MTV in popular culture

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MTV, the first and most popular music television network in the U.S., has been referenced in popular culture countless times. Other TV channels, TV shows, musicians, films, and books have referenced MTV in their works.

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[edit] In music

  • The Red Hot Chili Peppers track "Punk Rock Classic", from the breakthrough album Mother's Milk features the lyrics "Put us on MTV, All we really need, Begging on our knees, Please, Please, Please, Please, Please."
  • George Michael's "Freedom! '90" makes reference to the pressures the network placed on visual image: "I went back home, got a brand new face / For the boys at MTV". Ironically, Michael does not appear in the video.
  • Dire Straits' 1985 song "Money for Nothing" — at the start and end of the song, guest singer Sting repeatedly sung the channel's slogan, "I Want My MTV".
  • KMFDM named a song off the 1994 Naïve/Hell To Go album "Go to Hell (Fuck MTV Mix)".
  • The song "MTV - Get off the Air" by the Dead Kennedys was a protest against the content and style of music that dominated MTV during the '80s.
  • Bowling for Soup's song "1985," contains the line, "Bring back Springsteen, Madonna, way before Nirvana there was U2 and Blondie, and music still on MTV."
  • Lyrics to Manowar's "Blow Your Speakers" include "Wrote a letter to the MTV/What's goin' on now/Don't ya care about me."
  • Lyrics to Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi" include "she turns on TV/guess who she sees/skater boy rockin' up MTV."
  • Lyrics to Reel Big Fish's "Don't Start a Band" include "And even if you make it all the way to MTV/I don't think you could take it all the bullshit and the greed."
  • Lyrics to Beck's "MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack" include "MTV makes me wanna burn flesh!/Having an orgy down in the satellite dish!"
  • The opening track on Pantera's The Great Southern Trendkill song with the same name include the lyrics, "Buy it at a store, From MTV to on the floor, You look just like a star, It's proof you don't know who you are."
  • In the Eminem song "Without Me": "The FCC won't let me be/ or let me be me, so let me see/ They try to shut me down on MTV/ but it feels so empty without me"
  • The band Sublime made a song called "Don't Wanna Be No MTV Motherfucker".
  • In Canadian singer Esthero's 2005 song, "We R in Need of a Musical Revolution", as an introduction she sings, "I'm so sick and tired of the shit on the radio/And MTV they only play the same thing/No matter where I go I see Ashanti in the video/I want something more."
  • In a reference to how some artists cater to MTV's audience, Pepper's 2002 album, Kona Town, featured a song, "B.O.O.T.", with the lyrics, "We're on the road you see/we're not on MTV/But when we get there/we won't shave our hair/or be fags like Creed"
  • Rapper Ice Cube make a reference to MTV on his song "It Was a Good Day".
  • Duran Duran's 1993 song "Too Much Information" — at the start of the song, lead singer Simon LeBon sung, "Destroyed by MTV. I hate to bite the hand that feeds me".
  • The Dream Theater song "Just Let Me Breathe" on Falling into Infinity features the lyrics (written here as spelled in the lyric sheet) "A daily dose of eMpTy V will flush your mind right down the drain." The phrase "eMpTy V" is pronounced as "MTV" when sung aloud.
  • The band Clutch on their 1995 self titled release mentions MTV in the following line of the song "Escape From The Prison Planet", "And as featured on the MTV, the local high school lets out, And the town becomes anarchy."
  • Frank Zappa was a sharp critic against MTV. He wrote a satirical song called "Be in My Video", which can be heard on his album Them or Us.
  • An alternate lyric to Robyn Hitchcock's 1986 song "Trash [1]" states, "And I saw you down at MTV / Well, baby, better you than me / Maybe they've got a special department there / For losers".
  • In Blues Traveler's 1994 hit "Hook" John Popper sang about how today it seems that if a song is catchy, it doesn't matter if the lyrics have a message. He mentioned MTV in the last verse: "What you're doing to me / this MTV is not for free / It's so PC it's killing me"
  • The chorus to Illy Oi! by mc chris says "Mtv said no so I'm just on fuse, everything to gain but nothin to lose."
  • In a chorus of JoJo's song, "Baby It's You", she sings, "Why is everyone tryin' to be/what they see on MTV".
  • In a chorus of Everclear's song, "Rock Star", Alexakis sings, "That's why I want to be a rock star / I want to be like all those guys on MTV / I just want to be a rock star / I want to make those girls on the real world fantasize about me".

[edit] In television

  • The declining popularity of MTV was noted as Bart scrawled "I no longer want my MTV" in a Simpsons' Season 9 Chalkboard gag.
  • Also on The Simpsons Homer and Marge come up to Bart and Lisa with news about Homer needing a triple bypass; Lisa responds by saying, "Nothing fazes us. We're the MTV generation; we experience neither highs nor lows." Homer inquires, "What's that like?" Lisa replies, "Meh..."
  • Cartoon series Megas XLR frequently features the destruction of billboards and other paraphernalia for a group called "PoP TV", whose symbol is clearly based on the MTV Logo. XLR was directed by Chris Prynoski, a former MTV animator whose own show, Downtown, had been cancelled by MTV years ago.
  • Andy French, the lead character of the short-lived animated series Mission Hill, briefly becomes a cast member of The Real World after writing the words "MTV Sucks" on his buttocks and mooning the camera crew.
  • In the Futurama episode, "Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV", in the MTV building, it reads "MmmmTV."
  • Other music video stations, such as BET, censor any and all MTV references, and vice versa.
  • The satirical cartoon series South Park depicted MTV several times in its run:
  • On The Day Today there was a spoof of MTV and more specifically MTV News called Rok TV.
  • In The Angry Beavers episode "Un-Barry-ble", the episode starts off with a television broadcast of "Empty-V", a pun of MTV.
  • "Empty V" was also used as a reference to the network on several episodes of another Nickelodeon show, Roundhouse.
  • Puppet-TV sitcom Dinosaurs created a music video inspired on the catchphrase of one of its most popular characters, Baby Sinclair, "I'm the Baby, You Gotta Love Me." In it, the song itself is preceded by an intro where Baby is watching "DTV", punning the network to the point of recreating the iconic "Moon Landing" ID, with a puppet dinosaur playing the astronaut.
  • Cult satirical police sitcom Sledge Hammer! makes a dig at MTV in its Season 2 episode, "Sledge, Rattle, 'n' Roll." At a certain point, the titular character rages at a record company executive and starts blaming rock music for all evil things under the sun, at one time pointing out the youth-corrupting influence of "that NBC" (sic), to which Doreau (his partner) remarks: "Hammer, that's MTV"! Interestingly enough, the part of the record exec was played by Davy Jones of The Monkees, of which one of MTV's creators, Michael Nesmith, was also a member. [7]
  • Nickelodeon TV series All That spoofed TRL (Total Request Live) as TRYell.
  • In The Drake & Josh episode "The Drake and Josh Inn", MTV crew enter Drake and Josh's house to broadcast spring break from their. Helen, the boss of the cinema in the show, compliments the channel by saying "Well I do love Music Television."

[edit] In film

[edit] In books

  • In the book Maximum Ride Nudge mentions that she is thankful for MTV to exist.
  • In the Family Guy book Stewie's Guide to World Domination, Stewie gives a list of reasons as to "why MTV is the root of all evil".
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