An American hero is dead

A great American passed away at the weekend. A man who shaped the way this nation conducts itself, symbolises what it stands for and provided an essential tool for living that, on average, each US household has four of.

Ah the remote control...where would we be without it?

Without him, Americans would be a few pounds lighter, some marriages might have lasted longer and those old coins stuck down the sofa would have remained undiscovered, along with dog hair and peanuts from Christmases long ago. I am talking, of course, of Robert Adler, inventor of the television remote control, who flipped channels for the last time in a nursing home in Boise, Idaho at the age of 93.

There is no truth in the rumour his remains were lost somewhere in the couch or that he was cremated and his ashes immediately misplaced. Millions of couch potatoes hit the mute button for a few moments of solemn remembrance. Books called "TV and the Remote Control: Grazing on a Vast Wasteland" and "Remote Control: A Sensible Approach to Kids, TV, and the New Electronic Media" had already examined his legacy.

But really, Bruce Springsteen's "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)" () told us all we needed to know. Except that it's about 300 channels now, Bruce. Adler himself didn't fully enter into the spirit of the thing and continued to be an avid hiker and skier. "First and foremost, I hardly ever turn the TV on," he said in a 1996 interview. "And I certainly never channel surf." His wife said: "He was more of a reader."

On another occasion, he remarked: ""People ask me all the time -- 'Don't you feel guilty for it?' And I say that's ridiculous," he said. "It seems reasonable and rational to control the TV from where you normally sit and watch television."

This seems to me to be the same kind of approach taken by Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of that other gadget that defined the 20th Century - the AK-47 - who shrugs when asked if he feels responsible for the war and death his weapon has been associated with.

Has a remote control ever killed anyone, I ask you say? I seem to remember a story about an obese woman who had to have a remote surgically removed from a fold in her stomach which had grown over it after it got stuck in there. Or perhaps this was an urban myth (aka urban legend).

I'd be surprised if there hadn't been a murder or two over custody of the remote. I know my wife has contemplated it at least a couple of times. But none of this takes away from Mr Adler's contribution to the American Dream - the God-given right to sit around doing sod all but watching crap television and getting fat.

Credit: Telegraph