Flashback Friday

It was August 1, 1981. My best friend was Heidi. We were in middle school. I think 7th grade. (My math skills are too horrible to try and give you the exact grade.) It was the day that MTV was making it's debut.

We didn't have cable at our house and Heidi was the only person I knew who had it. We were at her house that day and we watched that first video being aired. Video Killed The Radio Star by the Buggles. I remember thinking how cool it was to see a band/performer on TV along with this short movie-like thing going along to their music. I was hooked.

I spent a lot of time at Heidi's house that year. And spent MANY hours watching MTV.

I googled to see exactly what the playlist was for that first day and was surprised to see that the videos I remember most didn't actually air that day.

I remember the Lover Boy videos and those tight red leather pants. (If you are in my generation, you know what I'm talking about).

And I remember the David Bowie videos. These videos made me a big fan of his. The song Fashion is still one of my favorite songs. Ashes to Ashes was another favorite.

I remember thinking that they played the same videos over and over. It seemed like the playlist was maybe 10 videos in the beginning. When I googled I discovered it was much larger than that. But back than there wasn't 30 minutes of videos and 30 minutes of commercials. I'm guessing the average video was 4 minutes long (again...horrible math skills, I'm not even going to figure more out). I guess when you take maybe 40 videos and 24 hours in a day they would repeat a lot. (If anyone cares to figure this out for me, please post a response).

It was years before MTV added their shows and other craziness into the mix of videos. I miss the beginning years. We recently got rid of the channel with our cable provider. I didn't think there was anything appropriate on the channel for anyone under the age of 18. And they didn't even air videos anymore. It was full of stupid reality shows.

I know, we have youtube now, but you have to search out certain performers/songs. You can't just flip on a channel and watch continuous videos not knowing which will be aired next.

Oh....the good old days!