This Nostalgic Life #48
I Want My MTV
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Welcome to another edition of This Nostalgic Life. This time out, we’re sharing some thoughts and memories about the classic cable TV channel MTV. Actually the word ‘channel’ doesn’t do it justice. MTV was an experience, and we’re excited to share some thoughts with you, so let’s get to it!
The Early ‘90s Were Peak MTV
by Mick Lee
Don’t @ me bro.
I know that heading of “The Early ‘90s Were Peak MTV” is going to instantly make some people reading this angry. I get it. A lot of you grew up with MTV in the ‘80s, and want nothing more than to return to a time when MTV was strictly music videos.
But I didn’t grow up with MTV in the ‘80s. My family didn’t get cable until 1988, and even then Mom still regulated a lot of what I watched on television, and MTV was taboo. She thought rock and heavy metal music was the work of the devil, and she also wasn’t sure about rap either.
But as the ‘90s dawned and I was just a little older, she loosened up some and I started watching more MTV. Also, I was just not that into music in my early years, so sitting around watching music videos all day just didn’t interest me. Now this could have been a case of the chicken and the egg. I didn’t miss watching music videos all day because I didn’t care a lot about music, but on the other hand, maybe I would have been more into music if I could have watched music videos all day long. Who knows.
Either way, by the time I was getting into MTV, they were starting to broaden their horizons beyond just showing music videos, and were starting to add other programming. And this is the era that I thought MTV was hitting on all cylinders. It was the “three ring circus” theory in full effect. If you don’t like the elephants, maybe you’ll like the trapeze act. Or in a more applicable way, if you don’t like Headbanger’s Ball, maybe you’ll like The Real World.
When I was really into MTV in the early ‘90s, there was a great mixture of entertainment. There was The Real World, House of Style, MTV Sports, MTV News, all of the Spring Break stuff, the Beach House, animation hits like Beavis & Butthead and Daria, the late night Liquid Television, and more. I also don’t want to forget the sports specials under the “Rock & Jock” branding like the basketball and softball games. But there was still plenty of music videos as well, and a wide range of music with numerous shows dedicated to specific genres.
And it was in this time period that I feel like MTV had the tightest knit “ecosystem”. Meaning that everything on MTV was geared to getting you to watch more MTV. There were constant cross-overs between shows, advertising for shows on other shows, every host talking about the same events, and more. Maybe you might not have been a big rap fan, but you tuned into Yo! MTV Raps because they were doing something special as a part of a Spring Break event and you didn’t want to miss that. Everything on the network fed into each other, and the whole ended up being greater than the sum of it’s parts. Back then, I rarely changed the channel from MTV.
At that time, while there certainly was a lot of programming other than music videos on he channel, music and music videos still made up 70% or so of the daily schedule. I think it was a nice balance. And this next statement may really rile some folks…if the music videos were more popular and got better ratings than the other stuff, then the other stuff wouldn’t have eventually taken over the network. It’s a pretty cut and dry case that the “other” programming made them more money.
In saying that, I too lament the loss of MTV as being truly music television. Give me back the days when Kurt Loder was downloading the news to us in commercial breaks, Cindy Crawford was dishing up the latest fashion trends, stars of music, sports, and TV were battling it out on a basketball court, Beavis & Butthead were making us laugh at crude humor every evening, and we could still see all of the latest music videos set the hottest tunes of the day. And we could rest easy at night when we left the TV on playing MTV all night long to be the soundtrack of our dreams.
MTV had several great eras, but the early ‘90s was my favorite, and what I think of when people start talking about and reflecting on MTV.
Five of My Favorite MTV Memories From The 80’s
by Eric Vardeman
I won’t waste time responding to Mick’s silly little statement about MTV in the 90’s other than to say…
Pfft.
I was twelve the first time I watched MTV. I was spending the night with a friend one Friday night and I remember him saying “hey, wanna watch MTV?” We were hypnotized by it for hours. My family didn’t have cable so, early on, if I wanted to watch it had to be at a friend’s house. My parent’s eventually sprang for cable and made an attempt to keep me from watching MTV but, like their attempts at keeping me from rock music, it was a hopeless cause. I have so many memories of things I saw on MTV when I was a teenager: Spring Breaks, the first VMA’s (the Madonna show), movie premieres, “Home Sweet Home” being retired from Dial MTV, watching Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora create the “Unplugged” sensation. I tried to narrow down all my memories to the top three but that was way too difficult. So, here are FIVE of my favorite memories from the best years of MTV.
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video.
