Ken Ober, the host of Remote Control, was found dead in his California home over the weekend. He was 52. Remote Control was the first place I saw Colin Quinn, Adam Sandler, and Dennis Leary. More importantly, it was the only place I ever saw Marisol and Kari (Quick: Marisol or Kari?). Of paramount importance, Remote Control was the first non-music themed programming on MTV. Back in the late 1980s, nobody took this as foreshadowing. How could anyone have prophesied the Music Television network becoming the Reality Television network? At the time, Remote Control seemed like a harmlessly amusing diversion from videos. By selecting such categories as "Brady Physics" and "Dead or Canadian" with their remote control, couch-potato contestants answered questions that generally focused on television. Remote Control put the television in Music Television. Video killed the radio star. Ken Ober killed the video star.
RIP. I loved that show.
I've never heard of Ken Ober... But I absolutely looooove Kari. Thank you for mentioning this. I'm learning.
Remote Control was non-music themed? I think not! Remember, you won the big prize at the end of the game by correctly identifying the artists and songs from videos.
I loved Remote Control, and I had a man-crush on Ken Ober. Rest in peace.
The relentless pursuit of profits as the result of market fundamentalism has been the major contributing factor of the destruction of music.
Steve Albini has wise words on this subject here.
We need to break up the the music and broadcasting monopolies. These unregulated markets have proven market fundamentalism false.
This will tickle you PMA as you like to rail about the TARP and the financial industrial complex. Read the article by Jill Schlessinger at CBS News' Econowatch and see how little Timmy Geithner enriched his Wall Street friends with tens of billions of taxpayer's dollars. And what President picked the sleazy tax cheat and sanctioned him? Let me give you a hint: his initials are not GWB. Another hint: it's the guy who is telling the Chinese that America needs to get its debt under control even though he's done more in 10 months to increase our debt and put our economy in jeopardy that GWB did in eight years.
