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>>>Our birthday present is a look back at 25 memorable MTV moments:

1. THE DEBUT: August 1, 1981. The first video? The slyly prophetic "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. Only a few thousand people on a single cable system in northern New Jersey could see it. Sometimes the screen would go black when someone at MTV inserted a tape into a VCR. Within a few years, millions of kids demanded their parents buy cable so they could see MTV. Along with CNN, it led TV's transition out of the three-channel world. "This was the fuse that lit the cable explosion," said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University.

2. "BEAT IT": March 31, 1983. MTV had ignored black artists from its introduction, despite the spectacular contemporary success of Michael Jackson's 1982 "Thriller" album and its early singles, "Billie Jean" and "Beat It." By the time MTV got in the habit of showing Jackson -- and others -- "Thriller" had been No. 1 for months and was on its way to becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. ("Beat It" cemented Jackson's broad-based popularity, partly thanks to Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo and the gang-meeting video.) The segregation was MTV's early shame, ironic considering its later role in popularizing rap. And the early snub wasn't forgotten: "You don't have all of music television when you are leaving things out," says Los Lonely Boys singer Henry Garza.


3. "THRILLER": December 2, 1983. Less a video than a 14-minute mini-movie with Vincent Price, ghouls and goblins, the premiere of Jackson's "Thriller" was an event. MTV gave it a set time on the schedule -- several, even. It was the apotheosis of the idea of music videos as an art form. With director John Landis involved, it also was proof that Hollywood's finest weren't looking down upon what are essentially promo clips.

4. MADONNA BUSTS OUT: September 14, 1984. Performing "Like a Virgin" at the first Video Music Awards, Madonna popped out of a cake dressed in a wedding gown and writhed through her hit. At that moment, Madonna became a superstar, put the VMAs on the map and set an enduring tone. Who cares about those ugly "moon man" trophies? What matters is making the audience gasp.

5. "MONEY FOR NOTHING": 1985. The Dire Straits song was about MTV, mocked MTV and became the band's biggest hit because of MTV. It was one of the first videos to feature computer animation, and Sting made a clever cameo echoing his role in iconic "I want my MTV" ads. The rules for music stardom had changed. Being photogenic was now crucial; an eye-catching video made hits. "It was America's first national radio network," says record executive Phil Quartararo.

6. BYE-BYE VJs: Original video jock J.J. Jackson's contract expired in 1985. Nina Blackwood followed him out the next year and so did Martha Quinn, breaking the hearts of countless teenage boys. Alan Hunter and Mark Goodman were next. MTV refused to follow its aging first fans, courting teens instead. It also realized that airing videos was a dead end and began aggressively developing other programming. Those were probably the most important financial decisions MTV ever made.

7. SPRING BREAK: March 21, 1985: College students who couldn't make it south in person could turn on MTV to catch the party. Each year it returns, a drunken bash with young, firm, scantily clad bodies oozing with sweat and undulating to the music. Stop us! We need a cold shower. "There were people who looked like they were having sex on the dance floor," VJ Suzie Castillo says about last year's festivities in Cancun. MTV's spring break coverage arguably gave rise to the "Girls Gone Wild" video series, where the breasts didn't need to be pixelated.

8. RAP BLASTS OFF: August 6, 1986. It's no coincidence that "Yo! MTV Raps!" premiered about the same time rap started becoming the dominant music form for young America. Hip white kids like Rick Rubin or the Beastie Boys may have loved rap before, but "Yo! MTV Raps!" brought it into every suburban living room. "Going from the network that was called on the carpet for not having blacks to this was a huge leap, and it was the right one for MTV," says Christina Norman, MTV's first black president.

9. PEE-WEE'S RETURN: September 5, 1991. It was a hard fall for Pee-wee Herman, from star of one of television's most popular kids' shows to a national punch line when an undercover officer saw him masturbating in an adult theater. Herman went undercover himself for more than a month until creeping out onstage at the opening of that year's VMAs. "Heard any good jokes lately?" Herman asked, to howls of laughter.

