David Ketchum, the Cooped-Up Agent 13 on ‘Get Smart,’ Dies at 97

David Ketchum, the goofy comic actor and prolific TV writer best known for squeezing into such stuffy spaces as vending machines, trash cans and airport lockers as Agent 13 on the fabled sitcom Get Smart, has died. He was 97.

Ketchum died Aug. 10, his family announced.

Ketchum also played carpenter Mel Warshaw opposite John Astin and Marty Ingalls on the 1962-63 ABC sitcom I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster and starred as Counselor Spiffy on the 1965-66 NBC comedy Camp Runamuck.

In notable guest-star turns, he portrayed salesmen selling real estate and petroleum on The Andy Griffith Show in 1967 and was a member of a divorce club that offers great vacation rates on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970.

Said fellow Camp Runamuck actor Dave Madden in Robert Pegg’s 2015 book, Comical Co-Stars of Television: “Dave was a naturally funny guy. He more or less idolized Danny Kaye in Danny’s earlier days, and so an awful lot of the physical things he did in terms of takes and things were very Danny Kaye-ish in their style.”

Ketchum got his first writing credit on a 1967 episode of Garry Marshall‘s Hey, Landlord, and he would write for nearly four dozen shows — other Marshall series like Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, plus Here’s Lucy, M*A*S*H, Wonder Woman, MacGyver, Highway to Heaven and Full House among them — through 1990.

The Illinois native joined NBC’s Get Smart, created by Buck Henry and Mel Brooks, in time for its second season (1966-67). In one of the spy spoof’s great running gags, his resentful Agent 13 would pop up in mailboxes, grandfather clocks, fire hydrants, planters, etc. while on uncomfortable undercover assignments.

It all started when his sweaty head emerges from under the cover of a barbershop steam cabinet for towels. Asked by Agent 86 (Don Adams) what he’s learned about the latest KAOS criminal plot, he replies, “I’ve grown to hate the spy business, that’s what I’ve learned.”

Soon, producers started saying, “Wait a minute, wouldn’t it be funny if he was in a sofa?” he recalled in a 2002 interview. “So there would be a party, everybody would stand up, and I’d be inside the sofa with a girl and a drink. Stuff like that was tricky. And then they put me in a locker at the airport, and then an ice machine, and it kept getting more and more ridiculous.

“The hardest part for me was when they put Agent 13 in a washing machine. I’m 6-foot-2, so I can’t fit easily into cramped places, and a washing machine is about as cramped as it gets. They also built an eight-foot tube I got into so I could be spun around in the front. You try remembering your lines while you’re spinning around with water and soap squirting in your face!”

In what sounds like a joke, Ketchum was born in an elevator in Quincy, Illinois, on Feb. 4, 1928. He majored in electrical engineering at UCLA.

“I had already done a lot of performing,” he said in a 1965 interview, “but I couldn’t quite resign myself to being in show business. I figured eventually I’d have to work for a living — so I took engineering.”

He was supposed to have a part in the John Wayne-starring Flying Leathernecks (1951) but was activated for service in the National Guard, so he had to pass on that. However, he got into a public information unit that offered him the chance to host a nightly radio show in San Francisco.

He did another radio program in San Diego for seven years, kicking things off there by asking Bob Hope and Doris Day if they’d come on, and they said yes.

Ketchum appeared in a funny bit about Hollywood on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show in 1957 and was a regular on The New Steve Allen Show in 1961. He also worked alongside Ken Berry, Jackie Joseph and Jo Anne Worley in the Billy Barnes Revue, which made it to Broadway in ’61.

A year later, he released a comedy album called The Long-Playing Tongue of Dave Ketchum, and in its review, Billboard called him “a new comic with a number of funny ideas. What’s more, he knows how to put ’em across.”

He caught a big break being cast on I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster, which was created by future Get Smart producer Leonard Stern. On the spy show, he replaced Victor French, who had played Agent 44 in a similar tough-luck role during its first season.

Here he is with Adams in a toothpaste commercial.

Ketchum returned as Agent 13 in the 1989 telefilm Get Smart, Again and on an episode of a rebooted Get Smart in 1995.

His TV acting résumé also included stints on The Real McCoys, The Munsters, Good Morning World, Gomer Pyle, Mod Squad, That Girl, Green Acres, The Odd Couple, Happy Days and Alice.

He also appeared in films including Good Neighbor Sam (1964), The Grasshopper (1970), Bless the Beasts & Children (1971), Your Three Minutes Are Up (1973), The North Avenue Irregulars (1979), Love at First Bite (1979), The Main Event (1979), Young Doctors in Love (1982) and The Other Sister (1999).

And he played Murph in a series of commercials for Union 76 gas stations in the 1970s and ’80s.

Ketchum had a lot of time on his hands waiting for his scenes on Get Smart to be set up, so he used that to work on his writing. He penned the 1967 episode “Classification: Dead” and multiple installments of other shows like Captain Nice, Love, American Style, The Rookies, Switch, The Love Boat and Sledge Hammer!

He also co-wrote a claustrophobic ABC telefilm, 1974’s The Elevator.

Survivors include his wife, Louise, whom he married in August 1957; their daughters, Nicole and Wendy; three grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

“He leaves behind a legacy of laughter, warmth and timeless television moments — reminding us all that sometimes, the simplest surprise (like someone perched in a mailbox) can yield the biggest smile,” his family said.

A private family gathering will honor his life. In lieu of flowers, his family invites “friends and fans to enjoy one of his classic performances on Get Smart or Camp Runamuck in remembrance of his quick wit, gentle heart and cinematic spirit.”

Asked in that 2002 interview why Get Smart still resonates after so many years, Ketchum said it was because it was “also satire, and nobody does satire on television today.

“Get Smart did stuff like an episode where they had KAOS take over an entire television network to announce to the world that they had better capitulate, that it was all over, and KAOS had won. But no one saw that broadcast, because it ran opposite a first-run movie on another network!”