent, our hero unleashes his take on the roster of Bond clichés, specifically cars (“I had an Aston-Martin. Was having trouble with the surface-to-air missile,s though. It’s in the shop.”). While interrogated by KGB agents—whom he’s convinced are actors—Murray gets stuck by a truth serum pen, which he finds tremendously relaxing. They try to give him the antidote, but end up stabbing him with a regular ballpoint instead. Then there’s the improbable saving-the-day scene, in which a dancing Murray unknowingly diffuses the bomb, held in a Russian doll.

3. The Collection /// Austin Powers Trilogy (1997-2002)

Throughout the Powers oeuvre, Agent Bond faces his biggest test yet: a spot-on mockery of the entire spy genre (no wonder the franchise needed such a dramatic overhaul for Casino Royale). As far as the lampooning of gadgets, one of the best comes during the opening scene of Goldmember, a film-within-a-film, the Austin Powers story directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito. Here the “Shaguar,” Austin’s answer to the Aston Martin, can drive itself and comes outfitted with a bulletproof screen (his father’s Mini Cooper, which appears later in the film, can turn into a submarine). Austin’s dad, played by Michael Caine as another randy British agent, also reminds Austin that he was the only kid in his school with “a helicopter you could fit in a knapsack.” But the standout has to be the introduction of various weapons and gadgets in the first film, during which Austin is introduced to a platter carrying a toothbrush, floss and toothpaste. “Let me guess,” Austin says, “the floss is garrote wire, the toothpaste contains plastic explosives, and the toothbrush is the detonation device.” He’s wrong, of course—turns out he just has bad teeth.

2. Swiss Army Knife /// Get Smart (2008)

I’ve already told you that the new Get Smart doesn’t skimp on gadgetry. The spy gizmos are instrumental not just to movie’s jokes, but also for developing Maxwell Smart’s character—bumbling, but sharp as a whip (no Michael Scott to find here). Max and Agent 99 use everything from exploding dental floss and tooth radios to cell phones with knockout gas. But by far the most amusing device—and certainly the most complex—is the Swiss Army Knife made specifically for Max by his geek friends at CONTROL. Instead of some tweezers and a toothpick, this particular device holds a flamethrower, blowgun, chisel and, most calamitous of all, a crossbow that shoots a mini harpoon. But we know that gadgets alone can’t turn a Maxwell Smart into a James Bond. As Max himself notes during one of the film’s many exploits, “You never saw James Bond in rats or poop.”

1. The Third Nipple /// The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

Sometimes, a gadget doesn’t have to be technologically advanced to be effective—or for it to turn out downright hilarious. In Roger Moore’s second outing as Bond, James Bond, we have the pièce de résistance: a fake nipple. This is the masterful disguise Bond wears to trick millionaire businessman Hai Fat. Only a master of espionage could pull off the nipple (no pun intended), and in The Man With The Golden Gun, Bond proves that he is, ultimately the master of the useful-but-ridiculous movie gadget.

1. RE: The 10 Funniest Spy Gadgets in Movies ... Ever
Website: www.spindlebook.com
Too bad this article is about movies, not TV series (unless they were made into movies), 'cause I'd have loved to read an entry on The Doctor's sonic screwdriver on Doctor Who. I know, he's not a spy...but he saves the world nearly every week, and between the sonic screwdriver and the psychic paper, he can get just about anywhere he needs to be.

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