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VH-1: MTV for Your Parents · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:12
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:14
Speaker 2: Chuck and this is Stuff you should know. The Adult Contemporary.
0:19
Speaker 1: Edition Video Hits one.
0:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you remember? That's what the VH did for.
0:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's I think they ran that
0:28
Speaker 1: little thing. I just did. I think that was their
0:31
Speaker 1: thing initially. I don't know, I seem to. I don't
0:36
Speaker 1: know if I just made that up or not, but
0:37
Speaker 1: I feel like that's something that's stuck in my brain
0:39
Speaker 1: from the old days.
0:41
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, from what this research show, that's exactly the
0:45
Speaker 2: kind of thing they would have run for like the
0:47
Speaker 2: first ten years.
0:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Probably. And this is on VH one, of course,
0:51
Speaker 1: And it's going to be a great warm up for
0:53
Speaker 1: the long awaited Judas Priest show tonight that I'm going to.
0:56
Speaker 2: Well is that tonight awesome? Man? I hope you have
0:58
Speaker 2: a bitch in time. Yeah.
1:00
Speaker 1: It should be some fun people watching and some good music.
1:04
Speaker 2: Are you gonna smoke PCP in the parking lot like
1:06
Speaker 2: that documentary?
1:07
Speaker 1: Oh you know it, baby, I got my I ordered
1:10
Speaker 1: some PCP online and it came in a box labeled
1:14
Speaker 1: PCP okay, And I opened it up and it said
1:18
Speaker 1: take two PCPs for best results.
1:21
Speaker 2: You go.
1:22
Speaker 1: So I think I'm good.
1:23
Speaker 2: That sounds legit to me.
1:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm all set.
1:26
Speaker 2: Well, I have a great time. That's cool. Did you
1:29
Speaker 2: get in touch with Nita Strauss?
1:33
Speaker 1: No? No, she may not be stuff you should know
1:36
Speaker 1: person anymore.
1:37
Speaker 2: Well, try waving to her from the audience.
1:39
Speaker 1: It's me.
1:42
Speaker 2: Maybe when you're on PCP you'll just crawl on to stage.
1:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe you never know. I'm gonna take the recommended too,
1:49
Speaker 1: So who knows what's gonna happen.
1:51
Speaker 2: So we're talking about VH one, which is basically the
1:54
Speaker 2: opposite of PCP. Yeah, as everyone knows. Who's ever seen
1:59
Speaker 2: VA one actually if you were around, and it debuted
2:01
Speaker 2: back in nineteen eighty five. It's just like the older, mellower,
2:09
Speaker 2: more well again adult contemporary version of MTV, and it
2:14
Speaker 2: bears a striking resemblance because it was launched by the
2:18
Speaker 2: same company that launched MTV that hold Werner Brothers, Amex Weirdness. Yeah,
2:25
Speaker 2: And the one of the big reasons they launched VH
2:28
Speaker 2: one is because they really wanted to put one of
2:31
Speaker 2: their competitors, Ted Turner's cable music channel in the ground permanently.
2:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess this was before, you know, because
2:39
Speaker 1: they eventually bought them out. If you remember from the
2:42
Speaker 1: MTV episode. I do remember I was talking to dear listener.
2:45
Speaker 1: But that's ok. Oh, I see when I address you,
2:49
Speaker 1: I address you as your leader.
2:51
Speaker 2: Thanks, I appreciate that.
2:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this was before they bought them out, clearly,
2:57
Speaker 1: because they were essentially saying, hey, cable companies, if you
3:00
Speaker 1: want another music video station, don't go by Turner's thing. Yeah,
3:05
Speaker 1: just take VH one for free. If you're getting MTV,
3:08
Speaker 1: we'll just throw it in.
3:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. Before Video Hits one, it was value ad Hits one. Well.
3:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, And honestly, what got me about researching this was
3:18
Speaker 1: they follow similar paths as far as music videos turned
3:22
Speaker 1: into original programming. But I dare say that VH one
3:26
Speaker 1: did a better job and stayed more relevant in the
3:29
Speaker 1: long run.
3:31
Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, for sure. I mean you can make a
3:33
Speaker 2: case it's still quite relevant. It's definitely changed its mission dramatically,
3:37
Speaker 2: but MTV changed its mission as well. And yeah, it's
3:41
Speaker 2: VH one still relevant. There's no better word to put it.
3:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they ended up having much bigger shows
3:50
Speaker 1: when they started doing their original shows and MTV had.
3:52
Speaker 2: For sure, and as we'll see every once while, MTV
3:55
Speaker 2: likes to still poach them because even though VH one
3:57
Speaker 2: is more relevant, I get the impression that MTV v
4:00
Speaker 2: is still more powerful in that company.
4:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm curious with the dynamic there.
4:05
Speaker 2: Let's find out anyone who works at MTV or VH
4:08
Speaker 2: one let us know.
4:10
Speaker 1: But like you said, it started out just a few
4:12
Speaker 1: years later and was you know they launched with Marvin
4:16
Speaker 1: Gaye singing the National anthem and then Diana Ross and
4:21
Speaker 1: the very mellower. Well, I guess you lost that love
4:24
Speaker 1: and feeling was always mellow. But I feel like Daryl
4:27
Speaker 1: holland John Oates even made it even sort of cornier.
4:31
Speaker 2: Oh you wanted to hear corny?
4:33
Speaker 1: Sure.
4:33
Speaker 2: I was listening to some beautiful music on YouTube this
4:36
Speaker 2: morning as I was studying, Yeah, and I heard a
4:41
Speaker 2: instrumental musaic version of Gordon Lightfoot Sundown, and I was like,
4:48
Speaker 2: Chuck would love this one.
4:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I probably would have, because every.
4:51
Speaker 2: Time I hear that song, I hear you doing your
4:53
Speaker 2: impression of it where you're just like mumbling the words. Yeah.
4:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, boy, that's when Canada turned against me personally. Yeah,
5:03
Speaker 1: and they forgave me. We made up.
5:05
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was actually a pretty solid lineup. The
5:08
Speaker 2: fourth video that they showed was John Lennon's Nobody Told
5:11
Speaker 2: Me So. That's not a bad way to kick off
5:14
Speaker 2: a new video channel. And I was looking through the
5:17
Speaker 2: rest of the I think first ten or twenty or whatever,
5:19
Speaker 2: and it was just hit after hit and the VJs
5:24
Speaker 2: that they had again, this is the older sibling or
5:27
Speaker 2: maybe even like parent.
5:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, like people in their thirties watched vach one. Yeah,
5:32
Speaker 1: really old people.
5:33
Speaker 2: Right, people that David Bowie clearly said you couldn't trust
5:36
Speaker 2: any longer.
5:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
5:38
Speaker 2: That was who the VJs were. They were untrustworthy former
5:42
Speaker 2: radio vet's like don Imus.
5:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, Imus was air Frankie Crocker Bowser from Seannahah, Yeah.
5:50
Speaker 2: The best VJ I think of all.
5:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe.
5:53
Speaker 2: So. There was also a guy named Scott Shannon who
5:56
Speaker 2: we can thank for creating the Morning Zoo radio show
6:00
Speaker 2: show format.
6:01
Speaker 1: Oh was he the guy?
6:03
Speaker 2: He was the guy?
6:04
Speaker 1: Wow?
6:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think his headstone, if he's still around, it
6:08
Speaker 2: will eventually say sorry.
6:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it just has a fart machine that you
6:14
Speaker 1: can press.
6:15
Speaker 2: That's not a bad idea, that's really not actually. So
6:19
Speaker 2: one of the other things that differentiated VH one from
6:22
Speaker 2: MTV is that, pretty much out of the gate, you
6:24
Speaker 2: can tell from the first two videos, it was much
6:26
Speaker 2: more willing to put black artists on its airwaves. Right,
6:33
Speaker 2: Like we talked about MTV being like almost flat out
6:36
Speaker 2: accused of racism by the head of CBS Records within
6:40
Speaker 2: a couple of years of its launch, VH one was
6:44
Speaker 2: not that. I don't know if they learned the lesson
6:46
Speaker 2: or if they were just more into music made by
6:49
Speaker 2: black artists than MTV. I'm not sure, but from the
6:52
Speaker 2: outset they there was a place where you could see
6:54
Speaker 2: more black artists for sure.
6:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also a place for comedy. You know, m
6:59
Speaker 1: TV we lauded some of the sort of sketch shows
7:02
Speaker 1: and the remote control funny game show. But Rosie O'Donnell
7:07
Speaker 1: actually got her start as a VJ on VH one
7:09
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, and a few years later the
7:12
Speaker 1: pretty good stand up show Stand Up Spotlight was on.
7:15
Speaker 1: And this was, you know, three or four years before
7:18
Speaker 1: the Comedy Channel launch which would eventually become Comedy Central.
7:21
Speaker 1: So there wasn't. You know, HBO was doing some stuff,
7:24
Speaker 1: but there wasn't a lot of stand up on television
7:26
Speaker 1: until VH one.
7:27
Speaker 2: No, but apparently there already was the half hour comedy
7:31
Speaker 2: hour on MTV, which I had totally forgotten about. But
7:34
Speaker 2: do you remember that?
7:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was a good hower comedy Hour.
7:37
Speaker 2: And then I guess HBO already still had some stuff too,
7:41
Speaker 2: but for the most part, there wasn't It wasn't crowded
7:44
Speaker 2: at all. Rosie O'Donnell was an innovator in that sense
7:47
Speaker 2: for sure.
7:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then their first sort of big original show,
7:52
Speaker 1: I mean stand up Spotlight did pretty well. But my generation,
7:55
Speaker 1: I remember in nineteen eighty nine with Peter Noon of
7:58
Speaker 1: Herman's Hermits hosting and it was, you know, it was
8:02
Speaker 1: just him DJing and spinning records but also sort of
8:05
Speaker 1: talking about trivia, kind of like a Turner classic movies
8:08
Speaker 1: for boomers pretty much.
8:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was like Herman's Hermits. I know for
8:14
Speaker 2: a fact, I know that band, but I can't remember
8:16
Speaker 2: what their big hit was. So I was looking all
8:19
Speaker 2: over YouTube. I found one of their greatest hits albums,
8:21
Speaker 2: and I just had to skip through all the songs yeah, no,
8:24
Speaker 2: that's not it. Never heard that one before. I don't
8:26
Speaker 2: know who would like this one. And then it finally
8:28
Speaker 2: got to something tells me I'm into something good.
8:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I knew where your head is.
8:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know that one from the Romantic montage
8:36
Speaker 2: and Naked Gun, that's right, And that's my Herman's Hermit story.
8:44
Speaker 1: You know, these videos that they were playing on my generation,
8:48
Speaker 1: a lot of them were just old sort of when
8:50
Speaker 1: they did promotional videos before the true music video format
8:53
Speaker 1: came out. But they also played new stuff. There was
8:56
Speaker 1: plenty of Michael Bolton and crossover stuff. It also was
9:00
Speaker 1: playing on MTV, the VH one. Would you know plenty
9:03
Speaker 1: of Rod Stewart obviously, Yeah.
9:05
Speaker 2: Rod Stewart, turns out, was to music videos what Enya
9:09
Speaker 2: is to crossword puzzles, right, like Perennial. Right.
9:13
Speaker 1: She just popped up again this week in the crossword?
9:15
Speaker 2: Did she really?
9:16
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, that's it just keeps happening.
9:19
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool. Yeah, I love this ride for her.
9:22
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes.
9:24
Speaker 2: That was kind of a problem though, is because some
9:26
Speaker 2: of these acts were already past their prime when they
9:29
Speaker 2: were showing videos on VH one. They hadn't made videos.
9:33
Speaker 2: They were they were Their prime came before that whole
9:36
Speaker 2: marketing tool that we talked about in the MTV episode.
9:40
Speaker 2: So they would have to piece together things like concert
9:43
Speaker 2: footage or like you said, maybe even like TV appearances
9:47
Speaker 2: or something like that, and just basically make like a
9:49
Speaker 2: an edited version to make a music video for a
9:53
Speaker 2: particular song. So they VH one was kind of hamstrung
9:56
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways right out of the gate.
9:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's all because Peter Noon demanded it right
10:03
Speaker 1: the tyrant.
10:04
Speaker 2: Yes, he was quite a tyrant. Everyone knows that. You
10:07
Speaker 2: don't even have to know the song. Something tells me
10:09
Speaker 2: I'm into something good to know that Peter Noon was
10:12
Speaker 2: a tyrant.
10:15
Speaker 1: Mid nineties, they found themselves floundering a bit, though, because
10:18
Speaker 1: they never really got an identity outside of being sort
10:20
Speaker 1: of the you know, you know, if you were an
10:23
Speaker 1: MTV kid, you thought VH one was kind of boring
10:26
Speaker 1: and it was like the stuff your parents might be into,
10:27
Speaker 1: kind of a little more square. And that's not an identity, no, well,
10:31
Speaker 1: I know, but that's not an identity that you want
10:33
Speaker 1: to claim. So they had like a mishmash of different
10:37
Speaker 1: shows going on. They had a show called Archives that
10:40
Speaker 1: was just kind of rebroadcasting old TV interviews that they
10:44
Speaker 1: I guess had rights to m and so, you know,
10:46
Speaker 1: they just lacked an identity aside from being square. And
10:50
Speaker 1: they also had the same pressures that MTV had when
10:53
Speaker 1: with competition coming in and so much so that cable
10:57
Speaker 1: operators were like, I don't like, I don't want to
11:00
Speaker 1: even though it's free, I don't want it anymore. Right,
11:02
Speaker 1: So they were trying to get rid of VH one,
11:06
Speaker 1: you know actively, I think the biggest cable operator in
11:08
Speaker 1: the country at the time, Telecommunications Inc. They were like,
11:12
Speaker 1: I don't even want this free thing.
11:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, for free, that's pretty sad. That's that's not good. Actually,
11:19
Speaker 2: it was a dude named John Sykes who essentially saved
11:23
Speaker 2: VH one.
11:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also iHeart media executive, is he? Yeah?
11:28
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, congratulations John Sykes, because he definitely turned VH
11:32
Speaker 2: one around. He was what you would call a good hire. Yeah,
11:35
Speaker 2: because in nineteen ninety four they brought him on and
11:39
Speaker 2: he so changed VH one for the better that in
11:45
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five their subscriber base was forty nine million households.
11:50
Speaker 2: Three years later it was up to sixty two million households.
11:54
Speaker 2: That's what they call the Sykes effect.
11:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and he'd walk out of the room and
12:00
Speaker 1: say you got pyched. They started new original music programming,
12:06
Speaker 1: and that was really part of the big rebranding effort
12:11
Speaker 1: that was so successful. Top ten Countdown in ninety four.
12:15
Speaker 1: Eventually Top twenty Countdown was sort of the big first one.
12:20
Speaker 1: But in nineteen ninety six they really really hit it
12:23
Speaker 1: big pop culturally with a little show called pop Up Video.
12:28
Speaker 2: Yes I remember watching this and it was one of
12:31
Speaker 2: the things about it. So pop up video if you've
12:33
Speaker 2: never seen it. They would just show music videos, but
12:36
Speaker 2: then there were these little kind of like cartoon word
12:40
Speaker 2: bubbles would pop up with some random fact about the artist,
12:47
Speaker 2: maybe a little trivia, something about music history or and
12:51
Speaker 2: this is I think what captured everybody, some sort of
12:53
Speaker 2: juicy little bit of gossip or random weirdness that had
12:57
Speaker 2: to do with that specific video. And the two guys
13:00
Speaker 2: who were behind it, Woody Thompson and Ted Lowe, Apparently
13:06
Speaker 2: they got pushed back from the parent company because the
13:09
Speaker 2: parent company also owned Blockbuster, and they knew from owning Blockbuster,
13:14
Speaker 2: foreign films didn't go anywhere because people didn't like subtitles. Yeah,
13:18
Speaker 2: so they were like, no one's gonna want to read anything.
