Remote Control
Ken Ober hosts the irreverent quiz show
Genre	Game show
Presented by	Ken Ober with Marisol Massey (Season 1) Kari Wührer (Seasons 2-3) Alicia Coppola (Season 4) Susan Ashley (Season 5)
Starring	Craig Vandenburgh John Ten Eyck Adam Sandler Denis Leary Roger Kabler
Narrated by	Colin Quinn
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	5
Production
Running time	30 Minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	MTV Syndicated
Original run	December 7, 1987 – December 13, 1990

Remote Control is a TV game show that ran on MTV for five seasons from 1987 until 1990. It was MTV's first original non-musical program. New episodes were made for first-run syndication in 1989. Three contestants answered trivia questions on movies, music, and television, many of which were presented in skit format.

Contents 1 Cast 2 Premise 3 Main game 3.1 Categories/Channels 3.1.1 Penalization channels 3.2 Snack Break 3.3 Off the Air 3.4 Lightning round 3.5 Final question (Season 5 only) 4 Grand prize round 5 Celebrities 6 Foreign versions and attempts 7 Video game 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Cast

Remote Control was hosted by Ken Ober and featured Colin Quinn as the gravel-voiced announcer/sidekick. John Ten Eyck played several walk-on parts, joined in later seasons by Adam Sandler, Denis Leary, and Roger Kabler. Steve Treccase provided music; Marisol Massey (Season One), Kari Wührer (Seasons Two and Three), Alicia Coppola (Season Four) and Susan Ashley (Season Five) were the hostesses. Although uncredited, Jani Berry provided the off-camera voice as the character of Ken Ober's mother.

[edit] Premise

The show's premise was that Ober desperately wanted to be a game show host and set up his basement (at 72 Whoopingkof Lane) as a television studio (in reality it was taped at a studio at the corner of Park Ave. and E. 106th Street in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City). The opening theme song sketched the scenario out:

"Kenny wasn't like the other kids (Remote Control)
TV mattered, nothing else did (Remote Control)
Girls said yes, but he said no (Remote Control)
Now he's got his own game show (Remote Control!)"

Shows were sometimes interrupted by the disembodied voice of "Ken's mother," and the studio was indeed set up to resemble a basement, complete with a washer and dryer, cheesy bric-a-brac, and a giant Pez dispenser that resembled Bob Eubanks.

The basement was a mainstay of the show throughout its run; however its cheesy decor was "rearranged" slightly every season. The contestants sat in leather La-Z-Boy recliners with seat belts (their purpose explained below), complete with retro kidney-shaped tables and scoreboards, facing host Ober and his retro-styled Zenith television. Behind Ober were autographed pictures of his idols, game show hosts such as Bob Barker, Bill Cullen, Bert Convy, Monty Hall, and Tom Kennedy. Musician Steve Treccase set up his keyboard behind a cluttered bar, at which Quinn and the hostess usually sat for the duration of the show. More clutter could be found around and behind the audience, very frequently including props used in previous seasons. Finally, the contestants' chairs were placed in front of breakaway walls, through which they were pulled if they were eliminated.

[edit] Main game

Three contestants sitting in lounge chairs would select one of nine channels, each of which represented some topic having to do with pop culture. Sample channels used on the show were "The Bon Jovi Network," "Brady Physics," and "Dead or Canadian." Contestants answered a series of questions from those subjects to earn points. There were three questions in each channel/subject, and each answer was worth more points than the last.

Some of the other straight question categories included "Leave Out the Beaver" (later "Leave Out Michael Caine"), "Private Dicks," "Bad TV," "Celebrity Cellblock," "Babes and Assassins," "PhD-TV," "No Witness News," "Celebrity Flesh," and "Inside Tina Yothers." The "MTV" category, containing questions relating to music and music videos, naturally appeared in almost every round. In season five, "Inside Tina Yothers" was changed to "Inside Joe Piscopo." Season five also saw the debut of "Brady Metaphysics," a philosophy-driven spinoff of the "Brady Physics" channel.

In the first round, the first question for each channel was worth 5 points. The second question for the same channel was worth 10, and the final question was worth 15. These values doubled in the second round.