Friday, December 2nd, 1983: the Thriller video debuts on MTV. It was on every four hours that first day. The first airing I could watch was at 6pm, right after dinner. It took my parents exactly two and a half minutes (the point where Michael begins his transformation into the beast) to order me to turn the TV off and forbade me from watching it. About thirteen minutes later, my friend Jeff called. "DID YOU SEE THAT?!" No, Jeff. No, I sure didn't. I had to settle for waiting till the next day when I could go to Jeff's and watch the video. I saw it twice that day and, like every single other human being that had seen it, I was mesmerized. Apparently my parents weren't the only ones bothered by video content because, within days, Jackson's camp had to add a disclaimer at the beginning disavowing the occult.
A "Making of" movie is produced for the video and it’s released around the same time. It sold on VHS for $24.95 and includes the full music video at the end. A friend of mine had a birthday in early January and she got the "Making of" VHS as a Christmas gift. Pretty much all we did at her birthday party was watch the music video over and over. Nobody cared, that's how great it was at the time.
Live Aid
The summer of 1985 was the summer of Live-Aid. (I wrote about that summer in a little more depth in issue #3). I had been looking forward to this event all week but the day it aired we had a family day trip planned so I wasn’t able to watch as much as I wanted to live. Before we left, though, I popped a tape in our new VCR, set it on the slowest speed, and recorded eight straight hours. Then, I recorded another four hours on top of that! Later that night, I dragged the VCR to my room and watched on my little 12" television into the wee hours of the of the morning. I was initially excited about seeing Queen and Duran Duran but ended up loving it all. I watched those VHS tapes all summer long. If you’ve never seen any of the coverage you can find just about all of it on YouTube.
“Meta-Lisa”
One day, after school, I was at a friend’s house and, as was usual when were just hanging out, the TV was tuned to MTV. Julie Brown was reporting some tour dates (I believe for Ozzy Osbourne) and she pronounced one of the opening acts (Metallica) as “meta-lisa”. Metallica didn’t have a video on the channel at the time and Ms. Brown was, of course, more Club MTV than Headbanger’s Ball. Everyone off camera in the studio fell out laughing. They gently corrected her and she laughed it off. My buddy and I lost it as well.
I followed Julie when I was still on Twitter and a year or so ago she asked her followers for their favorite MTV memory. I told her that story. She said she didn’t remember it but laughed about it nonetheless. She’s now a host on XM’s “90’s on 9” channel and told me she’d play me some Metallica on the show the following day. And guess what? She did.
I’ve referred to them as “Meta-Lisa” ever since that day.
The Young Ones
For Generation X, MTV was our British invasion. It exposed many of use to British music, culture, celebrity and, of course, British humor. The Young Ones was a television comedy that air in the UK from 1982-1984. It was zany, very crude, and over the top. In 1985, MTV started airing it late on Sunday nights and my buddy, Mike, and I would watch it then laugh our asses off about it at school the next day. Eventually, we would just call each other and watch together while we were on the phone. Very few words, just a lot of chuckling, giggling and snorting.
Most of the episodes had a musical guest and, beyond Madness and Dexy’s Midnight Runner, it was usually artists that Mike and I had never heard of: Rip Rig & Panic, The Damned, Amazulu and Ken Bishop’s Nice Twelve to name a few. I heard and saw Motorhead for the first time on that show and went out and bought their Ace of Spades album soon after.
Someone bought me the series on DVD several years ago and most of the episodes are available on YouTube as well. Mike passed in 2011 and I watch an episode every now and then to remember him. I can still here him chuckling and giggling on the phone…
Carolyne Heldman
Oh, Carolyne. She was part of the second wave of VJ’s and, when I was a senior in high school, was usually on the air right around the time I got out of school. I was smitten. SMITTEN, I say. I spent countless afternoons after school watching MTV just to see her. She also hosted the show 120 Minutes and, even though most of it wasn’t music I liked, I would watch just for her. It was the late 80’s and you couldn’t stalk someone’s social media or Google them so anything we knew about her was by mere happenstance. Sadly, one day, she was just gone.
Fast forward to 2020. Early in the pandemic, I RANDOMLY stumbled across a podcast that she was producing and hosting called “The Virus Diaries” about how the pandemic was affecting New Orleans. It was fascinating and I listened to all eight episodes that summer.
Whether you’re team 80’s or team 90’s, you probably have a memory or two around MTV. Drop your memory in the comments and share it with everyone. Thanks for joining us this week. We’ll be back next week with another issue of This Nostalgic Life!
My favorite memories of MTV had nothing to do with music. I was a huge fan of The State (it's still top of my list of skit shows) and the always bizarre animation of Liquid Television.