Midnight...August 1, 1981....A revolution quitely begins that unknowingly would change how music is perceived and marketed forever. With the playing of The Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star" a new chapter was begun in the history of rock'n'roll. This was the silent beginning of MTV. In the beginning, MTV was just a small little radio station for the eyes on the upper level of the cable box for the first couple of years. Videos were limited. Most of the time only the biggest of the big made them. Kids today don't know of a time without MTV. It's become a permanent part of pop-culture. But in its first couple of years it was just a low-budget home for visual rock'n'roll. MTV in the 80s was totally different from how it's been since the mid-90s. Tons of VJ's have come and gone over the years but the ones that will never be forgotten are the original five that started it all: J.J. Jackson, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, Nina Blackwood, and Martha Quinn. These people just had so much charm. They made you feel at home and didn't just act like a bunch of teen twerps trying to be cool at the mall like most of those that have had VJ jobs on there through the 90s to now. I had heard JJ Jackson's voice before back in the 70s when I saw a movie called Car Wash when I was very small. He was one of the radio DJ's in the movie (he's never seen in the movie..just heard). I never thought Martha Quinn was all that cute though until she started growing her hair out when she made a brief comeback on MTV in 1990.
It was these five people that saw MTV become a permanent fixture like how TV itself did in the 50s. The 80s just wouldn't have been what it was without MTV...and actually the 90s couldn't have been the 90s without it. MTV ushered in the anti-80s grunge and alternative movements with the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana just as it defined the 80s with Madonna and Duran Duran. It's funny, the kids who were born around the time that MTV premiered in 1981 are now probably starting their second year of college.
Even thought Quinn, Blackwood, Hunter, Goodman, and Jackson will forever be the most well-remembered VJ's on MTV there were many others during the latter half of the 80s that I have as much fond memories of as I have of big hair and spandex. Adam Curry had better hair than most of the rock stars' videos he used to play. Big blond mane. He mainly did the Top 20 countdowns on there. Or how about Carolyn Feldman? She was on around the same time as Curry. She kind of looked like a naughty librarian. Quite and unassuming but there was something very sexy about her.
But the one VJ who I never could stomach was Downtown Julie Brown...Oh god, just the memory of her gives me about as bad of a headache as actually watching her did. Man, she was loud. "Wubba, wubba, wubba". She would always announce Bon Jovi as "Bon 'buns' Jovi". Her shtick was obnoxious and got old very fast. Unfortunately, outside of the original 5 VJ's, she lasted on MTV the longest.
Or how about the blonde, gorgeous China Slick Kantner who was on briefly in 1986. She was the daughter of Grace Slick and Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane/Starship and my favorites of them all...Dweezil and Moon Zappa who were featured regularly from late '86 through '87.
Or Riki Rachtman in the late '80s through early '90s who hosted "Headbanger's Ball". 2 hours of hairband and metal videos. He was the owner of the legendary "Cathouse Club" (strip bar) in L.A. and Fort Lauderdale (which Motley Crue immortalized in "Girls, Girls, Girls") I remember turning on Headbanger's Ball around '93 and I knew my kind of metal was just about over...Riki had a fresh new haircut. I wonder what ever happened to him.
And who can forget some of the contests and giveaways on MTV in the 80s? Some of the ones that seem most memorable to me is the time they gave away an actual pink house as a John Cougar Mellencamp promotion. Or in early '85 when they had a drawing for two people to fly on two jets. One with Daryl Hall and the other with John Oates. The promo commercial of the contest showed Daryl and John backstage after a concert counting the money from the concert while eating sandwiches. They propose to each other different bets with the money. John bets that the fly would land on Daryl's sandwich before it lands on his. Daryl says "Nope. No way. Never happen." and then Daryl says "How about if you and me fly in seperate planes, you starting at one end of the United States and me at the other and see who can get there the quickest." John says "You got it. You're on!"..It turned out that Daryl lost the bet. John's plane landed in Oklahoma City before Daryl's did. There was another neat promotion with Hall and Oates in summer of '88 associated with their then-current single "Missed Opportunities". In the promo Daryl and John talks about the 'missed opportunities' in their lives. John's was about missing a chance to meet Elvis when he was a teenager and Daryl's was about the infatuation with his art teacher when he was in school. One of the prizes was that you got to play guitar at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Another fun giveaway they had, also in 1988, was when they were having INXS give away a trailor park in some little small town in Texas I believe. The promo commercial was HILARIOUS. I still have it on videotape..along with the Hall and Oates stuff.
I've often wondered what those people are up to now that won the contest to make Madonna's "True Blue" video in fall of '86..Remember? The version that was shot in black and white and had segments that were made to look like a 50s sock hop?
By the mid 80s, MTV was becoming such a cultural force that it even inadvetently breathed new life into WWF. The World Wrestling Federation received a much-needed boost at the time when Cyndi Lauper was in the company of wrestler Captain Lou and they developed a storyline where Cyndi was accepting a platinum award for She's So Unusual in a wrestling ring and Rowdy Roddy Piper comes along and breaks it over Captain Lou's head. Over the next several months MTV kept viewers up on the latest news from the 'feud'. I can't say for sure but a lot of the theatrics and drama that's so commonplace in today's wrestling seemed to have been perfected during this shameless MTV promotion for Cyndi Lauper. It seemed you heard more about wrestling after that.
Some of my all-time favorite videos from the 80s are:
By '93 there seemed to have been a change in MTV. When Beavis and Butthead exploded it turned MTV's attention away from music to its own special programming like The Road Rules, the Real World, sock puppets, cartoons, and all other types of crap not to do with music. Most of the 'music news' segments would have more to do with movies. It seems like MTV doesn't want to admit that the music scene through the 90s was just a complete bore and they had to fill up their time someway.
Maybe today's kids who are MTV watchers are just more 'deeper' and 'intellectual' than those like me who grew up in the 80s. Maybe todays kids are more interested in today's issues and other people's lives on shows like the Real World while those of us in the 80s just wanted to be entertained and rocked. But maybe that's why the world of the 80s was such a happier, less stress-filled place than how it's been over the last 10 years. I say let's ditch all the bitching and boo-hooing people do on the Real World, ditch the 'issues'...and let's bring out the bigger than life rock stars again and put MTV back on track.
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