An Underappreciated Invention That Changed Us

Quote of the day:
“A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.”
--Sir Barnett Cocks

I am always fascinated by hugely influential things that are never celebrated. Especially things that we now both take for granted and “could not live without.”

One of my favorites is a 1956 invention that became ubiquitous in the late 1980s. Merrie and I did not get our first one until 1996.

It has significantly changed life in American homes. There is a very strong likelihood you have one nearby. What do you think it is?

Here’s another hint that may give it away: you probably have more than one nearby.

It’s nickname rhymes with “snicker.”

Figured it out yet? It’s the remote control. As in, “where’s the remote control?”

Research has shown that 90% of questions beginning with “where’s the” end with “remote.”

Merrie and I have seven. And don’t be touching them, or losing them. What would we do then? Life as we know it could not continue.

The days of having to stand up and walk across the room to turn down the volume, change the channel, or adjust the tuning have a sepia-stained quaintness to them. It was back in 1985, after all.

In the late 1930s some high-end console radios had wired remotes, as did a few TVs in the early 1950s.

The wireless TV remote was invented in 1956 by Eugene Polley and Robert Adler, and was an extra-cost option on some TV models through the mid-1980s.

Then it became standard, and our world was changed forever. Or at least our sofa was. There’s a much deeper indentation now.

The world is at our fingertips, and we have to exert no effort. Except, of course, to find the remote.