Ah, the Golden Age of MTV, when music actually mattered!
Toward the end of the 80's, MTV began branching out and diversifying its programming, acquiring reruns of The Monkees and the Beatles cartoons, among others, and debuting original, in-house programming. One of the more popular series of the period was their first game show, Remote Control, which served as a launching pad of most of the show's cast. Series host Ken Ober, for example, would later appear in a pair of music videos for Blues Traveler, and acted in the first TV adaptation of the movie, Parenthood. Co-host/announcer Colin Quinn and series regular Adam Sandler jumped, separated by a few years, to Saturday Night Live, and to bigger things. Denis Leary (Rescue Me) was also part of the repertory company.
The downside was that they couldn't hang on to the femme fatale sidekicks. Kari Wuhrer (later of Sliders) joined the show in season 2, sampled below, replacing Marisol Massey. Wuhrer lasted two "seasons" (the show lasted three years) before leaving to pursue a dual career as an actress and a singer (far more successful in the former, obviously). In 1989, Viacom, MTV's parent company, decided to spin off a syndicated, weekly version which aired on weekends, making it eligible to be included here. It aired Saturday mornings in New York, as I recall, with a slightly different format.
Ober passed away several months back, but with MTV having decided to bring back Beavis & Butt-Head, what are the chances of the network hiring someone to front a revival of Control, given its star-making track record? Control signed off for good in 1990, easily MTV's most successful game show. Supersaver87 uploaded this season 2 clip to YouTube:
Rating: A.
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