R.I.P. Eugene Polley

COMMENTS (7)

• If the late Mr.Polley had known that television would develop into 500 or more channels of talking heads, government brain-washing propaganda, endless Viagra commercials and other crap -he would have included a convenient self-destruct button on that remote!

  Comment by Graham Hill — Tuesday May 22, 2012 @ 1:59pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • I think he was onto something there, making it gun-shaped. That’s an idea whose time has come around again.

    Comment by scifi_fan — Tuesday May 22, 2012 @ 3:00pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • I think you have it backwards; so much chaff and very little wheat requires remote control (Space Command, anyone?) to make quick channel changes.

    If there was a channel showing ONLY what you like (and approved of), there would be no need to ever change a channel.

    Comment by LPB — Tuesday May 22, 2012 @ 3:35pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • For me it’s a bit more twisted. When the President was assassinated in Dallas, I was listening to the radio 35 miles away in Funky Town, in a body cast due to an absurd, nearly fatal football injury — an absolute living hell because I was severely ADHD. Ahh but I also had temporary use of my parents’ portable TV, with a clicker, and it enabled me to indulge in all kinds of imaginary distractions. Then, the reported course of events — much of it “local” — seeing the Zapruder Film before it was sequestered by Time Life, followed by the first ever live televised murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, definitely got my attention and got the remote “control” working overtime during the first ever 24/7 news coverage. Now we have 24/7 replicated over and over. But there’s only so much that’s important to know or otherwise enlightening. The rest is drivel.

    Comment by TopCatUptown — Wednesday May 23, 2012 @ 11:13pm PDT  Reply to this post

• “tv related PATIENTS?” I am thinking more people than that have been hit with a remote.

  Comment by Mark — Tuesday May 22, 2012 @ 2:28pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Polley ranks with the inventor of the ATM as a man who changed society (as well as channels) but probably never benefited from it (viz: “During his 47-year career at Zenith, Polley earned 18 TV-related patents) since the company, not the inventor, gets to own the patents on his discoveries.

  I’ve seen those early pump remotes. You could also jingle keys or coins and change channels, too, because of similar frequency of the “ping.”

  Comment by Santayana — Tuesday May 22, 2012 @ 9:23pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Mr. Polley also bears grave responsibility for our nation’s appalling obesity epidemic by making it unnecessary ever to get up off the couch again.

  Comment by Gordon Cole — Wednesday May 23, 2012 @ 9:19am PDT  Reply to this post