"MTV: Best Videos from Day One" Talkback

[Peter Paltridge]

I've got no money, I've got no time....built myself a website, filled it up with bubbly whine...
http://www.platypuscomix.net/videos/top10firstday.html

I hope you enjoy 'em as much as I did. And don't forget, this is only half!

This might be a good time to bring up a subject I know you have something to contribute to: what songs are an indelible part of the sweetness of childhood memories, and hold you prisoner forever no matter how much they stink, because your parents happened to like them and therefore you had to listen to them over and over as a small fry.

Back in the late 80's when life was all play and "Pinwheel" and breezy summer afternoons, Mom always played K103 on the radio every time we ate lunch. K103 still exists in Portland and it's, like I said in the article, full of soft rock and slow love songs--things I can't stand now. Buuut, the following tunes bring back those pleasant memories. Some I still haven't identified. Maybe you can help:

"Ballerina Girl" -- Lionel Richie
This got played nearly every 15 minutes on K103 in the late 80's.

"This is the time to remember, for it will not last forever
These are the days to hold on to, for we won't although we'll want to"
I completely forgot about this one until it began playing in an Albertson's three years ago. Talk about ironic lyrics. Identify this, please....

"Don't Worry, Be Happy" --Bobby McFerrin
Absolutely inescapable in 1988. I don't think it's as bad as some have said; I think if you hate it, you just didn't like 1988 and you're taking it out on the song.

"Live to Tell" --Madonna
The station was wearing this track out at the time I was frequently going to the YMCA to get swimming lessons. Whenever I hear this again, I can still smell the chlorine up my nose.

"Rhythm is Gonna Get You" --Gloria Estefan
"Get On Your Feet" --Gloria Estefan
"Live For Loving You" --Gloria Estefan
"Conga" --Gloria Estefan
"Can't Stay Away From You" --Gloria Estefan
"Words Get In The Way" --Gloria Estefan
Holy %#$@, she was half the playlist. I found all this stuff on a "best of" Estefan CD my stepdad checked out of the library; I was recognizing things left and right. K103 sure did love their Gloria, and playing favorites; a couple years later all you could listen to on the station was Whitney Houston. Thank goodness that's over.

"So aaaaa, ooooo, aaaa, ooooo
I wanna be with you if you will
So aaaaa, ooooo, aaaa, ooooo
I wanna be with you if you will"
Somebody darn better recognize what I'm typing here; I'd like to own this one. Odds are it's probably also from Gloria; it sounded like it, yet it was not on that CD. Be my friend and find it!

......

Honest, that "Arnold" thing was only supposed to be up for one week. I'm aware something like that was not built for a double-week stay at the top. This one just took a little longer than I expected.

[Greg1]

Ah, 1981. Fine year for music. Just after drug rock, just before big hair men who ladies bands.

The mysterious final video, by the way, is "Calling All Girls" by Hilly Michaels.

http://www.hillymichaels.com/

Proper information on Michaels is, well, strangly lacking.

[mobo85]

Music videos haven't died- contrary to popular belief, they frequently appear on MTV, MTV2, and sometimes VH1. However, as you yourself pointed out, you don't really like today's music, which is predominatly rap, so it wouldn't do a heap of good for ya. I'm just rebutting the "why did you let music videos die" comment.

That I Won't Let You Down video is very clever. Good acting.

[J. B. Warner]

Believe me, Mars, I echo your sentiment about today's music - gimme classic rock any day of the week. I don't think I'd even believe there was a time that MTV played good music, if not for articles such as this.

As for songs that have a strong connection to my childhood - most of my earliest and strongest childhood memories come from the mid-1990s, so stuff like the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Hootie and the Blowfish, and Sheryl Crow tend to evoke the flashbacks. Plus, there was that stretch between 1997 and 1998 when my sister was obsessed with the Spice Girls...

[Chris]

I hate hip-hop and country. Here's my taste in music: I have every album Beck ever released on CD, up to last year's The Information. I have every album of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and I have a whole bunch of Beatles albums on CD. I also like Jethro Tull, later Beach Boys (basically from Smiley Smile on), and anything composed by Koji Kondo. I know most of you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about so I'll shut up now.

[Dynamite XI]

Weirdly enough, your list didn't match Wikpedia's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_music_videos_aired_on_MTV). VH1 Classic is wrong. Or Wikipedia.

My theory is, if MTV starts showing nothing but music programming again, yeah, their ratings will drop. But then, if they start showing nothing but GOOD music videos, then maybe the ratings will rise, and they won't have to show marathons of Generic Teeny-Bopper Reality Show to make up for the slack...?

And maybe then, MTV could show marathons about itself instead of using VH1 to do so. I'm just saying...

[Peter Paltridge]

Weirdly enough, your list didn't match Wikpedia's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_music_videos_aired_on_MTV). VH1 Classic is wrong. Or Wikipedia.

