CONTROL - Spy organization on the espionage spoof GET SMART/NBC/ABC/1965-70. CONTROL is not an acronym but rather the term represents those rational forces attempting to preserve order in a chaotic world. According to their top agent Maxwell Smart, CONTROL is "a master spy organization in Washington, DC, operated by the forces of good in the Free World to combat the forces of evil and totalitarianism. He further added "We have to shoot and kill and destroy. We represent everything that's wholesome and good in the world." Although Max was a loyal agent sworn to fight the forces of evil and serve on the side of "niceness," he once complained "The CIA is in the newspaper all the time, and the FBI has its own television show. We're the only secret organization in the world that nobody ever heard of." (except for all the telephone operators and taxi drivers in town). CONTROL was located at 123 Main Street (on W Street at the corner of 34th Street). Entry to CONTROL (a spoof on the tailor shop entrance seen on the spy adventure THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.) was accessed by walking down a corridor filled with a series of automatic steel doors which slid open both horizontally and vertically. At the end of the long hallway, a lone phone booth provided access to the entrance to CONTROL headquarters. The agent stepped into the booth, inserted a coin, and dialed the phone and then dropped out of sight through a trapdoor. The CONTROL facilities included a laboratory, indoor firing range, photography darkroom, conference rooms, library, poolroom, banquet facilities and numerous offices. Additional CONTROL offices were located in New York City, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Phoenix, as well as a ghost town on Highway 8, a communications center in Greenland and a secret germ-warfare laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. CONTROL used to have an office in Las Vegas but lost it. CONTROL's chief operatives included the bumbling Maxwell Smart, (Don Adams) and his intelligent female partner Susan Hilton, Agent 99 (Barbara Felton). Both were sent on assignments by their balding, dyspeptic supervisor, Thaddeus "The Chief" (Edward Platt), to do battle with their nemesis, the sinister worldwide organization known as KAOS, lead by the evil mastermind Conrad Siegfried (Bernie Kopell). In the book The Get Smart Handbook by Joey Green (Collier, 1993), the author suggests some possible meanings for the Spy agency CONTROL including Central Organisation To Reconnoiter Overt Lawlessness; Confidential Organized Network Team Repudiating Objectionable Licentiousness; Counter Organization Neutralizing Trangressors, Rebels, and Obstinate Lawbreakers; and Company Opposing Notorious Traitors, Rebels, Oligarchs, and Lawyers. An other possible meaning (as suggested by me, the author of this book) would be Central Organization for the Neutralization of Terrorists, Revolutionaries, Outlaws, and Lowlifes. At conclusion of each episode as Agent Maxwell Smart exited CONTROL, he noticed that the final door did not close properly. Stepping up to investigate, the door shuts on his nose. Ouch, that's Smarts! The opening and closing sequence was developed by Leonard Stern. 

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