Sha na na na, hey hey hey, good bye

Plenty has already been said about this year's unusually high number of celebrity deaths, and especially that of the icons that shaped my particular generation. While the passing of Bea Arthur and Ed McMahon was sad, and the loss of DJ AM and Billy Mays, tragic, the deaths of Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, John Hughes, and Patrick Swayze broke my heart as well as any doubt that my childhood was really over.

So if my youth got buried six feet under this summer, today's news that former Remote Control host Ken Ober died basically spit on the grave. Despite the fact that I've mistakenly been calling him "Ken Olin" all these years, I credit that one show for shaping much of my current interest in pop culture. It ran from 1987-1989 - the same time-frame I attended junior high and spent every afternoon in the TV room. Sitcom reruns and music videos comprised my 4-8 PM shift - the exact topics covered on the show. Unlike any other game shows I'd seen, this was the first that rewarded the couch potato. I couldn't memorize algebraic equations or the Founding Fathers (probably because I did my homework in front of the tube), but dammit, I could excel in TV trivia. I was really fucking good at watching the Brady Bunch.

I wrote a little bit here about my thing with the Brady Bunch. And here about my thing with the TV. Reading back, I think its pretty obvious I used TV as an escape, a latchkey kid looking for a better life outside her front door. And maybe that was the draw of this show. More than just an escape, Remote Control celebrated this inane interest I had, assuring me that in it was some value.