13:20
Speaker 2: But they were very wrong because in large part Thompson
13:24
Speaker 2: and Lowe were good writers. So this kind of became
13:27
Speaker 2: known for being a much smarter show than you would
13:31
Speaker 2: guess it would be.
13:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very clever and a huge, huge hit.
13:36
Speaker 1: Like I remember watching it. I don't remember like setting
13:39
Speaker 1: my calendar to sit around and make sure I knew
13:42
Speaker 1: and when it was on, but I definitely found myself
13:45
Speaker 1: watching it quite a bit. It was a fun show.
13:48
Speaker 1: Storytellers came out in nineteen ninety six, which was clearly
13:51
Speaker 1: aimed at the kind of you know, younger boomer maybe
13:54
Speaker 1: older gen X generation, because they just had classic rock
13:58
Speaker 1: artists after classic rock artists in an intimate setting, singing songs,
14:02
Speaker 1: telling stories about the writing of those songs. Very very
14:05
Speaker 1: popular show.
14:06
Speaker 2: Yes, And anytime I think of Storytellers, I think of
14:10
Speaker 2: the Saturday Night Live skit with Neil Diamond.
14:14
Speaker 1: I don't think I saw that.
14:15
Speaker 2: Oh it was Will Ferrell as Neil Diamond, and he
14:18
Speaker 2: is just off the rails. At one point he says
14:20
Speaker 2: he's on some dynamite pills. Got his keyboard as Kenny
14:24
Speaker 2: gave him, and he at one point he said, I
14:26
Speaker 2: will smack you in the mouth. I'm Neil Diamond, And
14:30
Speaker 2: it was just bizarre that he made this Neil Diamond character.
14:34
Speaker 2: But the ironic part of is Neil Diamond was never
14:37
Speaker 2: on storytellers.
14:39
Speaker 1: No, Well, maybe that's how they got away with it.
14:41
Speaker 2: It's worth going back and seeing. Man, it's an all
14:44
Speaker 2: time great sketch.
14:46
Speaker 1: Better than Robert Gulay. That's pretty good.
14:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, one hundred times, maybe one hundred and twenty five.
14:52
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you did the mask.
14:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
14:56
Speaker 1: Legends was another big show that came out that same year,
14:58
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six. This just straight up rock dock stuff,
15:02
Speaker 1: pretty you know, straightforward, one hour documentary style. Again, you know,
15:07
Speaker 1: artists like Bowie and Retha Franklin, and you know, the
15:11
Speaker 1: clash was in there. I mean, you know, still aimed
15:13
Speaker 1: at that audience. They knew what their bread and butter was,
15:16
Speaker 1: but they started making kind of good shows to support it.
15:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one reason that John Sykes kind of brought
15:21
Speaker 2: it back to music videos and then made all this
15:24
Speaker 2: original music programming is the Boomers to start and then
15:29
Speaker 2: eventually jen X followed in their footsteps. They kept buying
15:33
Speaker 2: new music, like they kept listening to music into their
15:36
Speaker 2: thirties and forties. Previous generations hadn't done that, Like, apparently
15:40
Speaker 2: you were done with music when you turn thirty because
15:43
Speaker 2: life sucked and it was serious, and you were in
15:45
Speaker 2: black and white and if you were a woman, you
15:46
Speaker 2: were an apron all day. If you were a man,
15:49
Speaker 2: you just drank scotch all day. You just didn't listen
15:52
Speaker 2: to music after a certain point and that changed. So
15:55
Speaker 2: it made sense that you would kind of target those
15:58
Speaker 2: generations because they also had the most pocket money or
16:02
Speaker 2: spending money too.
16:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean new music. That is like the
16:06
Speaker 1: mad Men. Guys listened to the whatever Artie Shaw or
16:11
Speaker 1: the whatever orchestra. But there were no guys in the
16:14
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties in their thirties saying like, what's what's what's
16:17
Speaker 1: new out there?
16:18
Speaker 2: Right?
16:18
Speaker 1: What can you turn me on to?
16:20
Speaker 2: I remember one of the more disappointing moments I've ever
16:23
Speaker 2: had in relation to my father was going through his
16:26
Speaker 2: old record collection and the artist he had the most
16:30
Speaker 2: forty fives of was Jackie Gleason.
16:33
Speaker 1: Somehow, at least your dad had records My dad didn't
16:36
Speaker 1: even listen to music hardly.
16:38
Speaker 2: Your dad made his own music and his jeep on
16:40
Speaker 2: a CB.
16:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. It was weird, had a weird family.
16:45
Speaker 2: He had an old Convoy soundtrack going.
16:48
Speaker 1: That's true. He would get I think I mentioned he
16:50
Speaker 1: would get obsessed with like a song and that's it,
16:53
Speaker 1: and he'd say, hey, Scott, go record that like seventeen
16:57
Speaker 1: times in a row on on a tape for me
17:00
Speaker 1: in Scotty to listen to the seats.
17:03
Speaker 2: Here's your tape of Hot Blooded seventeen times.
17:07
Speaker 1: Ninety seven was when it really hit the big time
17:10
Speaker 1: with behind the music. I think Olivia helped us out
17:14
Speaker 1: with this went along with the MTV article and she
17:16
Speaker 1: aptly calls it legends evil twin because these were one
17:21
Speaker 1: hour documentaries, but they were. It got known very quickly
17:24
Speaker 1: for being very melodramatic and very juicy with like the dirt,
17:29
Speaker 1: the stories about what happened, you know, the real gossipy.
17:32
Speaker 2: Stuff, lurid even I think in a lot of ways.
17:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it ran for a long time.
17:37
Speaker 2: It did ninety seven to I think twenty fourteen. Yeah,
17:42
Speaker 2: one of the ones, one of the very famous episodes.
17:45
Speaker 2: But they had a ton of episodes from bands from
17:48
Speaker 2: Megadeth to Bette Midler to Notorious Big Yeah. One of
17:52
Speaker 2: the ones that really kind of infiltrated pop culture though,
17:56
Speaker 2: was Life Garrett.
17:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:57
Speaker 2: It was like a teen idol in the seventies and
18:02
Speaker 2: he was reunited in his Behind the Music with a
18:06
Speaker 2: friend who had become paralyzed from a car crash that
18:10
Speaker 2: Leif Garrett caused when he was drunk back in the seventies.
18:13
Speaker 2: And it was very melodramatic and very kind of drippy,
18:17
Speaker 2: and it just kind of made it out as a meme. Eventually,
18:21
Speaker 2: I saw Brian on Family Guy they started one of
18:24
Speaker 2: the episodes. Really, he was just sitting there, I guess,
18:26
Speaker 2: watching Behind the Music and mouthing along word for word
18:31
Speaker 2: with the dialogue between Life Garrett and his friend.
18:36
Speaker 1: Shall we take a break?
18:38
Speaker 2: I didn't expect that, but you know what, I love that.
18:40
Speaker 2: You surprised me. So sure.
18:42
Speaker 1: All right, it's nineteen ninety seven. We'll be back to
18:45
Speaker 1: jump back in time a bit and then go forward
18:47
Speaker 1: in time a bit. All right, so we're back. We
19:13
Speaker 1: promised to jump back in time, and we have to
19:15
Speaker 1: because ninety seven was Behind the Music. But in ninety five,
19:19
Speaker 1: VH one got into the fashion biz as well as
19:22
Speaker 1: MTV had done with Cindy Crawford. And when they started,
19:25
Speaker 1: they partnered up with Vogue magazine to start hosting the
19:27
Speaker 1: annual Fashion Awards, and that is well, it's well known
19:31
Speaker 1: because they did a pretty good job with that as
19:33
Speaker 1: far as the ratings go. But that's also where Derek Zulander,
19:36
Speaker 1: who we just mentioned. I think in the MTV episode
19:39
Speaker 1: he appeared for the first time at the Fashion Awards.
19:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like a pre taped little bit more
19:45
Speaker 2: or two minute bit. But in the movie Zoolander, he
19:50
Speaker 2: faces his greatest public humiliation at the VH one Fashion Awards.
19:54
Speaker 2: So they showed up in the movie, which I just
19:56
Speaker 2: watched right, I watched recently, and it holds up. Man,
19:59
Speaker 2: it's pretty funny.
20:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. I bet Ruby would like that.
20:02
Speaker 2: I bet too. I would. I would definitely show it
20:06
Speaker 2: to her.
20:07
Speaker 1: Is it just her kind of silly?
20:08
Speaker 2: I think it is a very silly movie.
20:11
Speaker 1: Ninety seven they launched Save the Music John Sykes. He
20:16
Speaker 1: was principal for a day at a school in Brooklyn
20:17
Speaker 1: that had no music program or couldn't get funding, and
20:21
Speaker 1: that still exists. So that's sort of a feather in
20:23
Speaker 1: their caps to Save the Music Foundation.
20:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I read that they've donated two point eight million
20:27
Speaker 2: recorders to schools across the country.
20:31
Speaker 1: Now are you kidding? There's unreal? Are you mocking the recorder?
20:37
Speaker 2: Yes? I am chuck.
20:38
Speaker 1: Oh. Hey, if you're a recorder maestro out there, just
20:46
Speaker 1: keep on doing it. Oh, don't listen to Josh.
20:48
Speaker 2: No, don't listen to me, and in fact, listen to
20:50
Speaker 2: me for this part. If you would make us a
20:54
Speaker 2: music bumper for our ad biaks, that would be awesome.
20:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, if you can get it, well, it'll be
21:01
Speaker 1: I wish we could put the call out before this
21:04
Speaker 1: episode came out, because we could put it in this episode.
21:07
Speaker 2: I mean we can try.
21:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe I'll do it on the Instagram page. See
21:10
Speaker 1: what happened? Okay, all right, moving on to politics, right.
21:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently Bill Clinton was a big VH one viewer viewer.
21:20
Speaker 2: He donated one of his old saxophones to the Save
21:23
Speaker 2: the Music program. Yeah, and they also, I guess, in return,
21:28
Speaker 2: made a documentary about him, Bill Clinton colon Rock and
21:31
Speaker 2: Roll President. This was nineteen ninety seven, don't.
21:34
Speaker 1: Forget that's right. And they also got into the live
21:38
Speaker 1: Business with their very very successful series of Divas concerts.
21:43
Speaker 1: The first one was in nineteen ninety eight. I remember
21:45
Speaker 1: this being a very big deal.
21:47
Speaker 2: It is.
21:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, they got Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Shania Twain, Gloria Estefan,
21:53
Speaker 1: Carol King, and.
21:54
Speaker 2: Who else Celine Dion.
21:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you can't have a Divas concert in ninety
21:59
Speaker 1: eight without Selene and pounding her chest.
22:01
Speaker 2: No, that's a murderer's row of divas.
22:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely so.
22:05
Speaker 2: Even despite all of this reprogramming, very very successful and
22:09
Speaker 2: popular programming, you could argue that if this wasn't the
22:13
Speaker 2: golden era of VH one, it was certainly one of
22:16
Speaker 2: the golden eras. Yeah, cable operators were still dropping VH one.
22:21
Speaker 2: I guess they hadn't gotten the news yet, right, So
22:25
Speaker 2: VH one kind of organizes something similar to I Want
22:28
Speaker 2: My MTV that MTV had used before it started getting
22:32
Speaker 2: picked up by cable operators. And they actually staged a
22:35
Speaker 2: protest in Denver because the I guess the cable operator
22:40
Speaker 2: there had dropped VH one, And they got Don Henley
22:43
Speaker 2: and John Mellencamp and Jewel to fly out there and protest,
22:48
Speaker 2: and I guess en route. They were in the air,
22:51
Speaker 2: and the cable operator got word of what was about
22:53
Speaker 2: to happen, and they agreed to pick VH one back up.
22:57
Speaker 1: They're like Don Henley's coming. I want to mess with
23:00
Speaker 1: the hen You definitely don't want to mess with Don Hinley. No,
23:04
Speaker 1: they were pretty successful in getting, like you said, all
23:07
Speaker 1: those viewers back in to the delight of ad salespeople
23:12
Speaker 1: because they had that eighteen to forty nine year old
23:15
Speaker 1: demographic that is so juicy and everyone knows those are
23:18
Speaker 1: the people that have all the bucks, or at least
23:22
Speaker 1: back then they did, and so they you know, they
23:23
Speaker 1: were able to land some big ad dollars. As a
23:26
Speaker 1: resultant were seemingly thriving.
23:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it didn't hurt that there were plenty of
23:30
Speaker 2: like new artists who were making the kind of music
23:33
Speaker 2: that would make a little more sense on VH one
23:35
Speaker 2: than say MTV, like Natalie Merchant. Celine Dion, as you mentioned,
23:40
Speaker 2: was enormous at this time. Yeah, probably would not see
23:43
Speaker 2: a Celenion video on MTV, but she was right at
23:46
Speaker 2: home on VH one. Yeahlah Bolton, Michael Bolton, alanis probably
23:52
Speaker 2: straddled the two says like the wallflowers or goo goo
23:55
Speaker 2: dolls or something like that.
23:57
Speaker 1: Ooh okay, and these.
24:00
Speaker 2: Are real deal. I watched some VH one blocks to
24:02
Speaker 2: come up with some examples, so all of those had
24:05
Speaker 2: videos on VH one. Everybody, that's the kind of research
24:08
Speaker 2: you can expect from stuff you should know.
24:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like before dad rock was a term
24:14
Speaker 1: that was probably the angle what's dead?
24:16
Speaker 2: I've not heard that before, so what does it cover?
24:19
Speaker 1: Dad rock is kind of like, I know, Wilco gets
24:22
Speaker 1: thrown in there a lot. It's like, you know, kind
24:24
Speaker 1: of dudes my age that like used to go to
24:27
Speaker 1: all the shows, but now just so I could get
24:29
Speaker 1: out to Wilco like every year, and you know that
24:33
Speaker 1: kind of thing.
24:33
Speaker 2: I saw this meme on Instagram where it's this girl
24:37
Speaker 2: sitting in a like a stadium seat and she has
24:40
Speaker 2: a very unhappy look on her face and it says,
24:44
Speaker 2: anyone over forty when the third opening band starts to
24:47
Speaker 2: set up at nine pm. It's so true, man, It's fine,
24:52
Speaker 2: it just starts too late.
24:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you. Shows are starting earlier though. I
24:57
Speaker 1: feel like I read that like these legacy shows that
25:00
Speaker 1: I'm seeing, all these olds, they're they're they're getting up
25:03
Speaker 1: on stage at like, you know, opening band at seven,
25:06
Speaker 1: regular band at eight, out out by nine thirty five.
25:09
Speaker 2: Hey, we start at seven promptly. If we ever start,
25:12
Speaker 2: try to Yeah, if we start later than seven, it's
25:15
Speaker 2: the venue itself saying please let us hold because we're
25:18
Speaker 2: making mad cash at the bar.
25:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's actually the audience's fault. Yeah, really, because they're
25:26
Speaker 1: like they're not in yet, They're they're just getting here.
25:28
Speaker 1: There's a lot of traffic. It's actually traffic's fault.
25:30
Speaker 2: And some towns are are worse for it than others.
25:32
Speaker 2: Some some towns are just like, we know, you're not
25:34
Speaker 2: going to start while we're getting licker. Sorry.
25:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, But like with MTV, they would you know, start
25:41
Speaker 1: sort of changing things and rebranding. These are companies that
25:45
Speaker 1: just seemingly change the channels, not literally, but change their
25:48
Speaker 1: programming a lot, and like the names of the channel
25:51
Speaker 1: change a lot. Yes, Like you know MTV at MTB
25:54
Speaker 1: two and MTV Classic and VH one kind of did
25:56
Speaker 1: the same. They had VH one Soul which is now
25:59
Speaker 1: Bee tol Et Soul, VH one Smooth, which was more
26:03
Speaker 1: like Kenny G kind of stuff. But then they're like
26:06
Speaker 1: who wants that, Let's change that VH one Classic Rock
26:10
Speaker 1: and then just VH one Classic and now it's MTV Classic.
26:13
Speaker 2: It is quite a ride for that channel. Yeah, yeah,
26:16
Speaker 2: VH one smooth. I can't believe that ever made it
26:18
Speaker 2: outside of the initial meeting.
26:21
Speaker 1: Yeah. True.
26:22
Speaker 2: So VH one, just like MTV, is like, Okay, if
26:26
Speaker 2: we can't hold people's attention from video to video, we
26:29
Speaker 2: got to come up with a different kind of show.
26:32
Speaker 2: And so they stopped playing videos almost it dropped almost
26:36
Speaker 2: by fifty percent from ninety nine to twenty twelve. Yeah,
26:40
Speaker 2: and remember like it had been relaunched in ninety four
26:43
Speaker 2: as like VH one Music first, and it just wasn't
26:47
Speaker 2: sustainable at the turn of the millennium, right, So they
26:51
Speaker 2: started getting into countdown shows. They figured out how they
26:54
Speaker 2: could keep showing videos. They just needed to adjust it,
26:58
Speaker 2: put them in a certain kind of package that would
27:01
Speaker 2: hold your attention a little more. Nothing does that better
27:04
Speaker 2: than a countdown. And they kicked it off in grand
27:07
Speaker 2: style with the one hundred Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll,
27:11
Speaker 2: hosted by none other than Kevin Bacon. Yeah, and this
27:15
Speaker 2: kicked off their whole great the Greatest Countdowns format, which
27:20
Speaker 2: started in ninety eight ninety nine, sorry and ran to
27:23
Speaker 2: twenty twelve.
27:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, which you know, I was kind of thinking about it.
27:27
Speaker 1: They ended up the last episode was forty Greatest Pranks,
27:31
Speaker 1: Part four, so and I was like, what a weird
27:35
Speaker 1: kind of thing. But that was right in the middle
27:37
Speaker 1: of the of the listical revolution. Sure that was going
27:42
Speaker 1: on online, and this is kind of the same version
27:44
Speaker 1: of that, because I was like, oh, man, I remember
27:46
Speaker 1: when you and I were writers for How Stuff Works
27:48
Speaker 1: back in the day. We were sort of fighting up
27:51
Speaker 1: against that because it seems like that was what the
27:53
Speaker 1: Internet became for a period of years, was just list
27:56
Speaker 1: top ten list list list list list.
27:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, where do you think ten Dumb Criminals
28:01
Speaker 2: episode came from?
28:02
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah. And that's one reason why we don't do
28:06
Speaker 1: a lot of those anymore is because people aren't writing
28:08
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff anymore. I like to think we
28:10
Speaker 1: changed with the time.
28:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. Plus also they can be kind of thin every
28:15
Speaker 2: once in a while, though it's a good one. I
28:17
Speaker 2: don't I can't think of any off the top of
28:19
Speaker 2: my head, but we've done some good top tens that.
28:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they're pretty breezy which I think people
28:23
Speaker 1: enjoy from time to time for sure.
28:26
Speaker 2: So the luridity kind of really started to show itself
28:30
Speaker 2: a little more with Where Are They Now nineteen ninety
28:33
Speaker 2: nine show that basically said where are like one hit
28:37
Speaker 2: wonders in former child stars? What are they doing now?
28:41
Speaker 2: Let's just peek in on their sad lives and see
28:43
Speaker 2: what's what?
28:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, they got into movies. One thing we didn't mention
28:47
Speaker 1: was MTV Films, which had some pretty successful movies that
28:52
Speaker 1: they were putting out. I think I remember the movie
28:55
Speaker 1: Election from Alexander Payne, one of my favorite movies. I
28:58
Speaker 1: think that was an MTV film. But the h one
29:00
Speaker 1: didn't fare as well on the movie front. But they
29:02
Speaker 1: did have one sort of noteworthy one called Two of Us,
29:06
Speaker 1: which which was okay. It was in two thousand. It
29:08
Speaker 1: was a fictionalized story about when Paul McCartney and John
29:11
Speaker 1: Lennon were hanging out in nineteen seventy six, the night
29:14
Speaker 1: that LORDE. Michael's on SNL on air said if the
29:19
Speaker 1: Beatles come down here, I'll pay you. I can't remember
29:21
Speaker 1: it was like a million bucks or something.
29:22
Speaker 2: I saw three thousand dollars?
29:25
Speaker 1: Was that what it was?
29:26
Speaker 2: That's what I saw, which I was like, even in
29:28
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, that wasn't that much money.
29:30
Speaker 1: I can't remember. I mean, you can watch the clip
29:32
Speaker 1: on YouTube and see him say it with his own mouth.
29:34
Speaker 1: I just didn't have a chance. Yeah, But at any rate,
29:37
Speaker 1: it was a fictionalized version of them hanging out that night,
29:40
Speaker 1: which is supposedly a true story, right, that they were
29:43
Speaker 1: going to come down and play on SNL like you
29:46
Speaker 1: was it that far from the Dakota what happened? Supposedly
29:49
Speaker 1: they were two stoned, that's as the story goes at least.
29:54
Speaker 2: And by stone do you mean on Heroin?
29:56
Speaker 1: Probably no, I think they each took two.
29:58
Speaker 2: PCPs as per the instructions. So by this time they
30:04
Speaker 2: finally dropped pretense this would be VH one we're talking
30:07
Speaker 2: about again, and they just stopped using the music first
30:10
Speaker 2: tagline because it was just a boldfaced lie. At this point,
30:14
Speaker 2: legends ended, pop up videos ended, and it was time
30:18
Speaker 2: for a new shakeup because John Sykes had done his work,
30:21
Speaker 2: and so MTV Networks hired a new guy named Brian Grayden,
30:25
Speaker 2: and he said, we're going to shift more toward pop culture. Right,
30:29
Speaker 2: We're not even going to show blocks of videos anymore
30:32
Speaker 2: and countdowns. And he hired a guy named Jeff Old
30:36
Speaker 2: who was new and he became executive vice president for
30:39
Speaker 2: programming and production. And the thing that Old brought to
30:43
Speaker 2: this whole thing following the marching orders to make more
30:46
Speaker 2: pop culture relevant shows is for he gave his producers
30:50
Speaker 2: free reign to just you got an idea, put it
30:53
Speaker 2: on air, and if it works, awesome, if it doesn't whatever.
30:56
Speaker 2: It's called the agile format of management, where you just
31:01
Speaker 2: do a bunch of stuff, some of it fails and
31:03
Speaker 2: you just keep.
31:03
Speaker 1: Going, Yeah, I mean, not a bad idea, no.
31:07
Speaker 2: And the other thing about it, too, is that kind
31:09
Speaker 2: of stuff like greenlighting a really easy show idea quickly
31:15
Speaker 2: usually means you can make it very cheaply. And that
31:18
Speaker 2: was what they did. They made very very inexpensive shows
31:23
Speaker 2: that still were very very popular because the concepts were
31:26
Speaker 2: so good.
31:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I Love the Eighties was the first big
31:31
Speaker 1: big hit out of that camp that premiere in two
31:34
Speaker 1: thousand and two. Not a show I watch much, but
31:38
Speaker 1: it was one that was almost kind of hard to avoid. Somehow.
31:42
Speaker 1: I feel like I remember just seeing Michael ian Black
31:44
Speaker 1: on my screen a lot here and there. I think
31:47
Speaker 1: he was one of the comedians.
