Remote Control (game show)

:For other uses of the term, see remote control (disambiguation).

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Remote Control was a TV game show that ran on MTV for five seasons from 1987 until 1990. New episodes were made for first-run syndication in 1989. It was one of the earliest non-music programs to appear regularly on the music video channel.

Related Topics:
Game show - MTV - 1987 - 1990 - Syndication - 1989

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A version based in Puerto Rico, entitled Control Remoto, had to be axed after only 3 months on Televicentro because MTV threatened a lawsuit for copyright infringement.

Related Topics:
Puerto Rico - Televicentro - Copyright infringement

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It 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 and Denis Leary. Steve Treccase provided music; Marisol Massey (Season One), Kari Wuhrer (Seasons Two and Three), Alicia Coppola (Season Four) and Susan Ashley (Season Five) were the hostesses.

Related Topics:
Ken Ober - Colin Quinn - John Ten Eyck - Adam Sandler - Denis Leary - Steve Treccase - Marisol Massey - Kari Wuhrer - Alicia Coppola - Susan Ashley

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The show's premise was that Ober desperately wanted to be a game show host and set up his basement (at 72 Whooping Cough Lane) as a television studio. The 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 show's set featured a washing machine and cheesy bric-a-brac. The premise, always thin, was dropped after the first season.

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Three contestants sitting in lounge chairs would select one of up to nine channels, each of which represented some topic having to do with pop culture. Sample channels used on the show were "The Jon Bon Jovi Network", "Brady Physics", and "Dead or Canadian". Contestants answered questions to get points.

Related Topics:
Jon Bon Jovi - Brady - Dead - Canadian

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Several categories were performance-driven, such as the beleaguered Fairie Pixie, Sheldon, who would read forlorn nursery rhymes about television shows; "Celebrity Square," a cutrate 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); "Casey's Big Poll," a survey hosted by Ten Eyck imitating radio personality Casey Kasem, accompanied by a burly man in drag as "my lovely wife Jeannie"; "Beat the Bishop," a beat-the-clock challenge that forced contestants to complete math problems within the time it took a man dressed as a Vatican bishop to race around the studio; "The Laughing Guy," a segment in which Ten Eyck would laugh the theme songs to various TV series; "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; 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; or "Sing Along with Colin," in which sidekick Quinn would rasp the lyrics to a song and the contestant had to complete it. Sing Along was easily the most popular channel used on the show. During the fourth season, there was a category called "Wheel of Torture." Allicia Coppola (the hostess at the time) would to spin the Wheel of Torture (with sections labeled "Noogie", "Wet willie", and "Purple Nurple") and Quinn would administer the torture to the contestants. Often, the "trivia questions" in these performance categories were just a means to an end, tacked onto the end of a routine.

Related Topics:
Hollywood Squares - Casey Kasem - Vatican - Denis Leary - Andy Warhol - Adam Sandler - Noogie - Purple Nurple

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There were a handful of "negative" channels in which contestants would be penalized. These included the "Home Shopping Zone," where the unlucky contestant to choose that channel would see a video of smarmily cheerful TV salesman (played by Craig Vandenburgh), "selling" some ridiculous product for a deduction of 10 points (20 points in the first season), and "Around the World with Ranger Bob", where a thick-headed park ranger (played by John Ten Eyck) would offer a camping safety tip for 10 points.

Related Topics:
Craig Vandenburgh - John Ten Eyck

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