Videos played during VH1's first hour on air (1 Viewer)

[Marsh]

Hello all,

Yes, as we know, VH1 did run music videos before they began airing shows like Basketball Wives, RuPaul's Drag Race, and more. Did anyone on the site see VH1's first day on the air, on January 1, 1985? If so, what were your thoughts?

I wrote a web article about the videos played during VH1's first hour.That included videos by Diana Ross, John Lennon, Joe Jackson,Naked Eyes, Hall & Oates, and more. Here's the link to the web article: https://hubpages.com/entertainment/List-of-Videos-Played-During-The-First-Hour-of-VH1?done

Thanks,
Marshall

 

[EricSchulz]

I REALLY miss the days of VH1 and MTV showing music videos. My love of 80's New Wave/New Romantics/Alternative music was shaped so much by MTV!

 

[Clinton McClure]

We didn’t get MTV and VH1 until the late 80s so we had to make do with Night Tracks on TBS every Friday and Saturday night.

 

[EricSchulz]

We didn’t get MTV and VH1 until the late 80s so we had to make do with Night Tracks on TBS every Friday and Saturday night.

...and Midnight Special or Don Kirschner's Rock Concert!

 

[Marsh]

NBC had Friday Night Videos, too., which started in July 1983. It was originally 90 minutes, and then shortened to an hour.

 

[dvdclon]

I have fond memories of Night Flight on the USA network.
It was more than music videos and hard to describe.

 

[ChristopherG]

Seconded for Night Flight - twas one of the coolest shows I can recall.

 

[Clinton McClure]

We didn’t have USA for the longest time either so I missed out on Night Flight as well. My parents went for the basic package that only had about 15 channels or so in our area.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

MTV was the main reason I wanted cable. Now it's one of the main reasons why I don't have cable.

VH-1 was basically MTV for older people- shame that at least didn't last longer, but it was also the first US cable channel to start the absolutely despicable practice of keeping its logo constantly onscreen. First time I saw that it looked like one of their switches was stuck.

 

[Marsh]

MTV was the main reason I wanted cable. Now it's one of the main reasons why I don't have cable.

VH-1 was basically MTV for older people- shame that at least didn't last longer, but it was also the first US cable channel to start the absolutely despicable practice of keeping its logo constantly onscreen. First time I saw that it looked like one of their switches was stuck.

Thanks Jesse for the comments. BTW, I checked out your YouTube channel, and you have some great video there.

Marshall

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Thanks, have a bunch more coming and more boxes of old tapes to look through! I did get to see some of VH1's first days at a friend's house back then. We finally tried out cable in 1989 and promptly dropped it since all channels were in mono. When I had access to better quality cable the content had gone to crap.

 

[MusicManDan]

Thanks for the article, Marsh! I’ve been searching for early playlists from the beginning of VH-1, but have not located anything yet! Any ideas? Also, I would love to revisit old VH-1 footage particularly shows like “New Visions,” “Sunday Brunch” and “The Soul Of VH-1” to name a few!

 

[Ejanss]

I miss the days before Viacom/MTV/VH-1/TVLand came Out, and only wanted to watch Celebreality shows, RuPaul, and partying Spring-Break teenagers.

Looking back, I suppose the writing was on the wall, when we didn't notice how many LGBT comics were regular commentators on the I Love the 80's shows, during VH-1's Pop-Culture Nostalgia phase.
.

And then...there were the older ex-MTV graduates who loved Pop-Up Video:

I have fond memories of Night Flight on the USA network.
It was more than music videos and hard to describe.

I remember one fan who described Night Flight as "If MTV was your douchy older teen brother who was too cool to let you hang out with his friends, Night Flight was like your ex-party-monster uncle from the 70's, who'd tell you stories about hanging out with Warhol back in the factory days."
That summed it up perfectly, I think.

I remember occasional hours where they would blender together movie clips, novelty music-videos, festival animation and public-domain ephemera-shorts into some flowing narration-free stream-of-consciousness "found" spoof on some theme, like Reagan or nuclear-war.
After-hours cable was a different world, back in the mid-80's.

 

[Marsh]

Thanks for the article, Marsh! I’ve been searching for early playlists from the beginning of VH-1, but have not located anything yet! Any ideas? Also, I would love to revisit old VH-1 footage particularly shows like “New Visions,” “Sunday Brunch” and “The Soul Of VH-1” to name a few!

You're welcome, MusicManDan! Thanks for the kind words. It was tough just to find out the first hour of videos played on the January 1, 1985 debut of VH1. Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas on how to find other early VH1 playlists. I have a few of the 8-Track Flashback VH1 shows, but they're on VHS, and I haven't played them for a while. You could try the Internet Archive website online, and see if they might have any VH1 footage there. I know there are some older MTV shows on the site.

Marshall