31:49
Speaker 2: He was on like a million episodes of it.
31:51
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, he did great with that. But it
31:53
Speaker 1: was comedians and celebrities just sort of you know, it
31:56
Speaker 1: was like kind of quick clip stuff of them sitting
31:59
Speaker 1: talking headstyle, well talking and reminiscing about whatever the decade was.
32:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. So it was a clip show of
32:06
Speaker 2: talking heads, and it would frequently end up on Talk Soup,
32:11
Speaker 2: which was a clip show of talking heads.
32:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Talk Soup.
32:15
Speaker 2: Would be covering another clip show, but it worked. Talk
32:19
Speaker 2: Soup was great.
32:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I enjoyed Talk Soup. I Love the Eighties was
32:23
Speaker 1: based on a BB show that was definitely a little
32:25
Speaker 1: more serious and sort of recounting the decade. But it
32:28
Speaker 1: was a big hit again in the eighteen forty nine demographic,
32:31
Speaker 1: and so they did the I Love the Seventies, I
32:33
Speaker 1: Love the Nineties they did I Love the New Millennium,
32:36
Speaker 1: which only covered through two thousand and seven, because it
32:39
Speaker 1: debuted in two thousand and eight and I think in
32:42
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. I Loved the two Thousands was the last
32:44
Speaker 1: one in the series that ran. Another great show was
32:49
Speaker 1: called Best Week Ever, and then eventually Best Week Ever
32:52
Speaker 1: with Paula Tompkins. Yeah, because friend of the show in
32:55
Speaker 1: our pal Paul was the host where they recounted the
32:59
Speaker 1: last week and this was a big launching pad for
33:02
Speaker 1: a lot of great, great comedians.
33:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was a spinoff from I Love
33:06
Speaker 2: the Eighties. I think p F. Tompkins was one of
33:08
Speaker 2: the comedians, one of the frequently recurring comedians on that show.
33:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want me to list out some comedians who started.
33:16
Speaker 2: There, I would love that, Chuck, please please do.
33:19
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that they were not doing anything,
33:22
Speaker 1: but certainly we're not the household names there are now.
33:24
Speaker 1: But Nick Krole, Paul Sheer, Doug Benson, Rob Hubel, a
33:29
Speaker 1: little comedian named John Mulaney, the wonderful Jessica Saint Clair,
33:33
Speaker 1: Michael Shay, Michael Ian Black, Patton Oswald, and I was
33:37
Speaker 1: watching some of the Best Week Ever this morning and
33:42
Speaker 1: Paul's wonderful wife. Have we've spoken about Janey had had
33:45
Speaker 1: Tompkins was in one of the little bits, and I
33:48
Speaker 1: had no idea Jane was ever on there. So I'm
33:50
Speaker 1: I took a screenshot and I'm gonna text it to
33:52
Speaker 1: her later nice.
33:53
Speaker 2: So if it was launched in two thousand and four,
33:55
Speaker 2: those people's careers did start to take off around that
33:58
Speaker 2: time or after that, so yeah, it must have been
34:01
Speaker 2: a huge launching pad for them for sure. Yeah it
34:04
Speaker 2: was a fun show, but it also goes to show
34:06
Speaker 2: you all, like all of those names were pretty much
34:09
Speaker 2: recognizable today. That also is a testament to just how
34:14
Speaker 2: popular Best Week ever and I love the eighties was.
34:17
Speaker 2: So v H one was doing a pretty good job
34:20
Speaker 2: shifting away from music, right, but they still hadn't gotten
34:24
Speaker 2: into what we would call reality yet. And it's about
34:29
Speaker 2: here that you'll notice we stopped talking about music pretty
34:32
Speaker 2: much altogether and get into the world of reality TV.
34:37
Speaker 1: All right, I guess that means a break, right, Yeah,
34:41
Speaker 1: all right, we'll be right.
34:42
Speaker 2: Back, So, Chuck, we talked about how VH one is
35:10
Speaker 2: transitioning into reality shows and they didn't invent reality shows.
35:16
Speaker 2: They were a really early contributor and they had a
35:19
Speaker 2: lot of reality shows over the years, still do. But
35:23
Speaker 2: they came up with the term celebri reality and I
35:27
Speaker 2: did not know this, but so celebriality is usually minor
35:31
Speaker 2: celebrities in a reality show, sometimes big celebrities, but the
35:36
Speaker 2: whole thing that kicked it off. I didn't know this
35:38
Speaker 2: was Ted Nugent's celebrity reality show, Surviving Nugent.
35:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that being on. Didn't watch it, but
35:47
Speaker 1: that was you know, Ted Nugent had people out to
35:52
Speaker 1: do what Ted Nugent does, which is shoot guns and
35:54
Speaker 1: shoot arrows and do things that the Nuge was into.
35:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like a competition reality show, and he
36:02
Speaker 2: would have it. He was the arbiter of who stayed
36:05
Speaker 2: or went, and competitions would be like them carrying manure
36:09
Speaker 2: with their bare hands or climbing under an electrified fence.
36:12
Speaker 2: And it was real enough that at one point Ted
36:15
Speaker 2: Nugent suffered a chainsaw cut to his leg self inflicted
36:20
Speaker 2: that required forty stitches.
36:23
Speaker 1: It's a lot of stitches, it really is.
36:27
Speaker 2: But this was not so Again, this was kind of
36:29
Speaker 2: contemporaneous to The Osborne's which beat Surviving Nugent by a year,
36:34
Speaker 2: in the same time as The Simple Life, So this
36:36
Speaker 2: was definitely it was in the air that people wanted
36:39
Speaker 2: to see celebrities acting bizarrely in real life. And I
36:44
Speaker 2: just made such air quotes that actually just jammed one
36:47
Speaker 2: of my fingers, right.
36:50
Speaker 1: This real Life became a big hit for them after
36:52
Speaker 1: they co opted it from the WB A couple of
36:55
Speaker 1: years after it debuted, it was a much bigger hit
36:58
Speaker 1: on VH one, and that eventually led to maybe. I mean,
37:04
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was about to say unlikely, but
37:06
Speaker 1: maybe not because Flavor. Flav has so much charisma and personality.
37:10
Speaker 1: I was always so into Public Enemy from like high
37:13
Speaker 1: school on. They were probably my favorite hip hop group
37:15
Speaker 1: of all time, and so it was a little weird
37:18
Speaker 1: for me all of a sudden to see Flave like
37:21
Speaker 1: doing his thing on a reality show. But The Flavor
37:25
Speaker 1: of Love was a tremendous hit. It was only around
37:27
Speaker 1: for a few years, but it was like it invaded
37:30
Speaker 1: the zeitgeist in a big way.
37:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so he became a reality TV star thanks
37:37
Speaker 2: to The Surreal Life. I think he was in season three,
37:40
Speaker 2: and one of the other shows he was on was
37:42
Speaker 2: Strange Love, which followed his relationship with Brigitte Nielsen, who
37:48
Speaker 2: is a good two feet taller than him, striking blonde
37:54
Speaker 2: who they fell in love when they met on The
37:57
Speaker 2: Surreal Life and they shoed orders with Charro, Dave Coolier,
38:02
Speaker 2: Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block, and so
38:05
Speaker 2: that spawned Strange Love and Flavor of Love, and then
38:10
Speaker 2: Flavor of Love spawned I Love New York, starring Tiffany
38:15
Speaker 2: New York Pollard, who is one of the contestants on
38:18
Speaker 2: Flavor of Love. Flavor of Love also inspired Rock of Love,
38:23
Speaker 2: which featured Brett Michaels from Poison replacing the Flavor flav
38:29
Speaker 2: as the bachelor. Right.
38:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, the still the only show like that I've ever watched.
38:35
Speaker 1: I did watch Rock of Love. Yeah. I don't know
38:39
Speaker 1: why I started, but I started and I couldn't stop.
