BOBBYCAST - #567 - Bobby on MTV’s “Music” Era Officially Ending + The Video That Started It All + Why It Changed Pop Culture Forever + Most Memorable MTV Moments with Bobby and Eddie

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bobbycast #567

Title: Bobby on MTV’s “Music” Era Officially Ending + The Video That Started It All + Why It Changed Pop Culture Forever + Most Memorable MTV Moments with Bobby and Eddie
Date: January 9, 2026
Host: Bobby Bones
Guests: Eddie, Mike

Main Theme:

In this reflective episode, Bobby Bones and friends look back on the transformative influence of MTV, marking the quiet but definitive end of the “Music Television” era as all dedicated MTV music channels officially sign off. Through personal stories, pivotal pop culture moments, and a chronological walk through MTV’s evolution, Bobby and Eddie celebrate MTV’s influence and share their most vivid memories, underscoring how MTV both shaped and mirrored generational shifts in music, media, and celebrity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

MTV Officially Ends Its Music Channel Era

• Announcement Context:

  • At the end of 2025, MTV shut down its last remaining 24-hour music video channels—MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, MTV Live—effectively ending its original purpose as a music video network ([02:00]).
  • The “MTV” brand and flagship channel continue, but strictly as a home for reality and non-music programming.
  • Bobby:

    "MTV, the channel isn't going away, the brand isn't going away, but they're just not showing music anymore." ([01:40])

• How MTV Could Sign Off:

  • Nostalgic suggestion: MTV could have commemorated by rebroadcasting its original historic lineup, starting with “Video Killed the Radio Star,” to mark the end.

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The Triumvirate of MTV’s 1980s Pillars

Bobby provides an in-depth look at the three artists who defined MTV’s cultural trajectory.

Michael Jackson

• Groundbreaking with “Thriller,” revolutionizing the music video as an art form with cinematic scope, length (14 minutes!), and production quality.
• Key mover in helping break racial barriers on MTV, which had previously excluded Black artists.

• Bobby: "Thriller has a spoken dialogue which is wild now, but at the time groundbreaking... This was a big deal for the label too, to pay that much money towards this project when there really hadn't been a project like this..." ([06:00])

• “Thriller” made visual creativity and storytelling the new (and, for a while, unattainable) standard.

Madonna

• Understood the media and audience engagement before social media, harnessing controversy (“engagement through tension”) for sustained cultural relevance.
• Example: “Like a Virgin” performance at the VMAs set off a firestorm—deliberate, not impulsive.

• Bobby: "Madonna showed MTV and America and the world how to weaponize being provocative. And once that was clear, I think a lot of other artists saw it, emulated it, tried it..." ([11:30])

• Madonna wasn’t shaped by the industry; she shaped her own narrative.

Prince

• Multidimensional artist who couldn’t be neatly categorized; insisted on creative freedom.
• Forced MTV to allow for strangeness and boundary-pushing rather than polish.

• Bobby: "Prince did not make MTV cooler. Prince made MTV more flexible." ([16:10])

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MTV in the 1990s: Expansion and Personal Impact

Bobby’s Story: Bringing MTV to Hot Springs

• Bobby led a successful grassroots effort to get MTV added to his local cable provider in Hot Springs, AR.

  "I got MTV added to the cable system where we lived... I took it to the cable company and they added MTV." ([20:00])

• Discovered the larger world of music and pop culture through MTV in his late teens.

Defining 90s MTV Experiences

• VJs of the era: Carson Daly, Dave Holmes, Kurt Loder, and Jesse (wannabe VJ winner).
• Key Shows and Formats:
  • MTV Unplugged: Stripped-down performances revealing authentic musicianship (especially Nirvana’s Unplugged; Bobby’s all-time favorite MTV performance) ([41:00]).
  • TRL (Total Request Live): Teen-driven music video countdowns, made fandom “visible” by gathering crowds outside the studio window.

    Bobby: "The amount of people that would line up outside and just watch. Piles and piles of people." ([27:03])

  • Reality TV’s Genesis: The Real World: Template for later reality TV.

    Bobby: "The Real World... created the template for the next 30 years of reality television." ([41:40])

  • Boy Band Revolution: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, 98 Degrees, etc., all broke via MTV and TRL.

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MTV in the 2000s: Reality Takes Over

• Music programming fades, replaced by reality juggernauts:

  • Jersey Shore, The Hills, The Challenge (spinoff from Road Rules/Real World), Ridiculousness (24/7 meme videos), etc.

• Generational Shift:

  • For younger listeners (like guest Mike), MTV is remembered primarily for reality programs, not music.
  • Shows like Jackass, Viva La Bam, The Osbournes, and Ridiculousness define their MTV experience.

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Notable “MTV Moments” & Stories

Bobby and Eddie's Top MTV Memories ([22:57]–[47:00])

• Bobby:
  1. TRL (“Watched every day”)
  2. Tom Green Show (“Craziest, coolest, funniest dude ever”)
  3. Specific video memories (Stained with Fred Durst’s “Outside”; Backstreet Boys’ "All I Have to Give" and dancing the “chair dance” with his roommate; Limp Bizkit’s “Faith” video)
• Eddie:
  1. Exposure to MTV through cousin’s house; earliest memories are 80s hair metal (Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again,” Twisted Sister) ([23:12])
  2. Beavis and Butt-Head (“Parents did not want me watching Beavis and Butthead… I would go to my cousin's house…”) ([27:35])
  3. Seeing TRL live in NYC, post-9/11, experiencing Times Square crowds and Carson Daly in person ([31:06])
• Mike:
  • MTV as home for reality content — Jackass, Viva La Bam — not music.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On MTV’s Cultural Power:

  “MTV didn't tell people to care. It actually showed us watching at home that other people actually cared about.” — Bobby ([21:05])

• On Real World’s Impact:

  “No scripts, no prizes, no competition, just people living together and being uncomfortable on camera… and that awkwardness turned out to be the point.” — Bobby ([21:53])

• On Madonna's Strategy:

  "She wasn't trying to shock for the sake of shock. She was trying to create conversation because she knew that getting talked about was currency." — Bobby ([09:46])

• On Bringing MTV to His Town:

  "That was the first thing that I ever did that was, I would say newsworthy… I kind of have a voice. And not a physical voice, but a voice that can actually take people that have like minded ideas, combine them and make change." — Bobby ([18:20])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• MTV’s music era ended / overview: 00:50 – 04:20
• In-depth on MJ, Madonna, Prince (80s Pillars): 04:25 – 18:15
• How MTV changed pop culture, Bobby’s personal story: 18:17 – 22:00
• Bobby & Eddie swap MTV memories: 22:57 – 47:18
• Beavis & Butt-Head, Tom Green, Headbangers Ball discussion: 27:35 – 31:00
• TRL in NYC—Eddie’s firsthand story: 31:06 – 35:30
• Early 2000s reality TV and the fading of music videos: 44:04 – 45:50
• Max Headroom segment (MTV's quirkiest moments): 47:26 – 51:29

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Memorable, Fun Facts & Anecdotes

• Goo Goo Dolls' “Name” was inspired by MTV VJ Kennedy, after a brief flirtation with singer Johnny Rzeznik ([39:30]).
• Lunchbox bought chairs from the Real World Austin house after production wrapped ([43:37]).
• Bobby petitioned his Arkansas town to get MTV on local cable, with actual Walmart signature drives ([25:19]).