[edit] Categories/Channels

Several categories were performance-driven, such as these:

• Fairy Pixie – Sheldon, the beleaguered Fairy Pixie, would read forlorn nursery rhymes about television shows.
• Celebrity Square – a cut-rate version of the long-running Hollywood Squares game show. MTV could only afford one square instead of nine, but otherwise the rules were unchanged: Contestants still had to get the X across, down, or diagonally.
• Beat the Bishop – this challenge forced contestants to complete a math problem within the time it took a man dressed as a Vatican bishop to race one lap around the studio. (Though depicted literally, the title of this channel is also a euphemism for masturbation. Later one-time variations of this channel included the similarly euphemistic "Beat the Bologna," as well as the straightforward religious spinoffs "Beat the Buddha" and "Race the Rabbi.")
• The Laughing Guy – a segment in which Ten Eyck played "Ken's cousin Flip," who dressed in nerdy attire and laughed the theme songs to various TV series, which the contestants had to then guess.
• The Anti-Flip – This channel worked in the exact opposite manner as The Laughing Guy. Ten Eyck now played "Ken's evil cousin Skip," who was the exact opposite of Flip, dressed in drag, and was a complete dullard; he would give the name of a TV show, and the contestant then had to laugh the theme song.
• Andy's Diary – in which a gurgling Denis Leary portrayed the Pop artist Andy Warhol.
• Stud Boy – a character who claimed to have had affairs with any number of famous women, and played by Adam Sandler. Contestants had to guess the woman that Stud Boy was describing.
• Trivia Delinquent – Stickpin Quinn, the Trivia Delinquent, another recurring Sandler character who was supposed to be Colin Quinn's cousin.
• Colin's Brother – played by Leary, which degenerated into an excuse for the two to pummel each other on-air.
• Survey Says – a Family Feud type question with five correct answers to it was posed to the players.
• Sex Survey – the first-season variant of "Survey Says," in which the question was sexually themed.
• Casey's Big Poll – after Kari Wührer left the show, the premise of "Survey Says" was changed to make it a survey hosted by Ten Eyck imitating radio personality Casey Kasem, accompanied by a burly man in drag as "my lovely wife Jeannie." Otherwise, the rules remained the same.
• Match 'Em Up Real Good (alternatively Match This) – a Match Game-type fill-in-the-blank statement is read, and if the contestant's answer matched that of Colin, Steve, or the hostess, they scored 10 points.
• Sing Along with Colin – in which sidekick Quinn would atonally rasp the lyrics to a song, and once Colin stopped singing, the contestant was required to correctly sing the next line or two. Sing Along was easily the most popular channel used on the show.
• Dead or Alive – Simply put, contestants were given the name of a celebrity and had to guess whether he or she was dead or alive. Variations of this game have included "Dead or Canadian" and "Dead, Alive or Indian Food."
• Mr. Baggy Pants – this character asked juvenile riddles that are common in joke books such as "Why did the guy throw his clock out the window?" The contestant had to provide the punchline, which in this case would be "because he wanted to see time fly."
• Rolling Stoned – in which Leary would portray a strung out, drug-influenced Keith Richards.

[edit] Penalization channels

There were a handful of "negative" channels in which contestants would be penalized:

• Home Shopping Zone – where the unlucky contestant to choose that channel would see a video of a smarmily cheerful TV salesman (played by Craig Vandenburgh) "selling" some ridiculous product for a deduction of 10 points (20 points in the first season). An alternative version, the Fashion Zone, worked similarly, with Vandenburgh describing some outlandishly bad clothing item that the contestant had "bought."
• Ranger Bob – a thick-headed park ranger (played by John Ten Eyck) would offer a "camping safety tip" for 10 points.
• Public Television None of the contestants would be penalized, but "because only 3% of the population actually watches public television," this category contained questions whose answers were considered to be almost impossible to come up with.
• Wheel of Torture (fourth and fifth seasons) – The contestant could choose to lose 10 points, or submit to "Colin's torturous whims" and gain 10 points. If the contestant took the torture, the hostess would spin the Wheel of Torture (with sections including "Noogie," "Wet Willie," and "Purple Nurple"), and Quinn would administer the torture to the contestant. Some of the tortures were changed during the final season. Notably, the Purple Nurple was not administered to female contestants.
• Off the Air (pilot only) – In the pilot episode, if a contestant selected it, he was immediately eliminated from further play. When the show went into production in December of 1987, the rule was dropped in favor of the rules explained below.

[edit] Snack Break

At the end of the first round, the contestants were treated to a "snack;" however, as they were guests of an unconventional host, the snacks were delivered in unconventional ways. In the vast majority of shows, the contestants were provided with bowls which they held over their heads to catch the snack, which was dropped onto them from above. Several episodes in which this was not feasible (due to the nature of the snack) featured such snack being lowered from above on a tray, or the hostess delivering it herself.

During the first season, the Snack Break occurred in the middle of the round, and the player in the lead at that point had the chance to win a small prize by correctly guessing which of three numbered refrigerators it was located in (similar to Let's Make a Deal).

