Ken Ober, comedian best known as the host of MTV’s Remote Control, was found dead in his L.A. home on Sunday. He was found by his son Jason, according to his agent. Born in the Boston, MA suburb of Brookline in 1957, he spent most of his childhood growing up in Hartford, CT. He was a 1980 graduate of UMASS Amherst.

Los Angeles, California (CNN) — Ken Ober, whose MTV game show “Remote Control” was among the network’s first forays into non-music programming, has died at age 52, his agent said Monday. Ober hosted five seasons of “Remote Control,” a pop-culture quiz show that featured contestants strapped into easy chairs to answer questions from categories such as “Dead or Canadian?” The show first aired in 1987 and helped launch the careers of comedians Adam Sandler, Denis Leary and Colin Quinn, who was the program’s announcer. Ober later moved behind the camera as a producer of the Comedy Central program “Mind of Mencia” and the CBS comedy “The New Adventures of Old Christine.”

He was apparently complaining of flu-like symptoms, headaches, and chest pain when he was last heard from days earlier, and some reports suggest that he died of a heart attack.

Ken Ober, I watched your show a lot in the late 80s. I thought it was so so cool how you proved that MTV was more than just music videos.

Here’s a great clip of Remote Control featuring Colin Quinn singing some CCR:

Also, I don’t know if youze guys remember this, but he was the guy on the couch in the Blues Traveler video for Hook, back when John Popper was fat. Towards the end of the video, every time he uses his remote control to try and change the channel, it keeps switching back to Blues Traveler. That sounds like a living nightmare.

Tags: adam sandler, blues traveler, colin quinn, denis leary, died, game show, heart attack, hook, john popper, ken ober, ken oberding, mind of mencia, mtv, remote control, the new adventures of old christine