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The End of an Era – Bobby’s Epitaph for MTV

"Well, Rest in peace. To MTV... The brand is not dead, but they don’t show music anymore.” — Bobby ([47:00])

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Conclusion

This episode is an affectionate, thoughtful send-off to MTV’s revolutionary role in music, video, and youth culture, from the seismic debut of music videos to the reality TV age. Through personal tales and pop history, Bobby and friends illustrate how—long before social media—MTV first connected teens and artists into a shared cultural experience. With humor and insight, they document why, even in its diminished state, MTV’s story remains a monument to pop culture, artistry, and generational memory.

Transcript

[Bobby]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human country fans. Austin is calling you. The iHeart Country Festival presented by Capital One is back with an unbelievable lineup of country superstars and eligible Capital One cardholders get VIP treatment, early access to tickets, plus the chance to grab an access pass for a private pre show hang with one of the performing artists. Tickets and access passes drop Tuesday, January 20th for 4:48 hours only or while pre sale supplies last. Get excited and get all the [e-mail] Capital One. Another episode of the Bobbycast where we'll talk about MTV and kinda the end of mtv. At least if you read the headlines, it's the end of mtv. But all only sort of and it ended quietly. No big farewell special, although it would have been cool had they done one no countdown I did see, I think it was someone from Dan Patrick's radio show say that they thought it would be cool that since MTV is ending and we'll get to what that means in a second. If MTV just started from scratch airing the very first video they ever played, which is video killed the radio star, even on a stream and they just ran it back as it aired, really no commercials. So it would air a little faster this time if you cut out the commercials, I mean probably what, 15% faster. But just randomly, if you went over to the stream, you would see what was airing on this date in 1987, this date in 1996. I think that would be pretty cool. I don't know that it would really warrant a full channel, especially because of what you're going to hear about next. But MTV is over. And at the end of 2025, MTV shut down its last remaining 24 hour music video channel worldwide. Whenever I saw that MTV was ending, I thought they were just changing the network because I think Paramount used to be Spike, used to be comedy, those networks on cable and less and less of us use cable as much now because there's so much streaming, there's so much YouTube TV, there's, you know, all these different things that it's. It's rarely just flip the channels like it was in the old days. But mtv, the channel isn't going away, the brand isn't going away, but they're just not showing music anymore. So MTV Music, MTV, 80s, MTV 90s, MTV Live, all gone. And so that's it as far as MTV, the M& music, meaning music television. There's no more music. So the brand still exists, the main channel still exists. But MTV has a place where music videos live on television. Completely over. Now if we go back and just do a little bit of history and what we're going to do in a few minutes, as well as Eddie and I are going to talk about our personal memories of MTV in the eras that we grew up. So that'll be fun. But I kind of wanted to walk through a little history here. MTV launches August 1, 1981. The first video is Video Killed the Radio Star. I think when you look back at history, you think that song must have been huge. The song wasn't that big at the time. It's now a, you know, trivia answer. You know, what was the first video ever played on mtv? And the band was the Buggles, but that song was kind of played as a testament. The videos were killing audio. That didn't quite happen, obviously, but it did force artists and songs to be more three dimensional, to either embrace the visual or get left behind. Artists and labels needed to now focus on not just making good music, but also branding the artist and branding the visual. So labels had to now invest millions of dollars on the things that we could see. The videos, the production, the hair, the makeup. So there are multiple ways now to break an artist that there really wasn't. But also it costs a lot more money as well. MTV in the 80s started gaining momentum and it started in 81. But I would say around 83, 84, it really popped because you got to remember too, it wasn't on everybody's cable and not everybody even had cable back then. So it was very much a slow process to get MTV. But around 83, 84 is when it really started to become a cultural phenomenon. And if I were to assign artist pillars to this era, it would be three artists. Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince. Now, they were the pillars then, not just because they were super popular. They were. I mean, there were plenty of artists that were popular, but because they had, I would say, a deeper, a more rich vision as artists, because they were already not just singing into a camera. I mean, they were already doing three dimensional art. So Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince. And we'll start with Michael Jackson. When Michael Jackson put out Thriller, it wasn't meant to just be played in a three minute clip in between two other videos. It was not your standard video. Nothing about it was standard. There really wasn't a super standard because music videos hadn't been around a long time, but because they were all figuring it out, they were all pretty much the same. You just got on a microphone and you sang in front of the camera. And sometimes you cut Shots. But Michael Jackson put out thriller. It's 14 minutes long. Thriller has a spoken dialogue which is wild now, but at the time groundbreaking. There was actual, like acting. Music videos were new at the time. Spoken dialogue just wasn't done, especially between folks. Sometimes, I guess the artist would talk to the camera just for a couple seconds before the video started. But this video also had a full storyline. It had movie level makeup. It was directed by John Landis, which again at the time is something else that was completely absurd for a music video. That just wasn't how that worked yet. Music videos, again, quick play the song cheap. Basically commercials. Thriller did not feel like a commercial for many reasons. The length, the artist, the financial investment, which I mentioned earlier in things that did not involve simply music. I mean, this was a big deal for the label too, to pay that much money towards this project when there really hadn't been a project like this that had been successful ever. So it was big for Michael Jackson, it was big for Thriller, it was big for the record label, it was big for the art, but it was also big for black artists. Early MTV had avoided playing a lot of black artists. And they would use excuses like, it doesn't fit our format. That excuse kind of stopped whenever Thriller hit. And not because of a moral awakening, but because ignoring it would have been bad for business. After Thriller, music videos weren't just background noise somewhere, but there was a level that you could reach if you invested in your art and your creativity and financially. And these videos were now part of the identity of the artist. That the video created a standard. That video created a standard. I hate to say the word standard again. So I would say more than a standard, because a standard is something that other videos now meet and no other videos really met it. But the new standard was if you're gonna make a video, people expect vision, art, something more than just lip syncing the song. So I apologize for saying standard four times because it was more than the standard, it was the ceiling. The next pillar is Madonna. Madonna understood something very early that a lot of artists get now because we have social media and we've been able to see it through trial and error. And you can just fire off a lot of things because social media is easy and you're connected with people immediately. This wasn't the case back in the 80s. What Madonna got was how engagement works now. You couldn't, you know, hit reply to her music video, but a lot of engagement because people would send letters in. There was a tension that was felt from Madonna's Music videos. And she knew that. She knew that tension was rewarded. Madonna, 30 years ago, over 30 years ago, understood that MTV rewarded tension. And that's what people now do all the time. I mean, it's really how you rage. A bait. I mean, that's just tension, right? It wasn't approval she was looking for. She knew that she would get it from some, not from others. But it was tension that she wanted. So, for example, she performed like a virgin at the VMAs in a wedding dress. And that. That irritated a. A lot of people. She was rolling around on stage in it. And this was not impulsive. She didn't just throw on the dress right before and. And think, well, I wonder what will happen here? Because it wasn't reckless. It was very deliberate. She wasn't trying to shock for the sake of shock. She was trying to create conversation because she knew that getting talked about was currency. It made parents uncomfortable. It made critics loud one way or the other, either saying they didn't like it or saying they loved it and that the people that didn't like it were just old and out of touch. And it kept kids interested in one of the music, and if not the music, hopefully her. And if not the music or her, just interested in the controversy that it brought. And that combination was powerful. You know, before Madonna, a lot of female artists were shaped by other people. And this still happens today, some as well. But before Madonna, labels would tell a lot of the female artists who they needed and who they would be. Producers would do the same. The expectations were often, we need a female artist to be this kind of person, so we will make you to be this way. Madonna flipped that dynamic. She wasn't reacting to the attention. She was more directing the attention, like purposely creating it. The sexuality wasn't accidental. The religion wasn't a decoration. It was all about control, and it was all about her controlling the narrative. She showed that if you could be controversial and also still put out quality product, that she and the next artist could actually be, let's say, steering the car. MTV did not make Madonna provocative. Madonna showed MTV and America and the world how to weaponize being provocative. And once that was clear, I think a lot of other artists saw