Universally loved -- and hated

This man probably saved -- and ended -- a lot of marriages.

BOISE (AP) — Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote, Robert Adler, has died.

Adler, who won an Emmy Award with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made the couch potato possible, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said. In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents. He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.

In a May 2004 interview with The Associated Press, Adler recalled being among two dozen engineers at Zenith given the mission to find a new way for TV viewers to change channels without getting out of their chairs or tripping over a cable. But he downplayed his role when asked if he felt his invention helped raise a new generation of couch potatoes.

"People ask me all the time — 'Don't you feel guilty for it?' And I say that's ridiculous," he said. "It seems reasonable and rational to control the TV from where you normally sit and watch television."

True, so very true. Here's to Robert Adler, for whom all true TV fans owe a debt of gratitude.