MTV turns 30, but where's the party?

On August 1, MTV officially marks its 30th anniversary, but as of press time, there is no indication that the channel, which has undergone some radical changes over the last two decades, gradually veering away from its initial mission statement, opting to discard music videos, or at the very least, consign them to early morning blocks, in favor of cheap-to-produce reality shows that are already being played into the ground (i.e. Jersey Shore) and scripted programming (Teen Wolf, Awkward), was willing to return to its roots.

Over the years, MTV has been a breeding ground for a number of talents, both in music and elsewhere. The non-music list reads like a present-day who's who. Before taking the anchor's chair on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart toplined a late night talk show on MTV that lasted about a year or two. Remote Control (1987-90) introduced viewers not only to host Ken Ober, but also Colin Quinn (later of Saturday Night Live), Kari Wuhrer (who'd later appear on Sliders & Beverly Hills 90210), Denis Leary (Rescue Me; people forget he was part of the repertory company), & Adam Sandler (who preceded Quinn onto SNL). Jay Mohr, who was most recently on Ghost Whisperer, hosted the game show, Lip Service.

This weekend, MTV is again shoving Jersey Shore down the viewers' throats, rather than acknowledge its storied past. Instead, that task is left to sister network VH1 Classic, which will rebroadcast the 1st hour at exactly 12 midnight on August 1. It seems to me that the current administration in charge of MTV Networks just doesn't want MTV to re-embrace the past, even for a day. More fools they, since it doesn't seem to register that their ratings aren't what they used to be.

VH1 turned 25 last year, and it was the same thing. No celebration, no flashbacks. El yawn-o. MTV is bringing back Beavis & Butt-Head in an all-new series later this year, but Mike Judge's Texas twits will be hard pressed to even find something that doesn't suck now, since the lifeblood of their original series, the videos, are nearly an endangered species to MTV suits. Small wonder it's easier to call the channel Empty-V nowadays.