it, emulated it, tried it, some successful, some not. I think there are a lot of artists that have been heavily influenced by Madonna. Lady Gaga is one. I think Lady Gaga is definitely her own person. But it's, you know, she walks on the shoulders of the giants who got her there. So Madonna would be pillar two, and I Mentioned Prince at Pillar three and when I was coming up with reasons why Prince was a little harder one. I gotta say, all these artists made great, great music. Now you don't have to like their music, but they all made great decades genre lasting music. The thing about Prince is he never really explained himself. Prince wasn't a single genre. I mean, if I were to go, what genre is Prince? You could say pop. But if you're a fan of musicianship, you don't put him in that because he's one of the greatest musicians, like with an instrument of all time. I mean, there was rock for sure, there was pop for sure, there was funk. He was a singer, he was a performer, he danced, he was a lead guitarist, he was masculine, he was feminine. So where do you put him? He didn't care, just know his name and then know the name that he wasn't once he changed his name. But that's a whole different story. In the end, Prince just made great music. He didn't care to be understood. He didn't ask to be assigned to a certain genre. He was put in a lot of them, but he just cared to make art. And because his musicianship was so strong, MTV couldn't edit him into something that was more digestible. They had to let him be strange, they had to let him be uncomfortable, they had to let him be brilliant, they had to let him be purple. That sent a message to other artists that were watching. If you're good enough, you don't have to sand yourself down. I think Prince, had he just been a guitarist, would be one of the greatest guitarists of all time. But because he was so much more, he's not even really lumped into that conversation. Because he was such a great songwriter, great performer, just great artist, but just his guitar skills alone. I think Prince is one of the greatest guitarists to ever play. There is a video, I believe it is Prince and Tom Petty and a lot of artists playing while my guitar gently weeps. I'm pretty sure that's the video. If you look that up on YouTube and you watch it, I think you'll be blown away. And also you can just look for other artists talking about Prince being a guitarist. And they all say the same thing, that he's one of the greatest guitarists to ever live. Prince did not make MTV cooler. Prince made MTV more flexible. And why those three Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince matter together. Michael Jackson showed that visuals could hold attention longer than just sound. And MTV was already trying visuals, but like real dedicated, invested in visuals. Madonna showed that Image could be intentional and controversial and not accidental. And Prince showed that expression didn't have to be explained to be valid. And a lot of expression you would assign to how you were feeling because you wouldn't know exactly why he was expressing that. But you still resonated. It still resonated with you. That was MTV in the 80s. That set it up for the 90s. This is when I watched it the most, obviously. I remember once when I was in Hot Springs, I think I was 18 or 19 years old, the cable network that we had, I don't remember the name of it, they didn't have mtv. And I think one of the first, if I do finger quotes, stunts that I ever did as a radio personality was I got MTV added to the cable system where we lived in Hot Springs because they didn't have it. And I'm not sure if it's because Hot Springs, Arkansas was very traditional. They didn't care for mtv. They didn't care about the values of mtv, rock and roll, hip hop, because we did have cmt, but we did not have mtv. And I created a petition and had thousands of signatures in a small town of Hot Springs, Arkansas. And I took it to the cable company and they added mtv. I haven't thought about this in forever, but that was the first thing that I ever did that was I, I would say newsworthy. It's not really newsworthy, meaning it wasn't of like significant value. But it did make the news. And it was one of those first early things that I did where I thought, dang, I kind of have a voice. And not a physical voice, but a voice that can actually take people that have like minded ideas, combine them and make change. And that's when I started watching MTV, my VJ class. And I didn't talk about this in the 80s because I didn't. I know them now a little bit, but I didn't watch it in the 80s. Mine in the 90s were Carson Daly and Dave Holmes and Kurt Loder would do the news. And Jesse, I think Jesse won the wannabe VJ competition and Dave Holmes finished second. When I think of the 90s, I think of MTV Unplugged. I loved the series. It might have even started in the 80s, I don't know. I watched almost all of them in the 90s. TRL. I would be in college and I watched TRL most days. And maybe I was a little too old for trl, but it wasn't like I was a big winner anyway. But I watched all the TRL I think of the boy bands. When I think of MTV in the 90s, obviously the boy bands, Backstreet Boys, NSync, 98 Degrees, LFO. They launched so many of those careers. And I'll add Real World because of its significance. Even though I never really watch Real World, I was never a massive fan of. And maybe because I just worked a lot, I didn't have a chance to watch shows that I had to keep up with because it's not like we had DVR back then. So I think I just didn't keep up with it enough. But I'll mention Real World. So my three would be MTV Unplugged, trl and Boy Bands. But I'll add Real World because it was significant. Let's do MTV Unplug first. Why it was amazing to me is because it slowed things down. And that doesn't sound super radical now, but at the time it was no effects, no dancers, no quick cuts, just artists sitting down, playing songs for the most part that people already knew, and sometimes exposing parts of songs not only lyrically, but the meanings in a way that it wasn't super obvious before. And you could hear mistakes, you could hear nerves, you could hear how good someone actually was. And that mattered in the 90s because image was everywhere. Videos were polished at this point. Performances were tight, everything felt produced. MTV Unplugged cut through that. My favorite MTV Unplugged album ever is also one of my favorite albums ever, period. It's Nirvana Unplugged and more about that later. If I go over to trl, which is Total Request Live, it does sound simple. Now, when I was making notes about it, it's a countdown. Fans vote. Videos go up and down the list. But at the time, it felt live in a way that TV rarely did back then. And you watched it after school. For me, I watched it in the middle of classes. I was in college in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and I would go back and I would watch trl. I was also working at a pop radio station at the time. And I don't want to have an excuse because I like trl. And a lot of times it was the only way I knew what these artists looked like, especially the ones that were just launching. And, you know, you talk to other people who watched it at the same time. You talk about who hit number one. And maybe I just think of me doing that because I would go on the radio and have to talk about this stuff. You talk about who fell, who showed up in the studio, who didn't show up in the studio, and all the people that would pile up outside the window was always super cool. And I never went to New York at that point. I'd never been to New York anyway. It was way later in life that I went to New York for the first time. But I always thought it would be cool to go and stand outside and look up in the window. I thought that'd be so cool. Because if there was a big artist, or even a pretty big artist, or even no artist, there would still be people out there. But I remember the boy band days. It would be thousands and thousands of people. Even like Limp Bizkit when they were popping, and Britney Spears. So it would just be, you know, 75 aisles of people deep. Maybe more than that. The boy bands, though, I keep talking about that. I mean, TRL launched them. The boy band videos were played all the time. And I'm going to be honest, back then, I hated them until I submitted to, yeah, I think I might actually like them. And TRL was a massive part of the boy band revolution. And boy bands were a massive part of the TRL revolution. TRL made fandom visible. When I talk about how many people would be outside, you would see it, and then you'd have an understanding of just how famous these people actually were. And again, this is without social media, screaming, crowds outside, signs in the audience, fans knowing or learning every move, every rumor, every hairstyle change. MTV didn't tell people to care. It actually showed us watching at home that other people actually cared about. So trl, Massive. And we can talk about the real world for a second. Only because it created the template for the next 30 years of reality television. And this is for someone who didn't watch the real world. I mean, the real world did it. I've had trouble saying world, like, four times now, but no scripts, no prizes, no competition, Just people living together and being uncomfortable on camera. It felt awkward. But that awkwardness turned out to be the point of it. And most of you guys listening now probably remember the late 90s or some even 2000s on MTV. I mean, the 2000s were definitely when music shifted off of MTV. Jersey Shore, the Hills, the Challenge. But that started as Road Rules All Stars, which was Road Rules, but all that. But when I think about MTV in the 80s and the 90s, I don't think about it as a channel that just played music. I think if I were a little older, I would. Because that would have been most of what my watching was. But I think about it as a place that decided to show everybody what everybody else cared about. In the 80s, it taught artists how to be seen. It taught us we could actually see the artists more than possibly a random page of a magazine, because that would be the only time, really, you would see them. Unless they were doing Saturday Night Live or a network television spot. In the 90s, it became routine. You turned it on and you trusted it to show you what mattered that day. The 2000s, definitely different. There was still a little music, but then all those shows it created and ridiculousness 20 hours out of 24 hours a day. Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. And we're back on the Bobbycast. So you missed the first part of this. I was talking about mtv, and MTV is done. Have you heard that? No, they cut the network.

