Home Page

About Page

Photo Page 1

Photo Page 2

Photo Page 3

Photo Page 4

Photo Page 5

Photo Page 6

Photo Page 7

Photo Page 8

Photo Page 9

Photo Page 10

Photo Page 11

Photo Page 12

Photo Page 13

Articles About Edward

Contact Page

Favorite Links

Hail To The Chief

Just Who Is The Chief of CONTROL?
I have an eagle eye and always notice details, so after watching all the "Get Smart" episodes for the umpteenth time I thought I'd mention some things I've noticed about the Chief. First, the creators of Get Smart really developed the Chief's character by season 4. He had much more of a dry humor, he wasn't always confined to his office and we learned a little more about his personality.

Second, Is he or isn't he...married? The Chief wears a wedding ring yet we never see his wife. A Mrs. Chief is mentioned 3 times: in Too Many Chiefs(99 reminds Alexi Sebastian, who looks like the Chief, that a male CONTROL agent cannot interogate a woman alone. It was a rule Mrs. Chief made up), The Man From YENTA(when 99 walks into the office in a harem costume and Max asks if the Chief's wife will wear it) and The Mild Ones (where Max won't let Doll Baby "shake hands" with the Chief because his wife will never forgive him).


Yet, we know he has a sweetheart named MaryJack Armstrong who works for the evil spygroup KAOS(in Survival Of The Fattest), he was almost married but got cold feet(mentions this in With Love And Twitches), he asked Hymie the robot to build HIM a female robot(It Takes One To Know One), he checked out all the topless restaurants for KAOS' stereophonic pistol so Max wouldn't have all the fun(The Day They Raided The Knights), he liked eyeing the Smart's Swedish Maid Ingrid(Laser Blazer) and Mr. Greer's secretary every time she bent over to look into the filing cabinet(Greer Window).

We get to see his home 3 times: The Mummy, Strike While The Agent's Hot and Pussycats Galore.He wears a toupee in 4 episodes: Operation Ridiculous, Widow Often Annie, The Mess Of Adrian Listenger(in a photo. Max says "why does it have an initial on it?" meaning he thought it was a baseball cap) and Smartacus(it actually begins to stand up on its own in the steam room and has a gun under it called the Peter Peckinpaugh All Purpose Anti-Personal Pocket Pistol).
We've also seen him in some unusual situations and outfits: Pajamas(Pussycats Galore),a police uniform(The Secret of Sam Vitorio), in a lab coat developing film (Rebecca Of Funny Folk Farm), in striped tie and checkered jacket(The Spy Who Met Himself), dressed as a woman complete with mini skirt, white nylons and a big chest(The Day They Raided The Knights) as a Deli Delivery man(The Only Way To Die),in a sweat suit and exercising (Spy Spy Birdie), partygoer in sunglasses and red tuxedo jacket( Kiss of Death), space suit(Pheasant Under Glass), Mexican taking Siesta(Tequilla Mockingbird), mystery man in fez(Die Spy),a Greek Statue complete with short toga skirt and no shoes(Reluctant Redhead), singing waiter(The Hot Line), marathon runner(Physician Impossible), in a Toga (Smartacus), as a hunter(Stakeout On Blue Mist Mountain),smoking jacket and ascot(Strike While The Agent's Hot and The Mummy), A clown(The Greatest Spy On Earth), Green surgical scrubs(Satan Place), Janitor's Uniform(Maxwell Smart, Private Eye), A ripped up suit(With Love And Twitches), a chinese emperor(Lazer Blazer), A sailor(Temporarily Out Of Control), Diving suit and toque(Schwartz's Island), in a Blue jacket, pink shirt and neckerchief(Absorb The Greek), as Tiny Tim(To Sire With Love),Prison clothes(Not So Great Escape I&II), minister and later wine steward(Widow Often Annie), blond curls and animal skin(Is This Trip Necessary), as an old janitor(Age Before Duty) and fire chief(Witness For The Execution). He's also frozen in Satan Place, stuck in synthetic quick sand(Schwartz's Island) and dressed in a black leather jacket as Alexi Sebastian in Too Many Chiefs.

