Posted on 11/16/2009 4:04:45 PM PST by My Favorite Headache
Remembering Ken Ober, The Voice Of 'Remote Control'
Posted 41 minutes ago by Kyle Anderson in Music, Television
This was a sad day at MTV, as we had a death in the family. Ken Ober, the longtime comedian, television producer and host of early MTV game show "Remote Control," passed away at age 52.
Arguably, Ober's most indelible legacy is "Remote Control," which premiered in 1987 and was one of MTV's first attempts at crafting an original television series. The premise was delightfully low-fi: Ober posited that he hosted a media-obsessed game show out of the basement of his parents' house, and he was joined by a cast of characters who wandered through the set (including fellow comedian and former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Colin Quinn, who acted as the Andy Richter to Ober's Conan O'Brien). The show featured three contestants getting asked a barrage of pop culture questions about movies, music, television shows, sports and, of course, music videos. Along the way, the show was interrupted by comedy skits, guest appearances, projectiles thrown at the contestants and plenty of Ober's trademark wit.
It can't be understated how important Ober was to the show. His jokes were always acerbic and steeped in irony, but his love for junk culture gave him a warmth that made him lovable. He kept the MTV audience connected to the world of comedy and also provided exposure for a ton of videos and pop culture touchstones that were hard to access at the time. In the age before the Internet, DVD and video on demand, it was sometimes difficult to find a place where lines from "Jaws" could be mentioned alongside David Bowie lyrics. Ober brought the geeks and the cool kids together to hang out in his basement, and that melding of two worlds helped make MTV the definitive television destination for youth across the country.
But mostly, "Remote Control" was just supremely weird, and made MTV a place where you could find subversive comedy (most of it Ober's). For example, take the clip below: It features a college student playing for a series of prizes by being spun around on a wheel, Colin Quinn as the "Evil Dwarf," a random model and a ton of confetti. It was loose, it was loud and it was incredibly fun to watch.
Not only did I work the first season on Remote Control as a question writer, I actually helped hire Ken. He did a great audition. FYI...Ben Stiller auditioned and was horrible.
So sorry to hear this. He was a nice guy.
“but I find it refreshing to see a 35-year-old haunting FR.”
Haunting :-) ... there’s a lot of us on here :-)! I don’t think I could function without this site :-)!
50+ isn’t old fogie either ... My dad just turned 69 and I am trying to convince him that he’s not going to die “soon”.
Knowing myself, I am going to look at that sentence I just wrote, hopefully, in 20 years and wonder what the hell was I thinking :-).
Yep. Its amazing that Ken was at that time one year younger than I am now! It seems like just yesterday that the Berlin Wall was falling, Eddie Murphy was still funny, and cell phones looked like bricks.
Not guilty! I’d still hit it.
Then I’d be a Martha Fu... never mind.
Hunh. An unknown side of you is exposed.
Not bad. I still have “Stuffin’ Martha’s Muffin” by Mojo Nixon on my jogging playlist.
Sounds like Wayne’s World was a ripoff of this show.
It was a lifetime ago. Are you a Seinfeld fan?
I’ve seen a few eps and know some of the memes, but probably not a fan.
Why?
Do you remember the ongoing character, Joe Davola? Crazy Joe Davola?
I’ve seen scenes on YouTube. He’s, well... crazy!
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
RIP. That’s too young to go.
I wasn’t a big MTV fan, but I watched this one (OK, maybe because Kari was on it — I was a fan of her later, ahem, “late night movie” work — she was on General Hospital a few years ago and you could tell her, um, “athletic” prowess during the love scenes. I think even the male actors had to tell her to take it down a notch, since it ain’t Showtime).
I remember when this show was on MTV during my early teen years. That was back when they actually had music. This show was one of the few things that wasn’t music. I always changed the channel or turned off the TV when it came on. lol
Mr. Ober, who lived in Santa Monica, Calif., was 52. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Lee Kernis, a manager at Brillstein Entertainment Partners who represented Mr. Ober for more than 20 years, said that Mr. Ober was found dead on Sunday. He said that Mr. Ober was last heard from on Saturday night, when he spoke to a friend and complained of a headache and flu-like symptoms. Mr. Ober told the friend that he was going to take something and would see a doctor as soon as possible.
Joe Davola was the Producer of Remote Control and he was freaking nuts. he was sexually harrassing me. So when the whole thing went down with Anita Hill, I knew she was lying. When you’re truly being sexually harrassed in the workplace, you don’t want to be anywhere near that person. He became the head of comedy development at one of the networks and that’s how Seinfeld met him. That character was based on him. Crazy Joe Davola.
At the time, I was dating a guy and I would complain about Davola to him. He finally said, what do you want me to do, beat him up? I knew I had to take care of it. I was probably about 28 years old. The last time he harrassed me I whipped around and I said, “I don’t appreciate these comments you continually say to me and I want you to stop...you will stop.”
That was that, he never bothered me again...but then again...I wasn’t invited back for the next season. No big loss.
I worked on the first season...wrote questions. Originally, that show was supposed to be a sitcom...a game show within a sitcom. The plot was this loser who is obsessed with game shows who lives in his mom’s basement. It was really very clever..but when push came to shove, the suits went with the safe choice. Too bad...it would have been an instant classic.
Wow. (A) Yikes, sorry for what happened to you. Creep. Got himself a Hildy-slapdown. (B) They used an actual guy’s name for an insane character, and didn’t get sued?
LOL! I was talking about Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper just yesterday!
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