38:43
Speaker 2: That's the sign of a VH one reality show, right there, buddy.
38:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So whoever was pulling the strings, you know,
38:50
Speaker 1: you know, after the Surreal Life was on and flav
38:52
Speaker 1: was on, there there was some There was some guy,
38:56
Speaker 1: some kind of square in the office that was like,
38:57
Speaker 1: who's this guy with a clock? He's fantastic, right, we
39:01
Speaker 1: got to get him his own show.
39:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know it's nuts, but it worked, for sure.
39:06
Speaker 2: There were two other big offshoots from the Cereal Life.
39:08
Speaker 2: I mean there were a cavalcade of them, but there
39:11
Speaker 2: were some other big shows that came from it. One
39:13
Speaker 2: was My Fair Brady, which followed Christopher Knight and Adrian Curry.
39:18
Speaker 2: Christopher Knight was Peter Brady and Adrian Curry and their
39:22
Speaker 2: unlikely relationship. They met on cereal Life as well.
39:26
Speaker 1: And then the site who is She?
39:27
Speaker 2: She was a playboy model?
39:29
Speaker 1: Ah?
39:29
Speaker 2: Okay, And then Salt and Pepper had their own show
39:33
Speaker 2: because I guess they were on the Cereal Life. I
39:34
Speaker 2: didn't know that, but they had. They were reuniting or
39:39
Speaker 2: thinking about reuniting. I guess Pepa was trying to talk
39:42
Speaker 2: Salt into it, but Salt had had a religious conversion
39:46
Speaker 2: and was hesitant to take up the hip hop life again.
39:50
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Well, it sort of filled a void. As
39:54
Speaker 1: Livia sort of aptly pointed out that, you know, there
39:57
Speaker 1: there was a big boom for sitcom about black families
40:01
Speaker 1: in the nineties and even in the early two thousands,
40:03
Speaker 1: but then there was sort of a dearth of those
40:05
Speaker 1: for a little while. So this kind of, you know,
40:08
Speaker 1: filled that void, and VH one took notice and started
40:12
Speaker 1: sort of delivering content to Black America and still.
40:16
Speaker 2: Do yes, and they can take some guff for it sometimes.
40:19
Speaker 2: In part I saw it best explained on the Route
40:22
Speaker 2: by Danielle C. Belton and She basically says, they broadcast
40:26
Speaker 2: for Black Americans, but they're not at all beholden the
40:29
Speaker 2: Black Americans, so they can do basically whatever they want,
40:32
Speaker 2: and they very frequently feature stereotypes of black women. It's
40:37
Speaker 2: like angry and violent and prone to yelling and stuff
40:40
Speaker 2: like that. So it's like a mixed bag. Yeah, but
40:45
Speaker 2: however you approach it. As of back in twenty fourteen,
40:49
Speaker 2: I didn't see any more recent statistics, but in twenty fourteen,
40:52
Speaker 2: VH one was the number one network in African American households,
40:56
Speaker 2: followed by BET and the Oprah Winfree Network. We were
41:00
Speaker 2: definitely doing something that Black America liked.
41:03
Speaker 1: They beat Oprah out. Yeah that's that says a lot.
41:05
Speaker 2: Yes it does, and yeah for sure.
41:08
Speaker 1: Another show that got them a lot of flack eventually
41:10
Speaker 1: was Celebrity Rehab with Doctor Drew Pinsky that premier in
41:14
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. There's a critic that Olivia found
41:17
Speaker 1: named Kayleie Donaldson called it perhaps the most evil reality
41:19
Speaker 1: TV series of all time. You probably know doctor Drew
41:23
Speaker 1: from Loveline with Adam Carolla early on, and he doctor
41:28
Speaker 1: Drew is it wasn't his. I guess a real you know,
41:32
Speaker 1: therapist and trained at treating addiction, so he wasn't just
41:36
Speaker 1: some some you know, pretty face that they put on TV.
41:40
Speaker 1: And he claimed that he wanted to make it like
41:42
Speaker 1: a real, like meaningful show where it was like an
41:45
Speaker 1: antidote to the cruel, tabloid depictions of these people that
41:49
Speaker 1: were suffering through addiction. But he, you know, he also
41:54
Speaker 1: had to deliver an entertaining show, and those two things
41:56
Speaker 1: could be at odds, and it got a lot of
41:58
Speaker 1: flat because, like people started dying for their addictions.
42:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, by twenty twenty four to twelve, of by my count,
42:04
Speaker 2: about forty five rehab patients on the show had died,
42:10
Speaker 2: a lot of them from like overdosing or direct complications
42:14
Speaker 2: from their addictions, like brain aneurysms, which is about more
42:20
Speaker 2: it's a little more than a quarter, which apparently is
42:23
Speaker 2: actually in line with the success rate of traditional rehab.
42:27
Speaker 2: It's just much much, much more visible. But it was
42:31
Speaker 2: also again the l word lurid to just show people's
42:36
Speaker 2: you know, low points and rock bottom after rock bottom
42:40
Speaker 2: on TV for money for ad money, you.
42:42
Speaker 1: Know, yeah for sure, And speaking of lurid, we're loath
42:47
Speaker 1: to mention Diddy, but there was a show called I
42:50
Speaker 1: Want to Work for Diddy in two thousand and eight,
42:52
Speaker 1: and a silver lining of that is that it launched
42:55
Speaker 1: the career of Laverne Cox and also just launched the
43:00
Speaker 1: sort of normalization of trans people on TV. A couple
43:03
Speaker 1: of years after that show, Laverne Cox and fellow trans
43:06
Speaker 1: women Jamie Clayton and Nina Poon got their own VH
43:10
Speaker 1: one show called Transform Me. It was kind of a
43:12
Speaker 1: queer eye for the straight guy kind of thing, but
43:14
Speaker 1: for CIS women. And it was one of the first
43:17
Speaker 1: shows with trans stars.
43:20
Speaker 2: Yes, like period and you put all this together and
43:23
Speaker 2: VH one had its highest Nielsen ratings ever in this
43:28
Speaker 2: era the late two thousands, the aught as we who
43:32
Speaker 2: Lived Through It column and then tragedy struck and the
43:38
Speaker 2: publicity was so searingly bad that VH one essentially through
43:43
Speaker 2: the company that had been cranking out hit after hit
43:47
Speaker 2: for them under the bus. And it centered around the
43:52
Speaker 2: murder by a man named Ryan Jenkins, who had been
43:56
Speaker 2: a contestant on not one or had been featured on
43:59
Speaker 2: not one, but two VH one reality shows. He murdered
44:03
Speaker 2: his wife, Jasmine Fiore.
44:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a real estate developer. He was a.
44:09
Speaker 1: You know, they got rich guys to be contestants on
44:12
Speaker 1: a dating show called Megan Wants to Be I'm sorry,
44:16
Speaker 1: Megan Wants a Millionaire and fifty one Minds was the
44:20
Speaker 1: name of this company that was like churning out these shows.
44:22
Speaker 1: After the show ended, he married Jasmine Fiore and he
44:28
Speaker 1: got on I Love Money three, another VH one show,
44:32
Speaker 1: and they said, fifty one months is like, hey, in retrospect,
44:35
Speaker 1: I remember this storyline we had. It was going to
44:38
Speaker 1: revolve around him calling his new wife a lot and
44:42
Speaker 1: seemingly obsessive and jealous and very suspicious, and he ended
44:46
Speaker 1: up murdering her in August of two thousand and nine.
44:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it got even worse than that. He tried to
44:52
Speaker 2: prevent her from being identified, so he removed her fingers
44:56
Speaker 2: and her teeth. He put her, folded her up in
45:00
Speaker 2: a suitcase, and dump the suitcase in a dumpster. And
45:03
Speaker 2: I read that it almost worked, but they identified her.