Personally, he's about 5'9"(he's a bit taller than Don Adams who is about 5'8 1/2"), does not like to get up in public(A Spy For A Spy), celebrates his birthday with Max and 99(A Spy For A Spy),he claims to be 42(What's It All About Algie?;Larrabee says he looks 63 or 64) but admits in an earlier episode he'll be at retirement age in five years(The Little Black Book I), has a niece named Phoebe(Anatomy Of A Lover), plays chess with Max(Smart The Assassin), is affraid of heights(Temporarily Out Of Control), speaks French and Swahili(Our Man In Leotards;Ed Platt studied Romance Languages at Princeton),he looks great in Tennis whites and plays a good game(Widow Often Annie), invented the comb phone(A Tail of Two Tales;why else would he need a comb?),he knows his World War 2 Planes(Snoopy Smart Vs. The Red Baron;Ed Platt was in the Army Air Corps during WWII), has an ulcer(Too Many Chiefs), has a boss who is higher up but has an office below him(Absorb The Greek), has three KAOS doubles;one of them named Alexi Sebastian(Too Many Chiefs), the other pretended to be the Chief and made a fool of himself at the CONTROL christmas party(The Return Of The Ancient Mariner) and the other was a German who kidnapps and knocks out Max and then talks in German to a fake Max("Klaus, Shnell!" in The Spy Who Met Himself), he's only the chief of the American branch of CONTROL(How To Succeed In The Spy Business Without Really Trying), uses the following covers: Harold Clark of the Potomac Greeting Card company(And Baby Makes Four, The Not So Great Escape, Valerie Of The Dolls, Absorb The Greek), music critic(Hubert's Unfinished Symphony) and Swim Meet official(Last One In Is A Rotten Spy).


The Chief mostly wears grey socks but dons some black ones on occassion. He often wrings his hands or clenches his hands when they're by his side, pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration and he has mugged at the camera on occassion. He reveals his first name is Thaddeus for the first time in The Day Smart Turned Chicken, then in A Man Called Smart, Return Of The Ancient Mariner but would not reveal it in one episode(Island Of The Darned), was drafted into the Navy as sailor John Doe while Max was his commanding officer and he was demoted twice: first being temporarily replaced as chief by Admiral Harold Hargrade CONTROL's founder(A Man Called Smart) then to agent 2nd class(The Hot Line;his old spy number was Q) after the President, who is really a KAOS agent,calls the chief and blames him for Max screwing up Operation Sourdough.He has a set of solid gold microphone cuff links given to him by the Broadcasters Association(Witness For The Execution) and also makes a killer molotov cocktail(The Farkas Fracas).



Here are few more things about the Chief: He smokes 7 times throughout the show: Mr. Big, Strike While The Agent's Hot and The Mummy(all pipes), The Only Way To Die, Hurray For Hollywood, Not So Great Escape II and Kiss of Death(we don't see the cigarette but when he and 99 are sitting at the party we can see him exhale). There are several occassions where we see a pack of smokes in his breast pocket.He's partial to an electric razor(KAOS in CONTROL), He drinks 5 times throughout the show: Our Man In Toyland(about to have a martini but never gets a chance to drink it), Too Many Chiefs(chokes on Bourbon when served by accident), Absorb The Greek(5 or is it 6 drinks?But admits he doesn't drink at all), sips a drink after nearly being killed by KAOS robot Octavia(drink turns out to be a special blend of oil and Kerosene for Hymie the robot) and is about to drink German White Wine in What's It All about Algie? but he insults Larrabee and it's taken away.


He wears a pinkie ring only once, in the episodes The Not So Great Escape I&II and has the gray in his hair touched up in the episodes Absorb The Greek and Operation Ridiculous to look younger. He acts dumb three times: He drops Max several times(The Mummy), gives Max and 99 a croquet set for their wedding when they live in an apartment(The Farkas Fracas) and talks to office furniture believing they are agents in disguise(Strike While The Agent's Hot). While on duty he is shot 4 times: Once by a hypnotized Max who misses(Smart The Assassin), in the arm in The Spy Who Met Himself and Moonlighting Becomes You and in the back in A Man Called Smart II. His double, Alexi Sebastian, gets shot and killed too but that doesn't REALLY count. He's put in a choke hold by Max(Someone Down Here Hates Me) AND by Hymie(Anatomy Of A Lover) but beats Agent 86 in arm wrestling(Supersonice Boom).
The Chief is poisoned twice: once by curare in Operation Ridiculous, and then by Mrs. Farkas' Chocolate Moose(which causes him to run for the bathroom; even those little chocolate things in the medicine chest didn't work),he gets knocked out 8 times: Satan Place(by KAOS), A Spy For A Spy(by KAOS), Double Agent(by Max pretending to be a drunk and he uses 2 breakaway bottles of Old Soldier on the Chief), How To Succeed In The Spy Business Without Really Trying(by Seigfried's sleeping gas), Snoopy Smart Vs The Red Baron(by Max who wanted to save the chief from flying in an old plane), The Spy Who Met Himself(by Max who thought he was an imposter), The Farcas Frakas(by 99) and Absorb The Greek(by KAOS agents). He's kidnapped twice (Satan Place and Spy For A Spy) and He also uses his fists three times(Satan Place, Valerie of The Dolls and And Baby Makes Four II) but almost elbows 99's mother in Absorb The Greek.