[Mike]

It's over.

[Bobby]

So MTV's dead in that. No more music.

[Mike]

But what about all the reality shows?

[Bobby]

Well, the brand still exists.

[Mike]

Okay, good.

[Bobby]

I just wondered what you caught in the news. Nothing, Nothing. Any of the music channels. MTV, 90s, MTV, 80s, MTV World. They cut all of that. So basically it's the end of music on. On MTV, as of December 31st, they ran a little thing that said, that's it, and we're out.

[Mike]

Basically. MTV as we knew it from the very beginning.

[Bobby]

MTV as we used to remember it.

[Mike]

Yeah, there we go.

[Bobby]

So because you didn't hear that whole first thing at all, I wanted to ask you if you were to list three things we can go back and forth that you remember most about mtv. What are they? Number one.

[Mike]

So, well, to kind of explain, I didn't have MTV growing up. My cousin did. And, like, anytime we went to my cousin's house, that's what we did. Like, it was like.

[Bobby]

Did you have to sneak it like Cinemax after dark?

[Mike]

No, no. But, like, you know, my parents would hang out with my aunts and uncles while the kids went into, like, someone's bedroom and watched MTV. And like, that was.

[Bobby]

That's.

[Mike]

That's my glimpse of MTV, dude. So the beginning to me was 80s 80s videos. Like.

[Bobby]

Like hair metal stuff. Yes. Like Guns N Roses.

[Mike]

Pour Some Sugar on Me. I'll never forget that video because I remember watching it on mtv.

[Bobby]

Patience is Pour Some Sugar on Me when she's on the front of the hood.

[Mike]

No, no, you're thinking of Twisted Sister.

[Bobby]

No, that's. We're not going to take it.

[Mike]

Yeah, she's in the front of the hood.

[Bobby]

No, you're thinking that's. That's not that Twisted Sister were the dudes that look like chicks.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. He had the big blonde hair.

[Bobby]

Dee Snider.

[Mike]

Yeah. Dee Snider, Yeah. They didn't have a girl in the hood.

[Bobby]

You're thinking of, like, the White. Great White or something.

[Mike]

White Lion. I think it's White Snake.

[Bobby]

White Snake.

[Mike]

White Snake. Dude, we were all around it.

[Bobby]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

No, no. Pour Some Sugar on Me was purely a concert performance. And it was awesome because it was just like their big stage set up, them singing to the camera. It was just awesome. I'll never forget it. And I love that patience where he stomps on that neon phone. Stuff like that is what I think of, like, first. First recollection of mtv.

[Bobby]

Because you had an older brother and an older cousin, you're gonna have older music memories than me. We never had MTV growing up either. And what I was talking about a minute ago, too, was in Hot Springs, which I grew up in Mountain Pine. And Hot Springs was town. Little Rock was the city, but Hot Springs was town, and Hot Springs was. It was a town big enough to have its own cable, and they didn't have MTV on the cable at all. And so when I became old enough, when I was working at klaz, I petitioned the cable network. It was the first ever, like, big radio thing I did. I petitioned the cable network to get mtv. That went all around Hot Springs for the whole community. Yes. So the first time we ever got it was when I made a big stink about it on the air, and we got it.

[Mike]

So. So did people sign your petition?

[Bobby]

Yeah, I went outside Walmart.

[Mike]

What was your pitch? Like, what was your. Let's get mtv.

[Bobby]

Yeah, we don't have mtv. Wouldn't it be cool if we had mtv?

[Mike]

And would people say, like, oh, yeah, that'd be awesome. Where do I sign?

[Bobby]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Or like, what are you talking about, kid?

[Bobby]

Mostly people sign. Mostly, though, I knew who to go to. Ask, like, younger people.

[Mike]

Dude, I've never heard that story. That's amazing.

[Bobby]

I hadn't thought about it until I was talking about this. And my earliest memories of MTV weren't until I was 19 and I had petitioned my town to get it. Because I still worked in my town. I had moved away to go to college. I was like an hour and a half away. But I drove back to Hot Springs to work every night. And so I petitioned Hot Springs on the cable. Is it network?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

Carrier?

[Mike]

Yeah. Provider.

[Bobby]

Provider. And so they got it. So that's when I started watching.

