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Not a Hoax: Ken Ober, MTV’s ‘Remote Control’ Host, Dies at 52

At first blush it looked like the latest fake-death rumor on the Internet: According to sketchily sourced reports, Ken Ober, the comedian best-known for hosting MTV’s late-’80s game show “Remote Control,” had died.

Sadly, though, this rumor turns out to be true. Ober’s reps confirm to Zap2it that he passed away over the weekend at the age of 52. No other details were available late Monday morning.

Ober had worked as writer and producer on Comedy Central’s “Mind of Mencia” in recent years, and he did a stint as a consulting producer on “The New Adventures of Old Christine” in 2006. He also worked behind the camera (and occasionally in front of it) on his friend and “Remote Control” announcer Colin Quinn’s show “Tough Crowd” earlier in the decade.

To legions of Gen-Xers, though, he’ll be remembered as the host of “Remote Control,” the TV-obsessed game show that aired on MTV from 1987-‘89 and featured such categories as “Brady Physics” and “Dead or Canadian.” It also helped introduce Adam Sandler to the world; he worked as a writer on the show (as did Denis Leary), and he played the recurring on-screen characters Trivia Delinquent and Stud Boy.

It’s like my childhood just died.

That show was my jam. I loved that they got to eat snacks while playing a game. It clearly doesn’t take a whole lot to amuse me.

Lets play guess the cause.

I vote meth.

My older cousin (she was a teenager) used to recreate this game in our house with me, my brother, and my cousin who was my age. We were 4-6 years old. She’d spin us around in the recliner or flip us upside down or throw stuff at us (soft stuff, obviously.) It was so much fun. We also had the video game.

We were all sort of obsessed with the show.

PS: Clips of the show on YouTube are so trippy. The 80s were beyond bizarre.

Ken Ober, Colin Quinn and Kari Wuhrer were a great team.  It’s hard to believe that the show had such a short run.  It looms much larger in my memory. Why isn’t this show available on the Web somewhere?