It's close enough--most of the videos on the tape are in that list. Only a few aren't. I'm still saying "Calling All Girls" is a first-day video, just to have it there.

[Dynamite XI]

"Calling All Girls" SHOULD have been a first day vid, yes. "Rapture" too. They're both too much fun to leave out.

But I still think it's weird that MTV didn't even commemorate its own anniversary, and that Viacom had to use VH1 Classic to do so.

[J. B. Warner]

"Calling All Girls" SHOULD have been a first day vid, yes. "Rapture" too. They're both too much fun to leave out.

But I still think it's weird that MTV didn't even commemorate its own anniversary, and that Viacom had to use VH1 Classic to do so.

MTV doesn't want its viewers to know that it's 25 years old, since their entire audience is younger than that.

[Peter Paltridge]

MTV doesn't want its viewers to know that it's 25 years old, since their entire audience is younger than that.
Sounds like the same reason Nickelodeon ignores the first generation to grow up with it. "We're not here to make money off adults, so you get nothing from us." Not even the high sales of the licensed Invader Zim DVDs have made them budge.

Of course, both Nick and MTV are the same company.

[Peter Paltridge]

http://www.platypuscomix.net/videos/top10firstday2.html
The second page is up. Unfortunately due to the settings I've currently got on Windows Media Player, I cannot check the videos to see if they uploaded properly. If I switch the settings, then the In2TV website will not work, so I lose either way. This has been a day in which nothing went right, so it's not all that surprising.

The main calamity was that my family decided to gamble on trying out a new restraunt this evening. Has anyone heard of "Claim Jumper"? It's the first one to ever appear in Oregon. If you want my expert review, the short answer is that it sucks, but the longer answer is.....

The menu is considerably larger than at more recurring places like Olive Garden or Red Robin, and had a lot of stuff I've never seen offered from a restraunt. I actually saw meatloaf and potatoes there, and I'm one of the 5 people in the country that loves meatloaf. I rarely ever get it, so I thought "this is great"...until I read the ingredients. Claim Jumper mixes in some...extra stuff. Like veal. Ick. I'm not exactly a vegetarian, but I don't want veal anywhere near my mouth, so that shot meatloaf as an option. I did want to try their biscuits, since I don't have biscuits that often either, but I only ordered them as a take-out, and got a burger and fries instead.

So....take the time you have to wait for a meal at your average eatery and double it. Then, take the price you have to pay for an average-tasting piece of food from a middle-of-the-road diner and multiply that as well. Add to THAT Mom's pickiness. Her first steak had "too much fat." Her second was "too tough." They ended up just giving her a sandwich and she didn't like that either. They were there over an hour. If I were a waiter, I would realize that after the customer isn't pleased with the second attempt, she's probably not ever coming back, so I'd just go for broke, pour cold soup on her head and charge her the full amount. Yet they run a tight ship at Claim Jumper, and the worker bees were kinder to Mom than they could have been.

As for me, Claim Jumper is set near two large malls across from each other, so I split as soon as I was finished. I ran to the Gamestop across the street to browse, but they shut the gates and closed as soon as I got there (at the moment, as if it was planned). I had to settle for puttering around Target, and when I came back, the sun was setting and Mom still was not done.

A smart thing to do before you try a new restraunt is to check out the prices--something my parents never did. The mediocre food cost way more than it tasted. The to-go biscuits amounted to one biscuit. One small biscuit wrapped in tinfoil that cost four dollars.

I saved it for breakfast tomorrow, and I imagine I'll be eating it while my parents stare coldly at me while sharpening axes and muttering under their breath, "This better be the best *%#@ biscuit you EVER ATE..."

I hate pressure.



So tell me if all the videos work, and after that, be a friend and tell me where I can get (preforably free) DVD ripping software that will let you snip out a clip from a DVD recording and convert it to .wmv. This isn't for illegal purposes; it's just that so far I've made every clip on the site by lugging an old VCR to the computer, connecting it via a special box, and playing a VHS recording of all the clips I'll be making. There has to be a cleaner way to do this.

[J. B. Warner]

All the videos seem to be in working order. And I must agree, the pogo stick guy in the "Love Stinks" video is priceless.

Can't help you on the DVD software, though, but I wish you good luck in finding it.

[Greg1]

Just curious, what be this special box for getting videos off a VCR that you are using?

[Peter Paltridge]

It's called "Dazzle" (don't look at me, I didn't name it) and it cost $70. One end has a USB cable sticking out, while the other end has composite video plugs.

That, however, isn't what I use to get screenshots--only videos, since it doesn't provide resolution high enough for decent screenshots. To make SCREENSHOTS, which is what you were interested in last week, I just put the DVD-R in the computer's DVD-ROM drive and take snaps of the picture. I'd like to be able to do this for videos as well....

[Greg1]

Well, for screenshots, I do the exact same thing. The problem being, I have way more article worthy material on VHS then on DVD and I don't have a burner handy.