[Mike]

No way.

[Bobby]

Yeah. So my memories are all 90s.

[Mike]

So you never saw Whitesnake, Girl in the Truck?

[Bobby]

No. Unless it was one of those specialty shows. Headbangers Ball, something like that. And then Headbangers Ball, though, got to be a little more alternative. Yes, it did, I think, right? Yeah, it did. It did that.

[Mike]

Headbangers Ball for sure. Became the Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden.

[Bobby]

Yes.

[Mike]

Alice in Chains.

[Bobby]

My number one thing is going to be trl. Watched it every day.

[Mike]

Wow. Every day. Carson Daly.

[Bobby]

Yeah. Because it was on at, like, 3.

[Mike]

Maybe it was early in the day.

[Bobby]

Whenever a kid was getting out of school. I have a story.

[Mike]

It's one of mine is trl, but for a different reason. So, yes, I will say it's about 3 o'.

[Bobby]

Clock. What time did TRL air? 3:30 Eastern Time. And I was in college and I would come back, but I was also working on a pop radio station. So I would watch it because I was interested to see what the artists look like.

[Mike]

Yeah, these were your artists.

[Bobby]

And what was crazy to me about TRL was the amount of people that would line up outside and just watch. Piles and piles of people.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Bobby]

And boy bands. And it was a lot of boy bands. Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Avril Lavigne. Eminem.

[Mike]

Eminem. And I just saw a clip recently of Eminem and Marky Mark being awkward on it together.

[Bobby]

Really?

[Mike]

Yeah, it just popped up on TikTok.

[Bobby]

So my number one is gonna be trl, because I watched it all the time. Your number two.

[Mike]

Okay. My number two is Beavis and Butt Head.

[Bobby]

That was gonna be one of mine.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah. But I'll go to trl, but for a different reason. But Beavis and Butt Head to me was you talk about, like, Skinemax After Dark. That's. Parents did not want me watching Beavis and Butthead. So I would go to my cousin's house and be like, hey, can we watch Beavis and Butt Head? Did you record any? So we'll go back and watch it.

[Bobby]

Yeah, you had to record because there was dvr.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

And Beavis and Butthead, if I'm guessing, would come on around nine.

[Mike]

Man, by the time I started watching, it was all around the clock. It was almost. If you turned on mtv, it was on for the most part.

[Bobby]

Beavis and bud had airtime. 9:30 Central. 9:30.

[Mike]

You're nailing these times when they would.

[Bobby]

Do the original airing. Yeah. Beavis and Butthead was awesome for a couple reasons, and very much it reminds me of Suck it from dx, because that's what everybody did. Now, DX Was before Beavis and Butthead. But at school in eighth grade, you would do Suck it and Beavis and Butthead, you would do the laughs. Fire. Fire, Fire. Yeah. That was awesome. My number two is going to be. It was going to be Beavis about it and Tom Green.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

Because I would watch and I thought Tom Green was the craziest, coolest, funniest dude ever.

[Mike]

What was his show on there? Was it the Tom Green show talk show?

[Bobby]

Yeah. And we've had him on this podcast before and was talking to him. It was actually a show he did in Canada and it was first was public access, and it grew from there. And when they came down into the first season of the Tom Green show, which exploded in America, it was a lot of his bits that he did on the Canadian show. They would sit in his studio and throw to bits. And it was those bits he did back in Canada.

[Mike]

Wow, that's cool.

[Bobby]

But things like sucking the udder of the cow.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

Like the milk out of it, like. Yeah. Crazy.

[Mike]

I never saw that live. That was always just later on I saw that stuff. I didn't watch a lot of Tom Green live on mtv.

[Bobby]

You did?

[Mike]

No, never.

[Bobby]

I was working a night show when Tom Green would come on. But I remember if it was like, you know, nine or ten on a Thursday, I might have to look at the original airtime.

[Mike]

You'll nail it. Don't worry.

[Bobby]

I would watch the show and then watch the timer of the CDs, because at that radio station, we had CDs, and I would do very small segments so I could watch more Tom Green.

[Mike]

Hilarious.

[Bobby]

Mike, what do you have? I'm gonna guess Thursdays at 10 Central.

[Mike]

He's gonna be like, yeah, Thursdays, 10:30.

[Bobby]

Central for the Tom Green show. The one I'm looking up, it says midnight. That can't be right. That's so late. Maybe that's Canada. Yeah, it's a 10 Central. Are you making that up? No. What. What night did they come on? 10 sounds about right. Because jackasses is that era, too.

[Mike]

Here we go.

[Bobby]

11:00Pm 11:00pm on Eastern.

[Mike]

I bet.

[Bobby]

On what? What? What night? It doesn't say what day. Oh, dang.

[Mike]

Thursday night.

[Bobby]

Thursday night.

[Mike]

See, dude, you nailed it. Of course you did.

[Bobby]

I watched religiously.

[Mike]

Yeah. I love the. I love that you were in the radio station doing the. That while you're watching it.

[Bobby]

You had to. Yeah, because in my dorm, we didn't record. We didn't have DVR or anything. I mean, nobody had DVR at this time.

[Mike]

No. No, you'd had to plug in the vcr, the tv, and then you had.

[Bobby]

To know how to do it.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

And who knew how to record one.

[Mike]

Out of, like a thousand people knew how to do that.

[Bobby]

Okay, So I have TRL and have Tom Green.

[Mike]

I have 80s music videos, like Hair Band. Yes. Beavis and Butthead.

[Bobby]

Go ahead.

[Mike]

And then TRL. But not because I'd watch it on TV. When I was 20, I think I was 20, 19, 20. My parents decide. When was it? When was 9112-020200-12001.

[Bobby]

Okay.

[Mike]

It's 2022. Because it had just happened. Wait, you mean 2002, 2002. It had just happened.

[Bobby]

Okay, you're confused.

[Mike]

And my parents decided to take us to New York City.

[Bobby]

Never been in 2002.

[Mike]

In 2002, right after 9 11. After 9 11. I remember because it was still ground zero. There's a big hole in the ground.

[Bobby]

Wow. Really?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

And people, they were still.

[Bobby]

I'd never been to New York when 911 happened, and I didn't go for years for the first time. And to me, that seemed like Hollywood, like, not even a real place.

[Mike]

New York. Yeah, same. Yeah, dude, I'm from. I'm from South Texas.

[Bobby]

I didn't know if you'd ever been, though.

[Mike]

I'd never been. I'd never been. And so the fact that I was watching, you know, the world where the World Trade center was, and they're still digging stuff out of there, and I was like, we need to go to Times Square. And so we went to Times Square and Carson Daly was at his window.

[Bobby]

Oh, you saw it, dude.

[Mike]

They were doing trl and I was. And I'm not kidding. That was the moment where I was like, that's Carson Daly. And I don't know who the artist is. Is with him, but it's all happening right here. And I'm here. That's the first time I realized that, like, anything was possible.

[Bobby]

I know it sounds Carson Daly.

[Mike]

I know it sounds stupid lfo, but.

[Bobby]

Dang it, anything is possible, dude.

[Mike]

It was the first. First feeling I had where I thought, like, wow, like, anyone can come here and do it. Like, he's. I can throw a.

[Bobby]

Seeing them in real life, organic matter is doing those things that, like, when I said New York seemed like Hollywood somewhere, people, real people didn't go correct.

[Mike]

That was my thought.

[Bobby]

Did you just walk up on it?

[Mike]

He was up.

[Bobby]

No, no. Did you just walk up on a taping a TRL while they were up there? It wasn't like you knew it was happening. And it was 30 blocks.

[Mike]

It happened to be 4:30 on a. Yeah, whatever day. You know, like, it was just. They were taping it and he. You can see all the lights. You could see the studio, and it had MTV written on it. And you can kind of tell, oh, that's a studio. And then he came up with a mic, and he's talking and the artist was there, and they were pointing at people on the street.

[Bobby]

Do you know who the artist was?

[Mike]

No. No clue.

[Bobby]

Do you know exactly what day that was, though? Could you track it back to know exactly what day and we could figure out what artist it is?

[Mike]

I want to say I can take it down to the month. It would be February 2002.

[Bobby]

And was it a weekend? No, it couldn't have been because it had to be a Friday. It was a.

[Mike]

Did they air on Fridays?

[Bobby]

Yeah, Monday.

[Mike]

Okay. So it had to be that Friday. Yeah, it was probably a long weekend for us.

[Bobby]

So a Friday in.

[Mike]

And my sister's birthday. It was her trip, and I want. And her birthday is on the 3rd. February 3rd. So it had to be the first week of February 2002.

[Bobby]

Okay, we'll have our. And we'll see crack research team. Look and see who on that Friday, the first week of February 2002, who was on TRL.

[Mike]

Correct.

[Bobby]

I'm seeing Britney Spears.

[Mike]

No, I would have known Brittany.

[Bobby]

I mean, maybe, but Brittany would had a massive pile of people. It would have been so hard to.

[Mike]

Even see it on the street. Yeah, no, we were all moving along. It was just like, if you wanted to stop and look, you could.

[Bobby]

So whenever a big artist went, they would go down and there would be. It was 75 layers deep, dude.

[Mike]

I was out of touch with pop music at that point, but I would have known Britney Spears for sure any other Fridays.

[Bobby]

It was.

[Mike]

It was a female artist, though.

[Bobby]

Shakira.

[Mike]

It was a female artist. Shakira.

[Bobby]

Shakira was heavily promoting laundry Service in early 2002 and appeared on the Late show with David Letterman and TRL on February 5, 2002.

[Mike]

I mean, possibly Shakira.

[Bobby]

It feels like it was someone, though, that people wouldn't have known if there were, because when they would shoot down, there'd be so many people down there. If it was a big store, they'd have signs.

[Mike]

I never saw those signs. Yeah, I don't remember those details, but I don't remember us being like, oh, this is a pain to get through. Nothing like that. Just the fact that. Oh, cool. Look, this big sign there. And oh, there's the dancing cowboy with his guitar. And oh, look, there's mtv. Oh, that's Carson Daly. Oh my gosh, that's trl. Like that's all I really remember of all that.

[Bobby]

Anybody else you guys found the 5th of February is a Tuesday, so probably not there.

[Mike]

I mean, I'm assuming if that was.

[Bobby]

Yeah, whatever. The first Friday of February is February 1st. Let's see. Let just somebody raise their hand if they find who it could be.

[Mike]

God, that'd be cool. I do remember it was a female artist. Didn't recognize who it was.

[Bobby]

When they said the name, you couldn't really. Oh, no one even told you down there.

[Mike]

You couldn't even.

[Bobby]

Like, that's Michelle Branch.

[Mike]

You couldn't hear what they were saying. You just saw them. It's almost.

[Bobby]

Michelle branch was on February 21st. That's what I remember. That's why I say that. Really?

[Mike]

No, I don't remember that. How do you remember that?

[Bobby]

And also, you may not have been there the first week. Maybe track it down, let us know.

[Mike]

Okay. Okay. I'll have to think about it.

[Bobby]

That would be fine.

[Mike]

I know it was my sister's birthday trip.

[Bobby]

Lets take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. And we're back on the Bobbycast, My number three. And it's specifically a few videos and it's three in particular that Aaron Lewis stained. Yeah, but it was Aaron Lewis and Fred Durst doing Outside.

[Mike]

Come on the Outside.

[Bobby]

Yeah, and then staying. It was their song. Yeah, but that video was them together.

[Mike]

Were they just singing?

[Bobby]

I feel like it was a live show. Yes.

[Mike]

Yeah, Aaron Lewis was like looking down.

[Bobby]

And that song was massive. Yeah, they showed it all the time. That video, that one. The Backstreet Boys. All I have to give because your love is all I have to give.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

My roommate Courtney and I, we acted like we hated boy bands, but we practiced the dance on the chair. They had a chair dance. And we would. That video would be on all the time.

[Mike]

But it was known that you guys didn't like boy bands. Yeah, like already that was established. So you guys were an apartment dorm, no.

[Bobby]

Apartment apartment, yeah.

[Mike]

Okay, so just you two in there?

[Bobby]

Just us, yeah. And we practiced the chair dance, which is like 30 seconds of that thing. And we were good at it.

[Mike]

You had your dining room chairs.

[Bobby]

And I liked boy bands. I just didn't say it out loud.

[Mike]

Same with Courtney, probably.

[Bobby]

Yeah, probably more so him. But I had a job where I had to play boy bands, so you knew all. So I wasn't anti boy bands, but I'd be like, we did this. Because it's. It's so absurd. We did this.

[Mike]

Hey, you can't use the excuse of it's content, man.

[Bobby]

Yeah, there wasn't. There was no content then. But that song and then Limp Bizkit. I know I said Fred Durst, but Limp Bizkit and Faith, when that song came out, it was wild how big they got so quick doing a cover.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

Because it was. It was such a different sound of a very familiar song.

[Mike]

It even sounded like the original song at the beginning until it hit.

[Bobby]

They got. Yeah, so that would be my.

[Mike]

I don't remember that video. Do you remember that video?

[Bobby]

Oh, yeah. Heavily. They were in between buses.

[Mike]

It was mostly that, like them just walking and singing.

[Bobby]

Yeah. Like cutting clips and stuff of them, like just dicking around and then them doing music.

[Mike]

Dude. How about, like Kurt Loder, one of.

[Bobby]

The guys I mentioned in this earlier, because I picked certain people that Kennedy. Kennedy, I felt like was pre. So Kennedy would have been. And I'm friends with Kennedy now, but I didn't know her when she was a vj. I feel like Kennedy was pre. Carson Daly, Dave Holmes, Kurt Loder.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Bobby]

When I first got into it, it was Carson Daly. When Jesse won the VJ competition and Dave Holmes finished second, Jesse was like the stoner dude, really tall, had the really wild hair. He was like, hey, everybody, I'm Jesse.