[edit] Off the Air

Remote Control was notable for the way in which contestants were eliminated from play. After round two, the TV went "Off the Air" (accompanied by a siren sound effect and the studio lights flashing on and off), and the contestant in last place at that moment was also thrown "Off the Air" and eliminated from the game. Eliminated contestants were removed immediately, chair and all (hence the seat belts). Beginning in the Spring Break episodes during the first season, the audience would also sing a "goodbye song," typically "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye," "Hit the Road Jack," or "Get Off My Show" (to the tune of "Get Off My Cloud"), while said player was being ejected. After a contestant was ejected, he/she would be tormented by stagehands administering various annoyances behind him/her while an unrealistic screaming sound effect played. The ejections were accomplished in a variety of ways.

The setup in the first season was very basic. All three contestants were seated in front of breakaway sections in the wall behind them. Upon elimination, the losing contestant was simply pulled in his chair through that section of the wall, which would fall backwards allowing the chair to continue sliding behind the stage. Upon being pulled through, a black curtain was dropped concealing the player. Most of the time this was accompanied by the camera shaking violently and a "static" effect to simulate the TV (and the contestant, as mentioned by Ober) going "Off the Air." On occasion, the chair would return through the wall with the contestant replaced by a skeleton or something else indicating that he or she had been "killed."

The second season was the first to feature three different kinds of eliminations; also, the camera effects were removed. The player on the left side of the stage was seated in front of a seemingly normal brick wall. If he lost, his chair was pulled backwards and upon hitting the wall a trap door would swing open to allow the player to be pulled backstage. The door was then shut to "trap" the player behind the wall. The player in the middle was in front of a doorway lined with blue wallpaper. Upon elimination, he would be pulled back and rip through the wallpaper, with a black curtain lowered in front of the player to keep him hidden them from view. The player on the right was in the infamous "flipper" chair, which was yanked upwards and backwards so that the stage floor was now the wall from the vantage point of the audience.

Seasons 3 and 4 presented some minor modifications. The "flipper" chair was now on the left side of the stage. The middle chair was in front of a fake brick wall which had a breakaway section similar to the ones used during the first season. Just like in prior seasons, a black sheet was dropped down to conceal the player from view. The player on the right side was in front of a typical looking wall decorated with shelves, pictures, and a dartboard. When this player lost, his chair would be flung backwards, hitting the wall and spinning it around 180 degrees. The backside of the wall (now seen on stage) looked like the outside of a house, with siding and a garden hose (as to imply that the player had been ejected from the basement to outside.)

The fifth and final season presented some minor modifications as well; the black curtain behind the breakaway wall was replaced with a black wall with "jail bars," and the wall rotated vertically as the player on the right side was being pulled through it.

In Spring Break episodes, players were seated in folding lawn chairs which were placed on platforms on the edge of a swimming pool. All three contestants were eliminated in the same manner if they went "Off the Air." The platform would sink forward slightly, folding up the lawn chair just a little (and making it more difficult for players to run away if they chickened out, as they were not strapped in for safety purposes.) The hostess would then walk over to a lever in front of the contestant, wave bye-bye to them and pull the lever that released the platform, sending the seated contestant tumbling backwards into the pool. This concept was dropped in later Spring Break episodes and replaced with the losers being pushed or thrown into the pool by stagehands.

[edit] Lightning round

During the first season, after the TV went "Off the Air," gameplay continued as normal with the remaining two contestants until time expired. Beginning with the second season, this format was scrapped for a "lightning round," to determine the winner.

In seasons 2-4, the two remaining contestants competed in a 30-second speed round entitled "Think Real Fast." Typically, this was a fill-in-the-blank or spot-the-errant-word format. For example, Ober would read movie, TV show, or song titles that had one word replaced with an incorrect word, and contestants had to come up with the correction. The high scorer moved on to the bonus round, while the runner-up was eliminated in a manner similar to the third-place contestant.

In the fifth season, all three players played a different version of the lightning round called "This, That, Or the Other Thing," but it was not the last round in the game. All questions now had one of three answers that Ober would list before the round started. These were usually people or characters who shared a common name -- for example: "Andy Taylor, Andy Warhol, or Andy Rooney." Contestants had 20 seconds to ring in and answer as many questions as possible; after this round, the TV immediately went "Off the Air" and the third-place contestant was eliminated.

[edit] Final question (Season 5 only)

In the final season, the two remaining players bet any or all of their current score on one final question. Host Ober read a question, usually a math problem, and the players had 20 seconds to write down their answers, during which a strange attention-derailing act was performed. When time expired, the players' answers and wagers were checked; a correct answer awarded the wagered points to the contestant, while a wrong answer deducted as many points.

The remaining player after all rounds won the game and advanced to the Grand Prize Round. In the event of a tie after the last round, a final question was retrieved from the giant Pez dispenser and asked of the players, with a correct answer winning the game.

