Jul 15, 2020
MTV is pushing 40?!? Tarzan Danfrom YTV’s Hit List drops by Studio 3B to talk about those in musictelevision who came before him, he and Alan swap tops on how tointerview a rock star, and we find out how he reacted to landing inthe pages of Canadian music history.
MTV airing The Buggles’ “VideoKilled the Radio Star” to launch the network was not the firstmusic video ever broadcast. Nor was it the first music video evermade.
It was far from the first timemusic appeared on TV, that’s for sure.
But the two pop culture stapleshave often worked hand-in-hand for entertainment andcross-promotional purposes, a practice that dates back to at leastthe 1950s.
How old are music videos?
What qualifies as the firstmusic video is up for some debate.
For example, waaaaaaay backin 1894, a pair of sheet music publishers, Edward Marksand Joe Stern, hired an electrician named George Thomas, along withsome musicians, to promote the sale of their new song,“The Little Lost Child.” Using a very early form of movies, a seriesof images set to live performed music was displayed and came to beknown as the “illustrated song.” Does that make it the firstvideo?
Jump ahead to the late 1920s, asthe “talkies” started to take the world by storm, andVitaphone started producing shorts with bands, singersand dancers. Max Fleischer, an animator, produced a series of shortcartoons called “Screen Songs,” which were kind of like a precursorto karaoke, in that the audience was encouraged to sing along. Bythe 1930s, we have the legendary incorporation of opera music intoLooney Tunes cartoons — Elmer Fudd as a viking, anyone? —followed soon thereafter by Walt Disney’s Fantasia, one of the mostvisually and artistically stunning creations of all time (thinkabout how painstakingly it was produced and how incrediblyimaginative it was at the time before arguing thispoint).
By the 1940s, we’re into the eraof short films set to music, such as those from musician LouisJordan, including a feature-length film called “LookoutSister.” That’s beenadded to the LIbrary of Congress to be preserved for its historicalsignificance.See AlsoDisney on Broadway Concerts at 2025 EPCOT Festival of Arts: Dates, Lineup & Dining Packages
Tony Bennett claims he createdthe first music video with 1956’s “Stranger in Paradise.” His label at the time filmed the croonerwalking through London’s Hyde Park and added that song behind it.The video was sent to TV networks in the U.S. and UK and it playedseveral times on American Bandstand.
About that Bandstand
Two shows are inextricably tiedto music and teenage culture in the United States: AmericanBandstand and the Ed Sullivan Show.
The so-called perpetualteenager, Dick Clark was the affable host who helped provideapple-cheeked youngsters a place to dance, wholesomely, to some ofthe country’s top pop bands. The show started on Philadelphiapublic TV in October 1952 and ran well into the 1980s, featuring arespectable variety of genres: doo-wop, teeny boppers, psychedielicrock, disco and hip-hop over the course of its 30 years. Clark tookover for the show’s original host (after he was arrested fordriving while intoxicated) and helped kickoff the career of PaulAnka, the first performer to make his debut on a nationallytelevised show.
A few months into Clark’stenure, the show moved to Monday nights from 3:30 p.m. and expandedto a full hour, but the ratings tanked and they moved it back tothe afternoon time slot, until it was eventually so popular and soimportant, it was moved to Saturdays.
From then on, anyone who wasanyone played Bandstand: Sonny and Cher, Gladys Knight, Ike andTina Turner, Stevie Wonder (just 12 at the time!), Aretha Franklin,The 5th Dimension, The Doors, Michael Jackson as a solo artist andas part of the Jackson 5, Little Richard, Paul Revere, AnnetteFunicello, even Talking Heads and Prince.
All good things must end, ofcourse, and after refusing to cut back from a hour-long show to 30minutes, Dick Clark left, the show moved from ABC to the USANetworkand, six months later, on October 7, 1989, the curtain fell for thelast time.
Equally important wasThe EdSullivan Show, famouslythe host of the Beatles debut in the U.S. It went on the airearlier than Bandstand, starting in 1948 when TV was stillrelatively new, and folded sooner, in 1971,but by that point theinfluence was obvious and unmistakable.
In many ways, Sullivan was thepolar opposite of Clark: Awkward, not all that telegenic, oftentripping over his words when introducing his guests, which were notlimited to just musicians but also comedians and casts fromBroadway plays. But in many ways, his awkwardness was part of hischarm.
Sullivan has the distinction oftwice breaking TV records, drawing in millions of viewers whenElvis Presley performed in 1955, swiveling those controversial hips— think of the children! — and again in 1964 when he introducedNorth America to the Beatles during their first trip to New York.That remains one of the most-watched episodes of television inhistory, nearly 60 years later. It’s the night that the BritishInvasion really hit audiences hard on this side of thepond.
He also had more controversythan Clark: He booted the Rolling Stones from coming back aftertheir first performance went a little off the rails. He had toexplain to the audience why Bob Dylan didn’t appear after Dylan wasprohibited from singing “Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues,” aboutthe hunt for Communists in the U.S. at the time. And then there’sthe incident with The Doors, who were famously asked to change thelyrics to “Light My Fire,” removing the line “girl we couldn’t getmuch higher” because, y’know, drugs are bad, kids. Jim Morrisonsang it anyway, looking directly into the camera to avoid any kindof confusion about his intent. They were not invitedback.