10. ENTER GRUNGE: September 29, 1991: Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video killed the hair metal scene and signaled the ascendancy of grunge. The images themselves were an arresting accent, with the tattooed cheerleaders and what seemed like an underwater pep rally in a dank gymnasium. "The band, the sound and the imagery in the video was sort of a breath of fresh air -- or a scream," said MTV series development guru Tony DiSanto.

11. CLAPTON UNPLUGGED: March 11, 1992. Only the most desperate of fading 1980s bands -- Nuclear Valdez, Squeeze, the Alarm -- responded to MTV's first requests to show off their acoustic chops. But fans responded to the intimacy and stars soon lined up: Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen (who got nervous and insisted on an electric guitar) -- and Eric Clapton, in his first performance since his son died after falling from a skyscraper window. "Everybody who was there felt something special was going on," says Van Toffler, president of MTV's music services. Clapton had to be talked into releasing the show on CD, and it became his biggest-selling album.

12. BOXERS OR BRIEFS?: April 19, 1994. Two years in office, President Clinton submitted to 90 minutes of questions on complex policy issues by 16-to-20-year-olds before a live MTV audience. Everything else was forgotten when 17-year-old Laetitia Thompson of Potomac, Md., asked: "Mr. President, the world's dying to know. Is it boxers or briefs?" "Usually briefs," the president replied, looking slightly non-plussed. Today, most presidential candidates use MTV to reach first-time voters.

.13. HEH-HEH. COOL: March 24, 1994: Who'd have thunk that "Beavis and Butt-head" would make the cover of Rolling Stone? When Toffler received a pilot tape of two adolescent cartoon characters playing baseball with a frog, he watched it nearly 100 times. "You have a feeling in your bones that there's something different about it that's unique and it will either flop miserably or succeed brilliantly." It was stupid, gross-out humor -- but many older people secretly wished they could act that way. Creator Mike Judge has since been behind "King of the Hill" and the film "Office Space."

14. REALITY BITES: June 23, 1994. It's hard to recall a time when setting up a group of strangers in a camera-filled home was a new idea. But the 1992 debut of "The Real World" "invented reality TV," says Thompson. "It's absolutely ground zero." And the inclusion of Pedro Zamora, who was gay and soon to die of AIDS, in the 1994 season did more to promote tolerance than hundreds of public service announcements. "It was probably the most riveting piece of television I had ever seen," says Brian Graden, then a young, gay man and now an MTV programming exec. "I had never seen someone like myself reflected back to me ... it really changed things for a whole generation of gay people."

15. FEEDBACK LOOP: April 14, 1998: Jesse Camp wins the first "I Wanna Be a VJ" contest. Stuck in a rut, MTV was searching for some way to make its audience feel connected to the network. The wild-haired, willfully outrageous Camp seemed sent from central casting, and it was the audience doing the casting.


16. TIMES SQUARE LIVE: October 22, 1998. The Backstreet Boys shut down Times Square during a "Total Request Live" appearance. The ruckus cemented "TRL's" role as pop culture's home page, with Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears as king and queen of the new scene.

17. JIGGLE IT: September 9, 1999. When Lil' Kim presented a VMA with a pasty-clad breast, Diana Ross couldn't resist a playful fondle. Lucky Ross wasn't there eight years earlier, when Prince performed wearing pants with the butt cut out. A year later, Howard Stern parodied that look by descending from the sky as "Fartman."

18. TIPSY: October 1, 2000. Thinking about "Jackass" Johnny Knoxville getting tipped over in the port-a-potty still makes you hold your nose. Knoxville specialized in painful on-camera tricks, and "Jackass" quickly became MTV's most popular show. Unfortunately for MTV -- or maybe fortunately if there's no such thing as bad publicity -- many stunts were copied by viewers.