[edit] Grand prize round

MTV Version (first 4 seasons): The contestant was strapped to a Craftmatic Adjustable Bed, facing a wall of nine TV sets (some turned sideways or upside down) on which music videos were playing. The contestant had to identify the artist in each video, with a prize being awarded for every correct answer. Correctly identifying all nine artists within 30 seconds won the grand prize, usually a car or a trip to a beach resort. Before the clock started ticking, the contestant was given a split-second glimpse of every video at once.

Syndicated Version ("Wheel of Jeopardy"): The contestant was strapped to a carnival wheel surrounded by ten television monitors, and was asked ten further questions (usually about TV). For each question successfully answered, the contestant won a prize, and the corresponding screen would display "Grand Prize." After 10 questions, the wheel was stopped, and if the player's head landed on a screen that had "Grand Prize" displayed, he won the day's top prize. If the contestant correctly answered all 10 questions, he or she would automatically win the grand prize without the wheel having to stop, as every monitor would obviously read "Grand Prize".

MTV Version (season 5): The "name the artist" round was modified to more resemble the syndicated bonus round. The player was strapped to a metal wheel placed at a 45 degree angle, with a single TV above and below it. The nine videos were shown in succession, and the player had to guess all the artists in 40 seconds to win the grand prize. (The metal wheel also replaced the carnival wheel in the syndicated version; because it was lighter than the carnival wheel; it also spun quite a bit faster, making it even harder for the contestant to concentrate.)

[edit] Celebrities

Celebrities from that time appeared on the show such as:

• Nipsey Russell – the "Poet Laureate of Television", who occasionally presented some of his poems;
• Bob Eubanks – sat by host Ober for the entire main game, and "coached" him on how to host a game show;
• "Weird Al" Yankovic – came into the basement as a category/channel. In addition, he also "tortured" that episode's two losing contestants as they were eliminated. (This was the only time that the backstage portion of the set behind the contestant area was shown.)
• LL Cool J – made a brief appearance in one skit, where Ober stormed off stage to discover the rapper and his brother goofing around.
• Jerry Mathers – appeared during the second half of a season three episode.

Celebrities that played the game:

• One episode featured Phil McConkey of the NFL's New York Giants playing against Sidney Green of the NBA's New York Knicks (with his then very young son Taurean on the set throughout the show). The third player was the show's bit actor John Ten Eyck playing Steve Sax of Major League baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Ten Eyck intentionally gave foolish, incorrect answers as Sax, who had canceled his scheduled appearance at the last minute.
• In the first syndicated season, "Remote Control" had a "World Class Athlete's Day" with pro athletes who lost out on championships in recent seasons. The three players were Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Boomer Esiason, New York Mets pitcher David Cone and New York Rangers defenseman Ron Greschner.
• LL Cool J, Julie Brown, and "Weird Al" Yankovic played for charity during the second season.
• Heavy metal musicians "Dizzy" Dean Davidson of Britny Fox, Lorraine Lewis of Femme Fatale, and Anthrax's Charlie Benante played against each other in season three.
• Former child stars Brandon Cruz, Butch Patrick, and Danny Bonaduce played in season three.
• Former Brady Bunch actors Barry Williams, Eve Plumb, and Susan Olsen played in the first syndicated season. This episode led to a writing partnership between Williams and Remote Control head writer Chris Kreski, who co-authored the best-selling Growing Up Brady biography.
• The Red Hot Chili Peppers were contestants in the final MTV season.
• Kathy Orr, Chief Meteorologist for KYW-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, appeared on the show as a regular contestant.

[edit] Foreign versions and attempts

• A version based in Puerto Rico, entitled Control Remoto, was cancelled after 3 months on WAPA-TV because MTV threatened a lawsuit for copyright infringement.
• A British version of the show was co-produced by Action Time Productions and Granada Television and aired on Channel 4 from 1991 until 1994. It was hosted by Tony Wilson and featured comedian Phil Cornwell, with guest appearances by the character Frank Sidebottom.
• An Australian version aired on Network Ten in 1989 under the name The Great TV Game Show. It was hosted by Russell Stubbs with Jane Holmes and the regular panelists were Russell Fletcher, Margie Nunn, Linda Gibson, and Michael Blair. The show failed to see out the year along with a number of Network Ten game shows that were launched at around the same time.

[edit] Video game

• In 1990, a video game based on Remote Control was licensed for multiple platforms, including the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Apple IIgs. The video games were published by Hi-Tech Expressions.^[1] The game remained quite similar to the show, although the NES version has no end game.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Basement: An Online Salute to MTV Remote Control
• A collection of Remote Control video clips from Kari Wührer Online
• Xanfan's Remote Control Page
• Remote Control at the Internet Movie Database