The first hour of MTV. and second.

First, thanks a lot VH1 Classic for not doing it right. After about 20 minutes of build up with the Apollo rocket countdown, they aired the videos and only tiny clips of the VJs and no original commercials. Gotta pay the bills in 2006, not the ones in 1981 I guess. Instead of Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter et al, we got a girl giving us tidbits and some comments from artists. Fortunately, there's a section at mtv.com that has the entire hour in its original form, divided up by segments. At the moment.

The videos: we finally found out that the second video aired was Pat Benatar "You Better Run". The third was Rod Stewart. Both of them ended up having another video in the SECOND hour, Rod Stewart had a third going into the third hour, and the Pretenders had THREE as well ("Brass in Pocket", "Tattooed Love Boys", "Message of Love"). Lucky for them, their second record came out just two weeks after MTV's debut. As MTV was so new, half the videos are taken from concerts. This I very much remember from the early days, which explains Bruce Springsteen's 10-minute "Rosalita". Many of the videos are from artists that were never to be heard from again. Robin Lane and the Chartbusters, anyone? cue chirping crickets. So, some of the songs actually sucked, as the station needed to fill time with whatever was available. One of the more enlightening videos was the last one of hour one: Split Enz "History Never Repeats". In addition to its title begging for a comment in relation to MTV, it proves that the band had another great song besides "I Got You." Now, to the video, which is hella more interesting than "I Got You". Sadly the picture quality is shitty.