Until we moved to Houston at Summer’s End in 1982, MTV was just something I knew about through commercials. Often they were these rapid-fire, brightly colored affairs with various rock stars saying “I want my MTV!” and instructions to call your cable provider. Fat chance in Springfield, IL! All the channels that could be used were occupied by the time MTV arrived in late 1981 because our operator only used the VHF method, meaning your selections were limited to the channels 2-13 built into your set. Actually, 10 was vacant and had been just a teleprompter for years but I think Ted Turner had called dibs on it for Headline News since Springfield was already carrying his WTBS Superstation.
Other than the ads, MTV was just a pipe dream to us Springfield teens. Some kids had Showtime, a weaker version of HBO, and it filled time between films and nudity with music videos. Otherwise, maybe you’d catch these novelties on syndicated shows: Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, Solid Gold or America’s Top 40.
Our move to Houston changed everything. When the cable guy installed this special box offering 36 channels on our 12″ portable color Panasonic, we about plotzed! How was this possible? Getting all of Houston’s local seven channels clearly? Check. WGN Chicago to see what’s happening back home? Check. WTBS and CNN? Check. EPSN, CBN and the Weather Channel? Sigh, yeah. Mom and Dad decided to spring for HBO! Woo hoo! Naked women if the ‘rents were asleep or out of the house! Remember, this is 14-year-old me, not modern. What were these other things? WOR Seacaucus, NJ? Telemundo? Cool, TV in Spanish! USA? We saw that once somewhere. Nickelodeon? We’re not babies, hard pass. A&E? Isn’t PBS enough? MTV! YES!
Well…I had a feeling we would be getting MTV. I had overheard a couple classmates talking about the new Cheap Trick video “She’s Tight.” I think I bugged them later about what cable had to offer and they confirmed it. I couldn’t wait to get home that day. I remember the events fairly clearly, it was a Friday afternoon and I can’t remember why Mom brought me home instead of having me undertake what became my routine; waiting until Dad finished work and meeting at the Safeway parking lot near school. Anyway, I quickly channel surfed with this alien box until I thought I found MTV, I was on the money with my first try! “Rock the Casbah” by the Clash was about half over. I was thinking, OK, this is a bit weird. They look like bikers. I didn’t know they were the guys behind “Train In Vain,” which I liked. My first video from start to finish was Squeeze’s “Black Coffee in Bed.” I didn’t like the song upon the first listen and whoever did the band’s makeup, they laid it on rather heavily. People in the Eighties still exhibited negative opinions about men wearing visible makeup if it wasn’t done in KISS fashion.
It’s a blur after that. I’m sure I saw Duran Duran, Pete Townshend and Cheap Trick within a couple hours. MTV had worked its magic on me too. I was hooked and it became my favorite channel. And within a couple months, it became the bane of my parents’ existence as it became “That Goddamned MTV!” or they’d like to show other adults, “Check out this weird crap!”
I continued to watch regular TV, I wasn’t a junkie or dipshit. HBO had just gone to being a 24-hour network and hit movies were now appearing as quickly as six months instead of a year or two. Square Pegs was a Monday-night obsession (given the musical guests, it complemented MTV) and this was fine with my parents since they wanted to see how MASH would end and Bob Newhart had a new SitCom. I also got hooked on the Kung Fu movies an indy station showed every Saturday afternoon, but MTV was my automatic go-to if there was “nothing on” yet I wanted to turn off my brain. To me, MTV was similar to watching cartoons, these were just shorter and I was the key demographic the network would pursue for about a decade, young teens really starting to like music on the radio which in 1982 was also when FM would overtake AM and the Sony Walkman started to become ubiquitous. How people listened to music was shifting again and they were taking more control in additional spaces.
Thus ends part two. Next up, MTV helps me in forming my musical tastes and to some extent, the person I would evolve into. It also saves me from the music preferred by the burnouts I left behind in Springfield.