There were others, of course,including Dick Cavett’s long-running shows in which he interviewedsome of the biggest stars of the 1960s and 1970s, including JimiHendrix, Janis Joplin, John Lennon with Yoko Ono. Cavett would alsointerview politicians and Hollywood types and musical performanceswere few, but he deserves mention here for the conversations hehosted.
Let’s also tip our caps toLawrence Welk. The adults in the room needed their entertainmenttoo, with ballroom dancing and all those bubbles.
Let’s Get Dancing
The immediate precursor to MTVand its ilk were dance shows. We’re definitely not talking aboutWelk here. Also not talking about Dancing with theStars.
Shows like Solid Gold and SoulTrain blew open the doors for people who were bored with thedancing on Bandstand — though early-career Madonna had fun with herclub-kid look and moves.
Soul Train started in Chicago in 1965 when a UHF stationbroadcast two dance programs aimed at younger viewers:Kiddie-a-Go-Go and Red Hot and Blues. Both programs hadpredominantly Black audiences and in-house performers dancing torecords. Don Cornelius, the host most dearly associated with SoulTrain, was hired by the station in 1967 as a news and sportsreporter,but he also hosted a series of local talent concerts thathe called the Soul Train. By 1970, WICU saw what he was doing andoffered him the chance to bring the concerts to TV. They secured asponsorship with Sears & Roebuck and, on August 17, 1970, a legendwas born. The show aired live on weekday afternoons, first in blackand white, with Jerry Butler, the Chi-Lites and the Emotions as thefirst guests. At first only viewed in Chicago, by the end of thefirst season, Soul Train was on in 18 market and was the onlycommercial program produced by Black talent for Black audiences. Itwas moved to Los Angeles and went into syndication, becomingone of the longest-running TV shows inhistory, with 1,117episodes over 35 seasons.
Cornelius would host the localChicago-based version of Soul Train in addition to the nationalLA-based show, eventually focusing more on the national while stilloverseeing production in Chicago. The only episode Cornelius didn’thost was the finale of the 1974-75 season; hosting duties that daywent to Richard Pryor.
For Black audiences, this wasthe representation they needed, wanted and deserved. It was fine tosee the Jackson 5 and other artists on Bandstand, but most of theartists there were white. Soul Train featured Black artists almostexclusively — among the few exceptions were the Beastie Boys and David Bowie.Eventually, as hip hop and rap became more popular, Cornelius spokeopenly and often about not understanding the music, in addition tonot liking the more sexually aggressive dancing from some groupsand their fans. He eventually stepped down as host in the early1990s, but the show lost momentum and faltered, finally ending forgood in 2006.
When Cornelius died in 2012,fans and devotees of his work arranged flash mobs in cities across the U.S., wearing their finest‘70s clothes and dancing in his memory.
Solid Gold was, in many ways, an imitation of whatBandstand and Soul Train already did really well. One of the keydifferences was that the dancers on Solid Gold were professional,performing choreographed routines instead of representing the dancemoves of the moment. It did bring on some popular performers of thetime, but also felt more like a mix between a music show and aworkout tape at a time when those were beginning to gain traction,thanks to Jane Fonda and Denise Austin. The show lasted a littleless than eight years, running from September 1980 until July1988.
Dionne Warwick hosted the firstseason and picked up duties again from 1985-86, with othercomedians and radio personalities taking up the helm. The show alsohad a big countdown episode each January, hosted by Warwick andGlen Campbell the first year. And unlike other shows, the music oneach week’s episode was determined by Radio & Records, an industry trade newspaper.
Cue the Video
To bring things back to thebeginning, MTV launched in August 1981. Solid Gold, AmericanBandstand, late-night TV talk shows and other programs were stillon the air, showcasing musical guests, but videos were at the heartand soul of MTV in its early days. What a time itwas.
MTV, based in New York City,might have the first to run videos almost all the time, but creditwhere it’s due: Canada had two dedicated shows, both on CBC:Video Hits, a daily afternoon show, and Good Rockin’ Tonite, which aired on Friday nights. Video Hits was30 minutes, Good Rockin’ Tonight ran for an hour, but they bothoffered almost the only opportunity to see videos by Canadianartists (in addition to international stars) without needing acable subscription.
Full disclosure: I have vividmemories of watching Video Hits with my mom in the early 1980s. Shehad me when she was almost 20 and was still a big music fan, sowe’d sit down in front of the TV at my grandparents’ house, makingsure the antenna was juuuuust right so we could get a clear signalfrom across the lake. I have to credit Video Hits for sparking alove of Canadian music in particular that very much continues tothis day.
Both Good Rockin’ Tonite andVideo Hits were cancelled in the early 1990s, airing their finalepisodes one day apart and bowing out of the way for the juggernautthat was MuchMusic.
Smartly, there was a show aimed directly at kids — The Hit List, hosted by“Tarzan” Dan Freeman, on YTV. It lasted 14 seasons, starting in1991, and had an all-star guest list, ranging from Weird AlYankovic, boy band show stoppers Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC,Hanson, as well as singers of interest to parents, like theSmashing Pumpkins, Simple Plan and Alanis Morissette. “Tarzan” Danhosted the show for six seasons and, during the show’s peak, itreleased two compilation CDs, in 1994 and 1996.
Now, if you want to watchvideos, just flip over to YouTube or TikTok or an artist’s personalpage and you’ll get your fill, day or night, anywhere there’s awifi connection. The only place you can’t find videos ison TV.
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