You're browsing all posts tagged MTV
In case you’re just joining us: I found some old videotapes of MTV’s year-end countdown of their top 100 videos. From 1988. Naturally, I’m working my way through the tapes, writing about each video (and commercial break). It’s taking longer than originally planned, but I march onward, fueled by the power of mullets and Kevin […]
posted 6 January 2010 in 1988. 4 comments
(New to the countdown? Catch up here.)
We head to a commercial break with a fifteen-second MTV bumper: lots of revved-up stock footage from the early twentieth century, superimposed over what appears to be flickering pages from textbooks. There’s a director with a megaphone, an old gramophone, men in hats operating film cameras, an orchestra conductor. […]
posted 2 December 2009 in 1988. no comments yet
I suspect you’re not keeping up with comments on posts from a year and a half ago, but let me share a recent one that was interesting: responding to my rundown of commercial break #4 in the MTV 1988 countdown, “CheezNapkin” informs us that the great animated spot featuring a scientist getting the MTV logo […]
Time to visit the Duke.
MTV replays their promo for “Michael Jackson Sunday”; as you might expect, it plays very differently now than it did a few months ago. “He’s been bad,” says the MTV Voiceover Guy. (A clip from “Bad” plays.) “He’s been smooth.” (A “Smooth Criminal” clip.) “Now he takes his own image head-on!” […]
posted 24 September 2009 in 1988. 3 comments
(If you’re new to the countdown, you can click here to catch up.)
We kick off this commercial break with the spot for MTV’s “Big Bang ’89″ broadcast that we’ve seen three times before. A lot of big hair among the featured acts: Poison, Winger, Daryl Hall, Escape Club, Vixen. But even at age 40, […]
Last year, while sorting through some mildewed videotapes in my garage, I discovered three VHS tapes that contained the complete year-end countdown of MTV’s top 100 videos of 1988, unwatched by me since they were broadcast over the last ten hours of that year. Since then, I’ve been working my way through the tapes, and […]
posted 29 April 2009 in 1988. 4 comments
If you’re new to the countdown: I’m plowing my way through actual videotapes of MTV’s year-end countdown broadcast on 12/31/1988. If you want to catch up from the beginning, you should probably start here.
On a plate, there’s a piece of white bread in the shape of an M. It’s soon covered with a dollop of […]
posted 11 February 2009 in 1988. no comments yet
Onward through the 1988 MTV countdown! (If you’re just joining us and want to get up to speed, click here.)
The commercial break, as usual, starts with a spot for an MTV program: in this case, “The Year in Rock 88.” “Sixty minutes that took twelve months to make,” says Voiceover Guy. We see Kurt Loder, […]
posted 7 January 2009 in 1988. 3 comments
Back in 1988, I videotaped the MTV year-end top-100 countdown. Earlier this year, I unearthed the tapes and started watching them for the first time in two decades. I’ve been gradually working my way through the countdown, dissecting every single clip (and the commercial breaks too). Half a year later, we’re now two and a […]
posted 5 November 2008 in 1988. no comments yet
Interviewing comics can be tricky: some fall back on canned schtick, while others are self-consciously dour offstage. But I’ve interviewed Chris Rock three times in the last five years and he’s never disappointed. Rock’s not a rat-a-tat joke machine; he’s always seemed more interested in answering my questions thoughtfully. He just says incredibly funny things […]
posted 22 October 2008 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet
