I'm tempted to purchase a new VCR tape (sorry, I'm so dated that I still don't use a DVD burner) and tape a few hours of MTV tomorrow, as it is their 25th anniversary of airing. As this is an important milestone, I would hope that they spend this day in retrospect of their roots, while learning from doing so.
I was 11 years old when they debuted August 1, 1982, and I became an instant junkie, watching it all the time. Over time, though, their producers must have become a little giddy and starting focusing on spots other than the music that made it famous. I really have not been a fan of anything the network has produced in the last ten years; Beavis & Butt-head being about the only original presentation I would watch.
Especially these days, critics wonder how MTV can still mean "Music Television", when you might have music videos for a two-hour stretch in the AM, and from then on be a teenager's soap opera channel. Many of these silly shows don't have anything to do with music. The material in these shows panders to the lowest common denominator, with cheap thrills & drunken parties every day with unreal characters swearing like sailors half the time.
"Reality Show" my rear end!
America spends its spare time wondering where they've lost touch with the young people in this country; why they're not as civilized as generations before them. Wanting your MTV these days differ greatly from my day watching them... the slogan meant something and was true to its roots without degrading anyone. Why do we see shows like this, when this country is striving to be so politically correct?
To their credit, MTV has aired some retrospective material on other anniversaries before. Something tells me, however, that the 25th anniversary will not promote enough shows that do justice to the original material. If this is so, I will credit certain "peer pressure", meaning the current generation can't stomach one day without their hip-hop soap operas.
Come on. I don't think that one day out of 365 is asking too much to deviate from the routine and give the original MTV generation (the ones responsible for helping establish it) what they want:
Their MTV, their way.
