KenOber

If you were shocked to hear about ABC's 'Downfall,' a game show that drops people off of buildings for our amusement, you clearly don't watch enough TV and lead a rich, fulfilling life.

Television's long and storied history is filled with game and competition shows that pit their contestants in a physical, psychological and gastrointestinal showdown, most of which were lost to the ravages of obscurity. Well, it's "filled" if you only look at the last few years or so when the economy tanked and people turned to humiliating themselves in the national media to keep from having to hunt small rodents for sustenance. That's how 'The View' got started.

These are the shows that not only tortured contestants, but also their viewing audience unless Dick Cheney happened to be watching any of them.

If you haven't seen The Prisoner yet, you may want to skip the first fifteen or so minutes of this podcast, because we talk about the whole damn thing this week. Jason Hughes and Allison Waldman join me to talk about the AMC remake of the British cult classic, as well as these topics:

• After the deaths of Edward Woodward and Ken Ober, why '80s TV suddenly seems so old,
• Soap news, mainly a discussion of James Franco's guest stint on General Hospital,
• Another dip into our Ask TV Squad mailbag, where we discuss the use of laugh tracks and why multi-camera shows are written differently than single-camera shows,
• Our picks for the week, and much more.

Run time is 1:02:55.

You can listen to the podcast below, or download from here or by subscribing to our RSS podcast feed. It is also available via iTunes. Feel free to leave us feedback in the comments or drop us a line at tvsquadpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com.

As usual, the music at the beginning and end of the podcast is "Life" by Justin Trawick. Though I decided to add a small surprise at the beginning, a call-back to an interview I did a few years ago. Hope you enjoy it.

Ken Ober, best known as the original host of MTV's 'Remote Control,' passed away in his Los Angeles home on Sunday.

He was 52 years old.

Ober's death was confirmed by his talent agent Mark Measures. According to Measures, "The last person to have spoken to him was on Saturday morning. No foul play is suspected, no suicide, it looks like natural causes, just no one knows the exact cause yet." It had been reported that Ober had been complaining of flu-like symptoms.