19. MARIAH'S MELTDOWN: July 19, 2001. No one knew quite how to react when Carey made a surprise appearance on "TRL" pushing an ice cream cart filled with popsicles. A nervous Carson Daly kept trying to cut to a commercial, but Carey wouldn't stop talking. She said she had a gift for him -- then took off her oversized T-shirt to reveal a tight tank top and skimpy shorts. A week later Carey was checked into a hospital for "extreme exhaustion."

20. $#@*!: March 5, 2002: Sharrrr-rronnnn! The first bleeped-out swear word on "The Osbournes" premiere was followed by 58 others. For a while, the foggy-headed rocker, his type-A wife and self-involved kids became America's first family, if only for the sheer weirdness of their life. They quickly wore thin -- and were responsible for a rash of dull has-beens who thought their lives would make great television -- but not before Sharon got her own talk show, daughter Kelly a recording contract and son Jack a stint in rehab.

21. DOGGING EMINEM: August 29, 2002: The rap star was in no mood to hear Triumph the Insult Comic Dog chew over his feud with Moby. So when approached by the puppet on the VMAs, Eminem delivered a sucker punch and then flew into a rage backstage. "He was really furious," said MTV executive vice president Dave Sirulnick, "which was startling because here was this guy who built his career on dissing and dishing. And this was a puppet."

22. ASHTON PUNKS JUSTIN: March 17, 2003. "Candid Camera" with an edge, the debut of Kutcher's series "Punk'd" had a crew posing as the "Tax Enforcement Agency" seizing Justin Timberlake's possessions after saying he owed $900,000 in back taxes. The title is now ensconced in the popular lexicon.

23. CHICKEN OR TUNA?: August 19, 2003. "Newlyweds" followed the telegenic Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey as they navigated marital bliss. They truly became famous when cameras caught Simpson confused by whether a can of Chicken of the Sea contained tuna. Presto! America had a new favorite dim blonde.

24. THE KISS: August 28, 2003. It was MTV's idea to bring back Madonna for a reprise of "Like a Virgin" for the 20th video music awards, and MTV's idea to pair her with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. The open-mouthed kiss that she planted on the two young stars? That was pure Madonna, and it outranked the creepy Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley for most memorable kiss.

25. STEPHEN & LC: November 26, 2004. Viewers were gripped by the love triangle on new MTV hit "Laguna Beach," and Kristin's partying on spring break in this episode temporarily cost her her boyfriend. MTV's original idea was a reality version of "Beverly Hills 90210," but they ended up with a reality version of "The O.C." instead. The real-life soap opera breaks convention by unfolding slowly, with none of the reality TV cliches like confessional interviews. "Again," Thompson says, "MTV is two steps ahead."
[Edited 8/1/06 13:36pm]

The most bitter irony of this 25th anniversary is that all of the news, music and entertainment outlets are hailing this a huge celebratory benchmark...everyone but MTV THEMSELVES! The only thing I saw on MTV which acknowledged its 25th anniversary was a one-hour clip show of abbreviated videos which aired earlier this morning. Contrast this with just five years ago, when MTV aired a whole bunch of specials for a month celebrating its 20th anniversary which culminated with a huge concert. It's almost as if they didn't even want people to know that they had any history of showing music.

728huey said:

I knew I wasn't the only one who remembered MTV celebrating their 20th anniversary. They made a huge deal out of that for a good year before August 1, 2001. Today it seemed so anti-climatic. Believe it or not, VH1 Classic was the station doing the celebrating. All day, they showed the videos that aired on MTV's first day. It was called "MTV Day 1". It was really interesting and fun to watch. I think it reairs on August 5th. It's such a damn shame that MTV is now a joke on it's 25th Birthday. It should be so much more than it is, but that's what you get when you have people working behind the scenes who don't have any love for music .

purplecam said:

Preach.

purplecam said:

they might or might not have love for music, but music doesn't pay their bills.

