MTV turns 25

I've been letting this sit for a week now because I wasn't sure how to tackle this one. I mean I hate what MTV has become and it's fun to bash, but for someone who grew up in a rural small town MTV was THE ONLY outlet for anything outside the mainstream while you were stuck there. Before the Internet and a gazillion cable channels, growing up my options for music were the two shitty top 40 stations and Country music stations. That was it. So to say MTV wasn't influential in shaping my early tastes in music I'd be a big poseur. So yeah I watched a lot of MTV while I was stuck in that small town and pretty much whenever I was stuck in ANY small town. So I'll stay away from the bashing and try to give you some of my MTV highlights. I mean even if I feel that I've outgrown you, it doesn't mean we didn't have some awesome times! So here's Tortilla Chips and Milk's slanted view of MTV's last 25 years. Cue the squiggly lines.
First of all, only half the town got MTV when it first launched, so if I wanted to see the world premier of "Thriller" or "Panama" I had to go to a friends house...oh come on now don't bag on the "Panama" yo, back then Van Halen was the shit!

So yeah, I was deprived every so often of seeing some life changing stuff, like the Duran Duran video with the boobies. I didn't miss everything though. I've mentioned this before, but there was no greater MTV moment than Madonna's "Like a Virgin" performance at the 1984 Video Music Awards. Mix that with pre-teen hormones and that's a memory to last a lifetime. It was when this cabin boy started to become a cabin man. Holy shit that was 22 years ago.


Still, my household was a few years away from being an MTV household. I was a little older and at the time I really didn't care much for the mainstream stuff that they would play. I watched mainly MTV's Closet Classics where they would play a lot of videos from the 60's. I was also a fan of 120 Minutes back then. What was cool about 120 Minutes, was that they would play ANYTHING alternative to top 40 at the time, which meant you could get Siouxie and the Banshees followed by Public Enemy or The Cure followed by the Surf MC's.

It really wasn't until the late 80's that I really became an MTV fan. What really got me hooked on MTV was "Remote Control" the off-beat slacker pop-culture trivia heavy game show, which was more experimental comedy performance piece than anything. You had character driven categories like Adam Sandler's "Stud Boy" and Flip the Laughing Guy who would laugh TV theme songs for the contestants to guess. Also the episode would feel incomplete if you didn't have "Sing Along with Colin" where Colin Quinn would sing off key in his cigarette sanded voice. It really was more like a party rather than a game show. my only regret was that I was too young to get on the show. Here's the intro to Remote Control.


Okay fine, I also watched the show because of the hostess Marisol and later Kari. I always though Marisol was hotter though. My other favorite MTV hotties of the time were VJ's Carolyne Heldman, China Kantner, redhead Julie Brown, not wubba, wubba,wubba, Julie Brown, I'll admit Kennedy had her finer days. Summer Sanders on Sandblast was a hottie as well. I don't think I ever missed an episode. Real World also had it's share of babes. My favorites were Julie and Becky from New York 1, Brynn from Real World Vegas and my all time favorite, Kat from Real World London, who is also in the PLWG Hall of Fame. I've also had a recurring 15 year old argument with a friend of mine who went semi-ballistic when Jon Stewart once introduced Duff as "talented". I think when I see her at New Year's I'll bring it up again. She is too, talented!

With the exception of Remote Control, Yo! MTV Raps as the greatest show ever in MTV history. I think I can speak for a number of suburban/rural hip-hop fans when I say that Fab Five Freddy and later Ed Lover and Dr. Dre when the show went daily, were perfect acessible gateways to rappers back then. The music hadn't crossed over yet and it was abrasive, scary, and just awful if you were whack! Here's a sample of some old school flava.


