Posted on 07/30/2021 9:03:52 AM PDT by Eddie01
MTV turns 40 this Sunday. Did any adult child not named Lizzie Borden ever disappoint the parents more than the three-letter network?
“We’re the reason you have no attention span,” original VJ Mark Goodman quips in VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave. “And you can pin reality TV on us too. You’re welcome.”
Yet, those first years were glorious.
From “Video Killed the Radio Star” as its prophetic opening to the evangelistic “I Want My MTV” crusade to spread the good news upon recalcitrant local cable companies to its giveaways of a little pink house, a lost weekend with Van Halen, and trip to the continent Asia to see the band Asia (in which the winner allegedly joined the mile-high club with VJ Mark Goodman on the flight), MTV broadcast as the coolest thing on cable when cable was cool.
[snip]
So at what point did MTV go wrong?
When it began in the mid-1980s to pickoff, one by one, the five original VJs? When Remote Control, the first non-musically themed show on the network, premiered to open the door for Singled Out, House of Style, The Real World, Sex in the ’90s, and other mission-creep programming (some, such as Liquid Television, The State, and Beavis & Butthead, quite good)? When the Dog Brothers, Tommy Cheeseballs, Charlie and Sabrina, and various other Outer Boroughs/Garden State-types obtained their 15 Minutes but unleashed decades of MTV looking at people from areas surrounding Manhattan as Margaret Mead looked upon those Samoans? When they hired so-serious, human-buzzkill Kurt Loder? When the network so thoroughly morphed into an auxiliary of Bill Clinton Enterprises that its producers planted questions, e.g., “Is it boxers or briefs?” — on the teenage participants at its manipulated-to-look-spontaneous presidential forum?
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Fixed it.
For Floridians, I’m sure Daisy Fuentes was the girl next door.
Bingo
Tabitha Soren was a real winner reporting the news. As if younger folks wanted to be informed.
I married the literal “girl next door” - darn close to an identical twin of an early Olivia Newton-John.
So I have a soft spot for that “girl next door” thing...
Music TV
Born near me.
I knew she was related to Jane Bryant Quinn - didn’t know the other connections.
Definitely the hottest MTV VJ of them all.
Yea, kinda the wrong demographic. I don’t remember a political spin, but maybe I was too young to give a crap.
I blame David Bowie, he was the first one that started complaining that MTV didn’t feature enough black artists.
I liked the music videos and concerts. I found the VJ’s about as annoying as DJ’s on the radio (could have lived without them and their patter).
>>I want my OLD MTV....................
Build it yourself on Youtube these days. Create a playlist of music videos. press play (or random).
And there will be a LOT of ads (because that is how youtube is these days).
It truly was.
The rest of the lyrics to that song will get you censored.
Watched the Chuck Berry and Buddy Guy documentaries this Tuesday on PBS (first time watching tv in several years).
The ads between programs were for a program on album cover art, the album Rumors by Fleetwood Mac, and some other music related programming. I figure PBS fundraising must be approaching because when they want Boomers to give money to the station they become VH-1 Lite.
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