[Mike]

Oh, he was a vj.

[Bobby]

Yeah. He won the competition.

[Mike]

Okay. I don't remember.

[Bobby]

And Dave Holmes finished second, but they both got a job on the show. But I know there were those rock shows. Like Matt Penfield had the rock show, like the hard 120 or something.

[Mike]

Yeah, I saw Matt Penfield at South by Southwest and that was awesome.

[Bobby]

Bald dude.

[Mike]

Bald dude. Still looked the same. He was a little older, obviously, but still look. Still had the same look.

[Bobby]

I feel like Kennedy was right before that group. Right before my class. We've talked about Goo Goo Dolls before.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah.

[Bobby]

Do you know what Goo Goo Doll song is written about?

[Mike]

Kennedy and I don't want the world to see you that. Iris Kennedy.

[Bobby]

Iris and Johnny Resnick has talked about it before, but it's name. And I won't tell him your name.

[Mike]

Oh, did they date?

[Bobby]

I think they had a very brief. But not. I don't think so. I think it was like super brief. And he wrote it about that.

[Mike]

Fun fact.

[Bobby]

I can look it up. But yeah, her name. Her real name is Lisa Kennedy, but like Me, her and Charlamagne would make a point. We haven't done it a couple years to go to dinner once a year. When we were all in New York and I was there five times a year, not a ton, but we would all go. And I haven't seen her in a while, dude.

[Mike]

We were at. In a car together.

[Bobby]

Who you?

[Mike]

Me and Kennedy. And I was like, this is crazy.

[Bobby]

We did.

[Mike]

Yeah, in Vegas. I think she was there for something, maybe with.

[Bobby]

She worked for iheart for a bit too.

[Mike]

Yeah. So. And we were going from, I don't know, hotel to hotel or something, and she rode in the car with us. And I was like, this is crazy. Kennedy's in the car.

[Bobby]

Yeah. She was awesome. She still is awesome. She didn't die, so.

[Mike]

No. No.

[Bobby]

The inspiration, a brief, flirtatious relationship between singer John Resnick and then MTV VJ Kennedy. The secret Kennedy revealed her full name, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, to Resnick, who promised to keep it secret but wrote the names.

[Mike]

Oh, wow, that's really cool.

[Bobby]

Resnick has confirmed Kennedy's story, stating he was trying to capture a moment from their time together.

[Mike]

That's really cool.

[Bobby]

Now I won't tell him your name, man.

[Mike]

That's a cool story.

[Bobby]

Yeah. Even though you didn't think the Goo.

[Mike]

Goo Dolls were great, still not great, but great story. Great story, though.

[Bobby]

Yeah, That's a good one. Mike, your MTV history. You're 10 years younger than us, though, so it has to be the television show. Mine started with Jackass. Yeah, Jackass into Beaver labam and then into, like, the later mtv.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah.

[Bobby]

So for you, it was never about the music? Nah. I caught probably the tail end of trl, but I was more into all the reality shows, like the Osborne. Once that started, that's when I was in.

[Mike]

What about, like, Road Rules? You guys have watched that?

[Bobby]

Not really. And I didn't watch Real World.

[Mike]

Oh, Real World. Dude, the first Real World was mind blowing.

[Bobby]

I put that as one of the pillars of MTV because it not just shaped, created the road for reality television. It's what Survivor, it's what all those early network shows were based off of, was the formula that the Real World had developed.

[Mike]

Big Brother. There would be no Big Brother without Real World.

[Bobby]

So I didn't watch it, but I appreciated it also, since we couldn't record shows. And that one probably came on when I was in class.

[Mike]

What time was that?

[Bobby]

I didn't watch it. Probably five or six when I was driving to work or something. I never watched Real World, but understood its significance. And value. But I would see Road Rules sometimes. I'd watch a little bit of that. But Road Rules is what launched the Challenge.

[Mike]

Okay. Yeah. Once you get to the Challenge, I get lost with all the different spin offs.

[Bobby]

I've never seen an episode of the Challenge.

[Mike]

Neither have I.

[Bobby]

And Lunchbox loves the Challenge. People love the Challenge.

[Mike]

It still goes on the Challenge.

[Bobby]

Yeah. I think they aired it on cbs, on Paramount, too, for a bit now, I think. Not just a game show for Norm, for people. Some from Real World, Road Rules, other MTV shows. But they take people from other shows, too, right, Mike? Yeah, they do. So that. That brand. But yeah, that. The challenge is from, like, Road Rules, one of the versions of that show.

[Mike]

Do you remember when Real World came to Austin?

[Bobby]

Yeah. Because I was working in radio there. We would talk to them. We would sell them some.

[Mike]

Oh, would they go to the radio stations?

[Bobby]

A couple times, yeah.

[Mike]

Did they come with cameras and everything?

[Bobby]

No, I don't think so.

[Mike]

Dude. One of the coolest things ever was when people came to visit. Like, you want to drive by the Real World house, and you go by the house or whatever, which later became a Vince Young Steakhouse. And then not sure what it is now, but, I mean, it's still. It's still kind of a flex to drive by there and be like, hey, that used to be the Real World house.

[Bobby]

Yeah. But kids now be like, what's Real World?

[Mike]

Yeah, I know. You can't do it to just anyone.

[Bobby]

When they finished recording, they did an auction of all the furniture inside the house. Lunchbox went and bought two chairs from it. No way. Two orange chairs from it. Yeah. It's now a warehouse. It is just a warehouse. Just a warehouse. Wow.

[Mike]

And it's right by 6th Street. Because that was such a big part of the show.

[Bobby]

It was crazy that Real World was in Austin while we were there.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

And you felt it. Yeah, because people talked about it, but also we probably felt it because, I mean, I was 24.

[Mike]

Yeah. And we were out, you know, And I remember sometimes you would see the cameras and the lights and someone would be like, oh, there's Real World. You try to get close, but you really couldn't because there were too many people around. But I remember all that.

[Bobby]

It's crazy that Mike doesn't have a music association from his own experience with mtv. And I think peak. Mtv for me was Jersey Shore. When that first came on, like, 2009, that, like, changed everything. Well, now it's 22 hours of ridiculousness every day. Yeah. Oh, they cancel that it's over. It's over. They canceled that show. Yeah. Oh, wow. That feels like it was such a. And I should say inexpensive show to make because of how they shoot it.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

And they used it so often. He must have been charging a lot per episode then, because they were just using other people's videos that was covering a lot of hours. It was over 14 years, 46 seasons.

[Mike]

Wow. Yeah.

[Bobby]

Wow. So it's just gonna air this year, and then it's done. Rob Dyrdek.

[Mike]

Yeah, Rob Dyrdek.

[Bobby]

So I didn't know much about him, but my wife loved watching Big and Rob, and so we first moved in together during COVID That was like our comfort show. So we watched Big and Rob on Amazon. Yeah. Robin, Big was great. Is that what it's called?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

Yeah. What did I say? It doesn't matter. It does, because Big and Rich.