MTV Unplugged another show on about that time, it had very cool concept at the time, to strip the music down to acoustics. Sure it also begot that Layla bullshit remake and I could live happy without ever seeing L.L. Cool J's coagulated deodorant, again. Speaking of Layla, I was in an Air Guitar contest (performing the CB4 song "Sweat of My Balls") and some asshole did Layla unplugged and sat on a fucking stool with a sawed off broom handle the whole fucking time, he was serious too! What a toolbox! We should given him a Cell Block 4 Gusto beatdown after that. Where was I? Oh yeah, the Nirvana and Pearl Jam sets were probable my favorite Unplugged episodes. I was able to find my personal favorite Unplugged moments, though. The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" because I'll never forget the use of the toy piano. I followed it with De La Soul's "Ring Ring Ring" because that's always the overlooked performance from Yo! Unplugged

...from the soul , De La that is...


The Video Music Awards holds a lot of cool memories for me as well. Here are a few of my favorites, sadly I couldn't find Pee Wee Herman's "Heard any good jokes lately?"

I'll start with my all-time favorite VMA performance. The Red Hot Chili Peppers with "Give it Away". It's just a trip starting with the firecrackers and the onstage pit.

To this DAY I can't believe that "Everybody Hurts" beat out Spike Jonez and the Beasties "Sabotage" for just about every award in 1994. Here's the aftermath if you don't remember.


Um...too many easy jokes for this one...


Here's Triumph and Jennifer Lopez in a classic moment. Man does she look pissed. Whatever happened to J.Lo anyway?


I loooved the Chris Rock era as host. Here's a promo for his first year spooofing the Blair Witch Project. These 30 seconds are more entertaining than the whole flippin movie. It's also probably the last time you'll ever see Method Man, Chris Rock and Jeneane Garafalo share the same screen together.

I was a loyal viewer up until Chris Rock stopped hosting the show. There was nothing cooler than seeing a room full of artists I despised get destroyed by a "top of his game" Chris Rock. Oh yeah Backstreet Boys "We know how this story ends" Here's the clip from 2003 where he ends with a great R. Kelly-Olsen Twins bit.


I won't say much about the Real World, here. I was a fan up until the alpha and omega that is David singing "Come On Be My Baby Tonight." My other favorite Real World Moments were Julie convincing Kevin she was a whore, Anytime Dom was drunk. The episode where Neil bagged Kat and it turned out he had a girlfriend..in London. Cyrus baggin the Masshole chicks. Jason yelling at his off-show girlfriend Timber "I can't believe the way you (let me pause here because I'm a wanna be poet and I have to think of a good phrase with street cred) FRONTED!" The Masshole in Seattle who went psycho over Kira who worked for the show. OF course, Stephen smacking Irene. The blonde earthy chick from Real World Seattle doing a song produced by Sir-Mix-A-Lot. The crazy blonde chick in Real World Hawaii. The GREATEST moment of all time was the make out scene in Real World Chicago that used David's "Come On Be My Baby" tonight as it's back ground music. It was one of those "is that? no way...holy shit, it is...BWAH" moments. I retired from Real World at that very point. Hmmm. Maybe I did have a bit to say.

MTV had its share of great comedy over the years. Ben Stiller's Show was outstanding for it's time. Dennis Leary had a great series of promo spots back in the day. Jon Stewart got his start on MTV. MTV's standup show The Half-Hour Comedy Hour was also the first place I ever saw the aforementioned Chris Rock and Jeneane Garafalo perform. I'm going to save Beavis and Butthead for another time. Special props has to go out to the sketch comedy show the State, which featured two of my favorite sketch characters, Barry and Levon.

special Bonus: Porcupine Racetrack...which just recently was posted. I've been looking for this clip for awhile now. This one's for you Leebs!



Aight, maybe I've been catching a little bit of Sucker-free and Pimp My Ride lately but that's about it. I think my attitude towards modern day MTV is best summed up by one musician's assessment of Cribs. "Why don't they ever show their libraries?"

Aight I'm done, in the immortal words of Ed Lover A B C-YA!

Tags: Music, TV