In the first week of MTV Classic, the network rebrand of VH1 Classic, the channel has gotten off to a bit of a rocky start. Instead of feeling like a time machine taking us back to the halcyon days before smartphones and social media, the programming has felt somewhat like a lazily curated museum. Sure, MTV’s unscripted musically-detached forebearers like Punk’d, The Real World, Pimp My Ride, and (the very dated) Cribs are represented, as are cartoon classics like Daria, Beavis And Butthead, and Aeon Flux. There are even a healthy amount music videos, though they’re mostly pushed to the margins of the schedule, filling the screen in genre-specific and free-for-all blocks late at night and in the morning/early afternoon — not unlike VH1 Classic before it. But for as much nostalgia bait as there is, there are just as many frustrating omissions and odd placeholders.
What is it about Ghostbusters and Revenge Of The Nerds that screams, “MTV in the ’90s and 2000s,” the channel’s assumed target? These are some of your MTV Classic primetime selections. How about footage from the 2013 Isle Of Wight Festival? Episodes of Pop Up Video and Behind The Music seem a little more focused, but of course, these were VH1 staples, not MTV.
But it’s not just that the MTV Classic schedule seems scattered, it’s that it doesn’t feel like it was constructed with enough affection for the era that it aims to evoke. That may change, but right now it’s feels underwhelming.
It’s summer, where are the reruns of old MTV Beach House episodes? Instead of a Total Request Live-inspired video blocks, let’s roll into actual episodes of TRL. That would add a unique subtext and texture to the videos that could otherwise be found anywhere. There is so much exclusive content like Singled Out, Remote Control, House Of Style, The State, Liquid Television, and The Tom Green Show. There is no reason that every single episode of Rock N’ Jock shouldn’t get a chance to shine on weekends. America needs to fall in love with Bill Bellamy and Dan Cortese again.
These programs, coupled with some of the shows already on the network, including 120 Minutes, Headbangers Ball, and Unplugged, could give MTV Classic the genuine ’90s feel they seemed to be going for when they first titillated upper-end-of-the-age-spectrum Millennials and elder Gen Xers with the network earlier this summer. This, in turn, would cause people like me — who turned to MTV every afternoon after school and on hot summer days when there was nothing else going on — to flock to MTV Classic in droves. But if things don’t improve, their target audience could quickly lose interest in the network — like many of us did with the original network.
Viacom must realize that — after this initial burst of interest — MTV Classic could very easily fade into the seascape of the hundreds of other cable channels whose existence we barely recall until we stumble upon it and nest for a bit while flipping channels and killing time. (The initial kiss of nostalgia feels nice and warm, but after a while, you come to the conclusion that you’re not 16 anymore.) MTV Classic is never going to be necessary television for grown up ’90s kids — that magnetism can’t be recaptured, it lives in a frozen moment of nascent pop-culture awareness, catchy music, spandex, and awakenings of a sexual and intellectual variety — and that’s totally okay. Beavis And Butthead and Pauly Shore should typically have limited intellectual appeal to people who are in their 30s. Also, Jenny McCarthy isn’t quite as much fun now.
If that’s the case, then that might explain the somewhat limp roll out, but in promising a potent hit of nostalgia and in serving as the gatekeeper of these shows whose value comes almost entirely from sentimentality, they do have a responsibility to reject half-measures. And not just to the 30-year-olds aching to slip into their old and less complicated lives for awhile, but also to those who are intellectually curious about the ’90s in an effort to determine what the preceding generation was into. And with all due respect to John Candy and Steve Martin, it wasn’t the forgotten comedy Planes, Trains, And Automobiles (an actual upcoming MTV Classic schedule entry).
Besides, the above-mentioned shows (with a couple of possible exceptions) belong to Viacom, so why not go full throttle and give people the total ’90s MTV experience? Among the empty calorie crap, there are a ton of rich pop culture touchstones that took place on MTV. Offering anything less just seems like a cynical nostalgia grab with limited appeal. It also seems like something that is fated to result in people flipping right past MTV Classic ignoring it completely.
TL;DR: I still want my MTV.
