Michael was definitely an underlined and under appreciated talent all because he chose to be in the Pre-Fab Four, what in today’s lingo is called a Boy Band: BTS, Backstreet Boys, Menudo, etc. He probably nailed the audition due to his past attempts at songwriting and he could play the guitar.
I’m going to gloss over the Monkees business since it was before my time. However, like many Generation Xers, I had seen them in syndication in the Seventies on WFLD 32 when visiting Grandma, well before MTV promoted their comeback around 1987. For a “fake” band, they could at least sing. Mom said my father drove her crazy with the show. She didn’t care for it, he loved it. Might explain their concerns for all the MTV I was “addicted” to in Houston.
For me he’ll be remembered for two things.
One: Michael is considered the grandfather of MTV, not the zombie channel on dying cable systems in the 21st Century. He envisioned the MTV which made its debut 40 years ago and fizzled out by 1990 as it transformed into a lifestyle channel. Music videos being shown on television in a manner similar to radio programming wasn’t new, I wrote about others back in August this year. Michael was smart enough to copyright the term and Warner Communications (today, the bumbling AT&T corporation) wisely cut him a check. Winning the first Grammy for a video earlier in 1981 definitely helped solidify his claim.
He did it all through a fantastic demonstration called Elephant Parts. I must’ve watched this a dozen times on Spotlight (a sorry knockoff of HBO) and still have skits memorized. Parts is an hour of comedy bits of varying lengths interspersed with music videos featuring Michael’s songs. The latter were pretty catchy, I keep putting off collecting those works. The jokes I remember have held up: portable nukes to eliminate annoying neighbors, the pirate alphabet, Detroit’s shoddy cars and SitCom pitches. MTV didn’t bother to have those elements, they stuck to being a radio station until they added boring game shows, reruns of Monty Python, The Young Ones and stand-up segments. Hopefully, the rights can be figured out easily in the wake of his passing. A DVD was made in 2003 and it goes for a couple hundred bucks. C’mon SHOUT! You can pull this off.
The original idea did return around 1985 as a mid-Summer replacement show on NBC called Television Parts. The major change was duration and the comedy focused on “illustrating” popular stand-up comedians’ bits: Jay Leno, Garry Handling, Martin Mull and Arsenio Hall were featured. My favorite was the Funny Boys’ “My foreign language elective in college was Irish.” If you look closely, you’ll see Kevin MacDonald too.
Two: Michael produced at least two memorable films. Time Rider and Repo Man. My focus will be on Repo Man, the film which got people to notice Emilio Estevez alongside the awesome Harry Dean Stanton and Tracy Walter. I watched a slug of times in high school when it made the rounds on Showtime. You should check it out. It’s one of the key movies of the Eighties lexicon alongside Spielberg’s schlock, Hughes’ teen angst and the blockbusters which have stood the test of time. Never has there been another darkly funny movie about repossessing a radioactive car been made since. Great soundtrack with Iggy Pop, Black Flag and the Cruzados. Plus cameos of the Circle Jerks and Fishbone. The background events happening were a more realistic, pessimistic take on how intelligent people felt about St. Reagan’s Amerika. Lastly, there are some great, absurd quotes only a few of us fans know and say amongst each other, a secret language within a minority of Generation X. My immediate go to’s are, “I know a life of crime led me to this sorry fate but somehow I still blame society,” or “Plate of shrimp!”
Thanks for everything Michael! You were so much more than “the quiet one.” You were a talented writer. A skillful musician. Most importantly, you were a creative entrepreneur! You brought the world joy for almost sixty years!