A few of the weirder tidbits:The Chief enjoys listening to Max's escapades with a beautiful ballarina on a hidden tape recorder(Kiss of Death), he hides behind a magazine with a picture on the cover with the eyes cut out(Closely Watched Planes), he wears feminine-smelling cologne(Casablanca) and he's a terrible dancer(Kiss of Death). Forget being a good babysitter: He uses a flour sifter to powder the Smart's baby(How Green Was My Valet?) and diaper's Larrabee's hand because it's shaped like a butt and this way he can just slip it already pinned on the Smart's twin baby(How Green Was My Valet?). He digresses to his childhood and makes paper airplanes(KAOS in CONTROL), he trips on some LSD-type drug and thinks he's playing billiards with George Washington who is cheating(Is This Trip Necessary?), he can shatter a glass when he hits a high note(The Hot Line) and he's watching his weight(The Farkas Fracas). He also has a dark side: while getting sick on chocolate moose he tells Max to kill 99 if she stops Max from destroying the recipe(The Farkas Fracas),he reportedly threw a dagger at Larrabee(Smartacus), wanted Max to tell Larrabee the Chief wasn't in their apartment when Larrabee showed up then, when the Chief realized he couldn't fool the fool(Larabee), the Chief wanted to jump out the window(Smartacus), he was willing to keep Larrabee locked in a bank vault deprived of Oxygen(Do I Hear A Vaults?) and was more than willing to allow Larrabee to keep a man eating plant by his own desk(What's It All About Algie?). He even tells Larrabee to shut up(Moonlighting Becomes You), screams at his stupidity(Valerie Of The Dolls) and tells the idiot to step on a can of bug spray which explodes(Witness For The Execution). He sets up Max's bachelor party and charges him more than a hotel would in the episode Worst Best Man. Also in this episode, he tells Max Agent 38 will jump out of a cake but Max says it's not the same when a man jumps out. The Chief asks Max if he ever saw 38 in a bikini. The Chief even gets kissed by Max(Leadside) and 99(The Farkas Fracas), but only once. In the that's-more-than-I-needed-to-know-department the chief wears pink polkadot boxers size 40(he said 36 until Max berated it out of him in Valerie Of the Dolls).
He's hypnotized by Larrabee in the last episode(I am Curiously Yellow),mumbles incoherently after Max wins the Chief's car in a raffle designed to raise money for the Chief's ransom(Satan Place) and is made into an old man(Age Before Duty).

For Communication, he uses a cow horn phone(Hot Line, The Little Black Book, It Takes One To Know One), a complete cow head intercom(The Hot Line), test tube phone(Our Man In Leotards), A potato chip phone(Closely Watched Planes), A shoe phone(The Hot Line and I Shot 86 Today), a fire hydrant phone(Diamonds Are A Spy's Best Friend), a jacket phone(Impossible Mission and Smart Fell On Alabama) and a radiator cap phone(Shock It To Me).

His relationship with Max is...intersting. He's constantly frustrated with Max(I'm a frustrated man! he says in Snoopy Smart Vs. The Red Baron) but REALLY yells at him in Diplomat's Daughter, Witness For The Execution, Double Agent(pretending to arrest a drunken Max),A Spy For A Spy,The Hot Line, Lazer Blazer, Closely Watched Planes and Last One In Is A Rotten Spy. He tells Max to "get out" twice in Operation Ridiculous and The Girls From KAOS. Plus, Max loves to get the Chief involved in tongue twisters(Trivia note: Don Adams is an avid gambler and used to put these twisters in the script on purpose and bet that Ed would screw up the lines and he did. Then Don would act frustrated and ask that Ed be replaced by another bald character actor named John Doucette who appeared as the character Col. Von Clause in 3 "Get Smart" episodes and played in the Don Adams series "The Partners" as a police chief) and get him forever stuck in the cone of silence.

