By Howie Nave

Ken Ober passed away this week. I first heard about it from other comedians on Facebook. The “regular” media ran with the story a couple days after his death on Sunday.

Most people probably know Ober from his MTV show “Remote Control” in the late ’80s, which also introduced his announcer/second banana Colin Quinn to the nation.

Quinn later went on to appear on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and “Tough Crowd” on Comedy Central.

Ken Ober

Quinn was up here this past summer performing at Harrah’s South Shore Room where we opened up for him.

Ober, 52, would later wind up writing for several popular television sitcoms, but I’ll remember him always as a stand up with a great wit.

When Ken was up here visiting Tahoe he stayed over at Kent Emmons place on Kingsbury Grade. Emmons would sometimes let us “borrow” his house and sports car when he was in Los Angeles working for National Lampoon Radio. I still have the keys, too, even though he no longer lives up here.

While Ober was up here he joined me along with comedians Adam Ferrara and Bonnie McFarlane at The Improv backstage cracking jokes and just having a good time being spontaneous. I wish he could have stayed a little longer. It was such a fun week.

Ober was also very generous. When I had my comedy golf tournament for Make-A-Wish, Ober was one of the first individuals to donate items from his MTV show along with some cool stuff for the silent auction we had in conjunction with the tournament.

Later he sent me this classic Beavis and Butthead jersey with a note saying that when my hair stood up it reminded him of Butthead. I wear it on stage over at The Improv and for those special retro events.

Ober loved Lake Tahoe and wanted to get back out again when he had some hang time, which would have been as Butthead might say, “Coooool.” But unfortunately that will never happen.

I went to his Facebook page today and the memories started flooding back with all the nice things that others had to say about him.

Howie Nave is host of the Improv at Harveys at Stateline.