Bonus video! The messy birth of MTV
Hello there!
I have a video about The Real World coming your way soon, and for this week's bonus video I want to share some fun stories about the very silly origins of MTV -- how a bunch of music weirdos (and a Monkee) hijacked Nickelodeon to prove the idea could work, why they had to take a bus to New Jersey to see their own channel, and how it was initially named some thing very very very different. Plus! The story of how MTV secretly paid for the music video for Thriller without anyone finding out.
Also! I hope you'll join us on Twitch for a watch-along of The Real World: San Francisco, today at noon pacific: http://twitch.tv/mattbaume
Comments (6)
I still like the story of how David Bowie got Michael Jackson on Mtv. And in turn many other black artists on MTV
HBO played music videos a few years before MTV launched. Between movies they mostly did promos, but if there enough time they'd play "Video Jukebox" with one or more videos. That's where some of us saw the Buggles before MTV. They would also play indie shorts like Bambi Meets Godzilla or Hardware Wars, so tween me was tuning in just for long gaps in the HBO schedule.
I think maybe Nickelodeon was probably one of the main thing for the UK too, but wit the BBC has CBBC which is more pre-teen/teenager programmes and two of the most successful was Grange Hill which was a school set soap opera and Byker Grove which was set in a social club. But from about mid-2000s and especially after the 2008 recession these shows and other age related content was one of the first things that was got rid of, which was quite sadly really.
Loved this! The volume was waay low, though.
I watch via YouTube so Matt gets the algorithm. Maybe the volume is louder there?
Ad guy George Lois explains how he created the MTV ad campaign in the documentary 'Art & Copy'. (It's a great doc about the creative evolution of the ad industry. This clip ends right as he was going into the story about how he made Tommy Hilfiger a household name.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAyOcWpm3QU