Best way to control timelines using C# scripts attached to other objects

There are too many ways to do this for me to choose which one is best. I am able to do things more complicated than this but not simple timeline control.

I used to create animations with Flash: timeline control was very easy. I just want to be able to control objects in a similar way in Unity. When (a) happens, e.g. key press, object 1 moves to point (a) in its timeline. NB I'm not talking about objects under the player's control.

If I could find the easiest way to tell an animated clip to play / pause / go back to start that would be all I need, then I could work the rest out.

The animated object will have its own script attached of course, but I want to use scripts attached to another object to tell it to go point (a) in the timeline.

Also: I don't want to have to check the Legacy box for the animation (via debug mode in the inspector) - not good going forward, is it? I didn't see why I had to do this - made me think I was on the wrong path.

I have watched all these tutorials: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/s/animation

Thanks for reading.

 

I'm looking at third-party tween components in the asset store... Will probably buy something (cheap) to make my life easier...