728huey said:

I just was thinking the same thing in a Janet thread...MTV is just messed up. It's sad that they did nothing (well, as you pointed out, there was that "video" show....which was on in the morning!). They should be ashamed and the fact that was no real acknowledment of this shows just how low MTV has gotten. The programmer said in some interview they are looking to the future adn basically said if anyone wants to look back, go online....bitch! I guess it all comes down to money, though, as the article even stated it was finanically a good move to have shows since videos don't bring in the bucks....

purplecam said:

In the end, it was probably a descion from high up and if and when ratings reflect that people are sick of "Lagauna Beach" (and despite what us people over 16 say, they aren't) and do want to celebrate their MTV, those people will be fired and things will change. It's a shame there was really no acknowledgement and things went on as normal....I would hope they make up for it with a great VMAs....but at this rate....

For something that revolutionized music its early days, is now just an afterthough is really sad.


I mean reading some of those events from back when bring back memories ... The first videos, Thriller, The original VJs and even into the 90's with their Unplugged series .

Today its an outlet for crappy reality TV shows.

Oh by the way , they still play full lenghth music videos ...between 4-7 am
[Edited 8/2/06 5:42am]

My thing is this. I'm not against regular programming but they could find a way to get the music of today to be a part of the new shows that they have. Why not have a game show that is kinda like what Remote Control was but in a new way? Why not have videos be a part of the shows that come on? Back in the day with The Real World, they used to incorporate the music that was popular at the time as a soundtrack of sorts with the show. Why not do that again with TRW or some other new show? Just find a way to keep the station in line with it's name, Music Television and I'm not talking about that Cheyenne or Making The Band shit either where they're trying to create a new star (even though it is in line with Music TV). Something that'll make watching videos on TV fun again. That's a little bit of what I'd like to see on MTV.

I am beyond sick of seeing MTV "reality" shows that center around spoiled rich kids.

Tom said:

Me too. What makes them sorry ass kids so special that they need to be on TV, so they can gloat some more? Viacom could create a station for that shit but why does it have to be on MTV? It's all bullshit.
[Edited 8/2/06 8:36am]

Prince's 1999 video was shown on Mtv in Nov of 82 and by the time Michael jackson's Billy jean made it on Mtv they were already playing little red corvette. Why does MJ always get the credit for being the first Black artist on Mtv, when it's not true. Really Eddie Grant was first with rock down to electric avenue and they were playing Gary US Bonds from the start. But when it came to a Black artist from the USA, playing funk or R&B, it was Prince. Musical youth fits in there somewhere as well.

728huey said:

This lists goes downhill from 13 to 25.

purplecam said:

I liked that anniversary better.

potroastpony said:

I was thinking of that recently and I'm glad you mentioned all these other acts too. I always believed that they had to have played a couple of Black artists, just not well known as was the case with Prince in 1982, I think they mention Michael Jackson because he was the first major black artist that everyone knew who had a video on the station. I might be off, hell I might be wrong but that's my theory on it.

TonyVanDam said:

I enjoyed that one too. I was pissed that they didn't mention Prince enough on their shows. He may not have been the most innovative in videos, unfortunately, but he made a huge impact just based on how he expressed himself and his sexuality on screen. Most of these male acts wish they had even a little speck of the charisma and sensuality Prince still has when it comes to videos. But back to the point, the whole year MTV was celebrating was fun. There's nothing wrong with celebrating what made you so special. The people who run things over on MTV are a mess IMO.

potroastpony said:

Notice that they don't say Jackson was the first...they just saw he was a superstar at the time not getting huge help from MTV right away....but everyone that reads that article and the public in general, for some reason, still want to say that Jackon was the very first black artist played, as if the preimere of "Billie Jean" was their very first video....they always get it wrong. I believe Donna Summer even got played before MJ (with her 1982 album...or maybe even "The Wanderer").