[Mike]

Yeah. Rich and Big.

[Bobby]

Yeah, exactly. So I want to make sure. But I did kind of like that show, and then I think he built Fantasy Factory. Yeah. Yeah. That was good, too.

[Mike]

So that was the first time you'd watch it with your.

[Bobby]

When?

[Mike]

Before you were married?

[Bobby]

Yeah. 12, 13 years after it had aired. Chanel west coast, who's now trying to be a country singer or trying to be an artist. And, like, her videos will come through. Wow. On the show, she looked, like, super cool and, like someone you want to hang out with. I don't know what she is now.

[Mike]

She.

[Bobby]

But it's been 15 years. People change. She doesn't look like the same person. Obviously, we're all older. But she also didn't seem like a country singer on that show. I just missed the transition period from when she went from that to whatever artist she is now. But you know what? Coach was cool on the show.

[Mike]

Did you ever tell Bob Pittman the story of Bob Pittman, by the way.

[Bobby]

Our CEO who started mtv?

[Mike]

Did you ever tell him Which. Who. Who you talked to? Many times. Yeah. Do you ever tell him the story that you petitioned to get mtv?

[Bobby]

No, because I haven't thought about that.

[Mike]

You have to tell him that story. Like, you have to one of these days. It's just like, hey, I never told you this. I thought you'd get a kick out of this.

[Bobby]

I don't know if you care.

[Mike]

Dude, That's. That's amazing that you brought MTV to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Yes, that's amazing.

[Bobby]

I was trying to remember the cable network when I was telling the story earlier, and I couldn't. But it was, like, one of those memories because I Didn't have it planned.

[Mike]

A local. A little. Little local provider.

[Bobby]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So it wouldn't be like Time Warner.

[Bobby]

No, Cox. But I was telling the story of the first time that I saw mtv and I was saying. And the people that are listening now heard it and I went, oh, yeah, I got. I'm the one who got it for our hometown. But it wasn't that big of a deal.

[Mike]

But it is. The fact that you.

[Bobby]

No, it is, it is. But I'm saying that, dude, you changed that town. It wasn't like. It wasn't like Kevin Bacon and Footloose, where I brought Dance to the Town and everything.

[Mike]

I think it's the same thing, actually.

[Bobby]

Well, Rest in peace. To mtv.

[Mike]

Yeah. Just found out. Rest in Peace.

[Bobby]

The brand is not dead, but they don't show music anymore.

[Mike]

You talked to Bob about that? Nah.

[Bobby]

Nah, nah.

[Mike]

Just sent him a text. Sorry, dude. Rest in peace. Your baby.

[Bobby]

Did you see the clip, Mike, of when they shut it down? Yeah, it was just like a graphic. It's weird.

[Mike]

Was Max Headroom mtv?

[Bobby]

Max Headroom. I watched Max Headroom. And do you know the real story about that? How they. They hacked into. I think it was Chicago. The Chicago news.

[Mike]

Yeah. A local TV station.

[Bobby]

Yeah.

[Mike]

During the news. And they came back on me like, ah. We don't know what that was. It looks like somebody took over our signal there for a second.

[Bobby]

Search it on YouTube. You can watch original.

[Mike]

It's really cool to see. It's crazy, but I just remember. I don't really remember anything.

[Bobby]

Was a network television show, but. But it may have been like an MTV cartoon or something. It. It was MTV and music videos. Like, they brought him in to. To introduce certain videos. Oh, almost as like a. His own vj. Got it.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Bobby]

He had a network television show too, so.

[Mike]

So his identity was revealed eventually. No, the guys that.

[Bobby]

I don't think so. I don't think the real incident. No, yeah, they just. The guy hacked.

[Mike]

I mean, it wasn't a thing.

[Bobby]

Right.

[Mike]

Like, hacking wasn't a word because no one hacked.

[Bobby]

And then I was watching how they made the television show with him, and they actually had a guy in makeup.

[Mike]

Oh, really?

[Bobby]

Yeah. And they shot him around. It wasn't all just like computer animation because they didn't have the ability to do that at a high level.

[Mike]

Yeah, dude, that TikTok video is cool. I mean, it comes on once in a while just of the original hacking.

[Bobby]

So I can read you about the Max Headroom signal hijacking, because it's not even Called hacking. And is that what hacking is? Signal hijacking? Yeah, it's still hijacking.

[Mike]

What's the signal hijacking? Hacking.

[Bobby]

Unless hacking is specific to Internet, I.

[Mike]

Would call it sacking.

[Bobby]

The Max Headroom signal hijacking was the hijacking of the television signals of two stations in Chicago in 1987 that briefly sent a pirate broadcast of an unidentified person wearing a Max Headroom mask. So Max Headroom had to already be a bit a person of some kind if there was a mask. Right. Unless they created themselves eerie looking.

[Mike]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

[Bobby]

It looks like Joe Biden.

[Mike]

It was a handmade. Like a handmade mask. It wasn't like he wasn't already a person.

[Bobby]

It looks like a young Joe Biden, though.

[Mike]

Yeah, like kind of cool. He had sunglasses, right?

[Bobby]

Yeah. Yes. The first incident took place in a sports segment, WGN 9 o'. Clock. A person wearing a mask swaying erratically in front of a semi swiveling metal panel. But I need to know about Max Headroom. The person. Like, did this person invent Max Headroom? The character already existed before this. Oh, it did.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Bobby]

In. In what? Like comics that I don't know. Interesting. Let's look it up here. Max Headroom is a fictional character played by actor Matt Frewer. Advertises the first computer generated TV presenter CGI character. So he did music videos in 19. Okay. He debuted 1985 on Channel 4 in the British cyberpunk TV movie Max Headroom, 20 minutes into the future. So it must have been right after this movie.

[Mike]

That's when the hack. So the hacking probably was something completely different.

[Bobby]

Oh, it wasn't the real Max Headroom. It was somebody wearing the mask.

[Mike]

Somebody wearing his mask.

[Bobby]

Max Headroom apparently was big in Europe. Two days after the TV movie was broadcast, Max hosted Channel 4. Is the Max Headroom Show, a TV program, but they spell it European, with the E at the end, where he introduces music videos, comments on various topics, and interviews guests. During its second and third year, it aired in the US and then it was on ABC in 1987 after the hacking. I always thought it developed from that hacking.

[Mike]

I did too. I guess it had nothing to do with it.

[Bobby]

I didn't know it was European either. I like it less and I'm glad.

[Mike]

It'S connected to mtv because I had no idea. I thought it was. I just didn't. I wasn't sure of it because I.

[Bobby]

Think it would introduce music videos. Right, Brandon? On mtv. Yeah. Well, there we go. We spun out. Love that okay. That's what's up. Thank you, guys. This has been a rest in peace to mtv, sort of.

[Mike]

Yeah, rest in peace.

[Bobby]

And who knew that ridiculousness was canceled? I guess Mike was the only one that knew that. Thank you guys for listening and we will see you guys later. Goodbye, everybody. Thanks for listening to a Bobbycast production. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.