But, the Chief admits Max is like a son to him(Mr. Big), he also says this in Smartacus while under truth serum with Max but also admits he would have fired Max year's ago because of his bumbling and that Max is the reason for the chief's prematurely gray hair. Max responds "You don't have any hair Chief you're bald." Max also says the Chief is fat to which the chief says "You know you see pretty well for a man with squinty eyes." The Chief would prefer his niece Phoebe date Hymie the robot instead of Max(Anatomy of A Lover), Max took about 6-7 suicide pills to make the chief happy(Cutback At CONTROL), but tells the chief to use a special fat reducing machine on his head. The Chief is often in the line of fire of Max's bumbling, for example, the chief gets riddled with the contents of an ashtray three times: Mr. Big, Moonlighting Becomes You(by 99 that time), I Am Curiously Yellow(Ed actually gets hit in the head with it), then gets a box of confetti dumped on him(Horray For Hollywood), gets squirted by windshield wipers(Our Man In Leotards), gets pie all over his suit becuase Max put his own hand in pie and shook the Chief's hand(Moonlighting Becomes you) and gets milk all over his suit when Max makes him hold a diaper bag which turns out to be a bottle bag. Still, he goes to Max's court hearings in The Day Smart Turned Chicken and Don't Look Back but does not believe he's innocent or sane. The chief even learns a little too much about Max like the fact that Max has a birthmark right where his delivery doctor slapped him when Max came into the world(And Only Two 99). The chief also thinks Max is getting money from KAOS in Diamonds Are A Spy's Best Friend. He gets misty when he thinks Max has died/will die in the episodes The Only Way To Die, I'm Only Human( goes over Max's things in his office like the Chief's favorite tie Max liked to borrow), Classification: Dead and The Groovy Guru and is nervous when Max is supposedly being tortured in The Decoy. Afterwards 99 wants to go after Max, but, the Chief would rather leave him for dead, thinking it's useless to go. The Chief also worries more about his own reputation than Max's life if Leadside succeeds in killing Max after CONTROL boobytrapped the Smart apartment(with the Omega Plan in the ep. Leadside). He's forced to be cheap by not giving Max better equipment(Cutbacks At CONTROL), security guards across the street(Leadside) and is forced to lay Max off(Maxwell Smart Private Eye) and 99(The Day They Raided The Knights) because of budget constraints, and there are often times neither Max nor the Chief trust the other. The chief decides to go undercover to help snuff out a 3rd spy network but does not tell 99 or Max because he didn't know whom he could trust(Die Spy), he did not tell Max or 99 he was only dating the young-looking Gina Paponickolini in order to get her husband's formula for eternal youth(Absorb The Greek), He didn't tell Max or 99 the real identity of the professor and Chain the secret agent(The Expendable Agent), he wouldn't let them know about the secret phone he has yet Larrabee knew about it and the number because it was in the phone back--classified pages under "secret"(Valerie Of The Dolls), and Max and the Chief suspect each other of murder and face off against each other in the Mess Of Adrian Listenger. Even after they kill Listenger they still don't really trust one another. The Chief is happy when Max and 99 announce their engagement but doesn't want to approve the marriage because they're spies who work together(Closely Watched Planes), is excited about Max and 99 having a baby(Pheasant Under Glass), is forced to bathe baby dolls while pretending to be an expectant father(Valerie Of the Dolls;in reality Ed was 53 at this point and his kids were in their very early teens or pre-teens) and does a choreographed move with a baby carriage(Ironhand). He also says his bad luck started the day the president(a fake one) made Max chief(The Hot Line). The Chief and Max reverse roles three times: Him saying "and loving it"(The Hot Line and Smart Fit The Battle Of Jericho) and Max pinching his nose. Then the chief says "I asked you not to tell me that" in The Farkas Fracas. Once, just once, he tells Max to shut up in not-so-many-words(The Hot Line).

The Chief is not featured in the following episodes(Ed Platt reportedly had back problems during some of the shoots) School Days, Hoo Done It, Viva Smart, Witness For The Execution, The Spirit Is Willing, When Goodfellows Get Together,The Mysterious Dr. T(heard over intercom), House Of Max I&II. He does narrate some of the two part episodes(The Not So Great Escape I&II and To Sire, With Love I&II). In the Hot Line episode there's some bad dubbing where we see Ed mouth the words to one line but hear something different. Also, when he's singing the chief stops a bit but we still hear him singing.