Far be it from me to criticize the recently deceased, but I couldn’t help but wonder what the world would be like today if not for Robert Adler’s most famous invention.
Who was this 93-year-old man who died last week? What device did he set upon the world, changing us in so many ways?
Well, he was the inventor of the remote control.
Yes, Robert Adler invented the television remote way back in 1956, the year that mankind officially became a collective heap of saggy Jell-O sprawled across the sofa.
I ask again, what would the world be like if not for this invention?
Seriously, think about that. For one, we wouldn’t watch TV. Heck no. Something would come on that we didn’t like, and we’d be too lazy to get up to change it. Instead we would go out and construct monuments or come up with the cure for cancer. Why do you think Egypt’s pyramids were built? They didn’t have remotes! So they stacked chunks of rock.
Think about it: Goodbye Montel; hello society a better place.
Maybe I’m fooling myself. Maybe we would find other sedentary interests to fill our time, like watching leaves grow or exploring the great details on the surface of a pork rind.
Or more likely, someone else would have come up with the idea for the remote control instead. It might not have been as effective. Imagine if TVs came with a trained monkey who changed the channel for us. “No, not C-SPAN, you idiot! I’ve told you I don’t watch C-SPAN.” Or a long wooden dowel with a rubber finger on the tip.
Would TV have evolved to what it is today without the remote control — 160-plus channels? It would be impossible to get through that many standing at the set.
(Amazing to me is that they can invent something like a remote control, not to mention the hundreds of other technological advances the TV has seen over the years, yet they still can’t invent something worth watching.)
Have you ever gotten a hotel room that didn’t have a remote control? The toilet is overflowing, there’s a raccoon curled up in the center of the bed eating nachos and blue smoke is coming out of the air conditioner, but what has you flipping out is there’s no remote on the night table, “I’m calling the damn manager! What kind of establishment are they running here?”
Everything in the world has a remote control now. Some car radios do. At work, even my computer — a Mac — has a remote. Why? I couldn’t tell you. I think it’s for the people who have become so lazy that they refuse to even lean forward to type on keys.
We as a nation love our remote. Why haven’t we put it on a coin yet? Forget presidents and bald eagles. They’re all bald, and couldn’t possibly raise the volume AND turn on the DVD, all while taking a swig of beer.
The old saying that “they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers” no longer rings true. That, too, should be updated to include the remote.
The truth is, we worry that one day the government will put microchips in our heads to track us or at least figure out why we all do our taxes at the last minute, but I’m sure there would be a rush to have remote controls surgically implanted in our brains. People would line up for miles for a device they could control without ever lifting a finger. That’s the epitome of remote control laziness, and perfection — zero energy and effort expended. Victory for society.
Hey, I wonder if there’s a patent on that yet. I should check. Then in 50 years the world could be celebrating me from a comatose state on their living room loungers as the remote control kitchen monkey feeds them an endless supply of pork rinds. Just think of it.