45:07
Speaker 2: They had to identify her through the serial numbers on
45:09
Speaker 2: her breast implants. And so all this comes out, and
45:12
Speaker 2: it's very clear that Ryan Jenkins was to blame. He
45:17
Speaker 2: hung himself in a motel room, and in his note
45:22
Speaker 2: even he blames Jasmine Fiori for him killing himself. It
45:26
Speaker 2: doesn't take any responsibility whatsoever for killing her.
45:29
Speaker 1: I remember that now. That's I wasn't familiar, But as
45:32
Speaker 1: soon as he said that, I kind of remember that storyline.
45:34
Speaker 2: Yes, and all of this happens in one month in
45:36
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine. And if you were pumping out
45:39
Speaker 2: lured reality show after lured reality show, your viewership is
45:43
Speaker 2: going to be highly interested in this story. Yeah, and
45:46
Speaker 2: it's going to get out, and it's gonna get out
45:48
Speaker 2: to the rest of America. Who's going to make a
45:50
Speaker 2: bunch of noise about how terrible these reality shows are.
45:53
Speaker 2: And here's evidence of it. Because also that Ryan Jenkins guy,
45:57
Speaker 2: it turned out that he had been convicted in Canada
46:01
Speaker 2: of assaulting his girlfriend and it didn't show up on
46:04
Speaker 2: a or he had been arrested, I'm sorry of assaulting
46:07
Speaker 2: his girlfriend in Canada. Hadn't shown up on a background check.
46:11
Speaker 2: So people were like, this stuff is terrible, And VH
46:13
Speaker 2: one said, you know what, we agree. It's all that
46:16
Speaker 2: company that sent us these shows. We didn't even want them,
46:20
Speaker 2: We didn't even ask for them. This company fifty one minds,
46:23
Speaker 2: they just made us run these shows, and they really
46:26
Speaker 2: threw them under the bus and made it look like
46:29
Speaker 2: they were turning their back on the whole concept, and
46:33
Speaker 2: they did largely. There was a huge shift, but there
46:37
Speaker 2: were still shows like Dating Naked that was on from
46:40
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen, and a lot of their
46:44
Speaker 2: existing reality shows continued on past this scandal, but they
46:48
Speaker 2: did shift a little more to reality TV that was
46:53
Speaker 2: made by black creators. They kind of moved away from
46:56
Speaker 2: the more lurid stuff to a little more and growth
47:00
Speaker 2: seeing black created shows.
47:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, RuPaul's Drag Race has been a big hit, sort
47:06
Speaker 1: of a niche hit, but very very popular show. It's
47:10
Speaker 1: you know it's RuPaul, so it's campy. It's a parody
47:13
Speaker 1: of reality competition that launched in two thousand and nine
47:17
Speaker 1: on Logo but then moved to VH one in twenty
47:21
Speaker 1: seventeen and then eventually MTV in twenty twenty three.
47:24
Speaker 2: That's a long run.
47:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. Love and Hip Hop has been a very big
47:27
Speaker 1: show created by Mona Scott Young. That was It started
47:32
Speaker 1: out with kind of being about Jim Jones, the rapper,
47:36
Speaker 1: and then eventually shifted over to his girlfriend Chrissy Lampkin.
47:39
Speaker 1: And just the hip hop scene in New York in
47:42
Speaker 1: their world.
47:42
Speaker 2: Say with Basketball Wives by Shaquille O'Neil's ex wife Shawnee Henderson. Yeah,
47:47
Speaker 2: Big I just had its twelfth season. And then Nick
47:49
Speaker 2: Cannon presents wild Nout, which is an improv competition show,
47:55
Speaker 2: and they're still making new episodes. It started out on
47:58
Speaker 2: MTV and the move to VH one when in twenty nineteen,
48:01
Speaker 2: and very much like Ridiculousness, reruns of Wilding Out are
48:06
Speaker 2: carrying VH one right now, apparently with Fresh Prince of
48:09
Speaker 2: bel Air and My Wife and Kids reruns.
48:13
Speaker 1: I never saw Dating Naked. What was that about?
48:15
Speaker 2: It was exactly what it sounds like. Oh okay, exactly.
48:20
Speaker 2: There's no it needs no explanation whatsoever.
48:23
Speaker 1: Okay I was kidding, oh.
48:26
Speaker 2: Me, and you got me, buddy. I think we're even
48:28
Speaker 2: for all time now. Okay, good well, Chuck said, okay, good,
48:32
Speaker 2: And we don't have anything more to say about VH
48:35
Speaker 2: one except go watch some VH one and that means
48:39
Speaker 2: it's time for listener meal.
48:42
Speaker 1: That's right, by the way, I was not bagging on Wilco.
48:45
Speaker 1: I hope it didn't come across that way. They are
48:48
Speaker 1: sort of thrown in that Dad Rock category. But I
48:50
Speaker 1: always love Wilco. I read all of Jeff Tweety's books,
48:54
Speaker 1: was big into Uncle Tupelo, so I'm not bagging on Wilco.
48:56
Speaker 1: I like Wolco.
48:57
Speaker 2: Jeff Tweety's The Spymaster and The Teen Yeah.
49:01
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, of course, and The Tinker or two is
49:03
Speaker 1: really good. Hey, Chuck, Josh and Jerry have been listening
49:07
Speaker 1: for a few years and used to do the sandwich
49:09
Speaker 1: method for listening to the episodes, but recently decided to
49:11
Speaker 1: work all my way through and catch up to the present.
49:15
Speaker 1: I find this is a better method personally, since listener
49:18
Speaker 1: mail on references for past shows don't really make sense
49:20
Speaker 1: when listening to newer episodes before listening to the episodes
49:23
Speaker 1: that came before. AnyWho, this is not why I'm writing it.
49:27
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you're aware. But Chuck Stradamus struck
49:29
Speaker 1: again the episode April twenty six, twenty eighteen. Does pyromania
49:34
Speaker 1: actually exist? Josh brings up John Leonard or convicted serial arsonist,
49:39
Speaker 1: mass murdered former firefighter, arsenist investigator, and Chuck around thirty
49:43
Speaker 1: four to thirty nine says that's a movie waiting to
49:46
Speaker 1: happen well, my friends. Seven years later, Apple TV releases Smoke,
49:50
Speaker 1: a TV show based on John Leonard or Wow, yeah,
49:52
Speaker 1: haven't watched the show, I definitely recommend watching, even though
49:55
Speaker 1: I've spoiled the plot. Keep up the good work, guys. Ps.
49:58
Speaker 1: Is Chuck's ability a gift or crazy coincidence? That is
50:02
Speaker 1: Brenda s from Dallas, Texas and Brenda, I love that
50:08
Speaker 1: you're getting my back? Is Chuckstra Damas because my past
50:13
Speaker 1: predictions of Hugh Jackman playing p T. Barnum and most
50:17
Speaker 1: notably that I thought Jared from Subway was a creep
50:20
Speaker 1: long before his truth came out.
50:22
Speaker 2: Don't forget predicting Sharknado.
50:25
Speaker 1: Oh and Sharknado. That's true. That might be the feather
50:27
Speaker 1: in the cap. But in this case, I don't know
50:31
Speaker 1: if you can really claim Chucks Stra Dama's territory. If
50:33
Speaker 1: it's just like, hey, that would make a good movie
50:36
Speaker 1: and it became a movie.
50:37
Speaker 2: I feel like you really just burst Brenda's bubble.
50:40
Speaker 1: No, I'm bursting my own bubble. What do you think?
50:42
Speaker 1: Can I get a ruling from you, dear leader?
50:45
Speaker 2: I will allow it as one of Chuckstra Dramas's predictions
50:50
Speaker 2: that came true.
50:52
Speaker 1: All right, it's canon, Okay, not Nick Cannon.
50:55
Speaker 2: No, we're not wilding out here or not. If you
50:59
Speaker 2: want to get in touch with us like Brenda and
51:01
Speaker 2: try your luck at having us burst your bubble and
51:03
Speaker 2: have a lot of alliteration as we do, you can
51:06
Speaker 2: send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
51:13
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
51:16
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
51:20
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.