When MTV was evolving the right way: Colin Quinn's Manly World (1990)

 As Remote Control was winding down its run, announcer-sidekick Colin Quinn, who flopped (though it wasn't his fault) with NBC's 2 Hip 4 TV more than a year earlier, was given his own show at MTV.

Colin Quinn's Manly World was part of a checkerboard lineup of shows airing in back of Control during the first half of 1990, and aired on Mondays. This gave Colin an avenue to do some standup and sketch comedy, which was his ticket to a run on Saturday Night Live for a few years after Control castmate Adam Sandler made the same jump to SNL.

Unfortunately, viewers voted with their remotes. Too much comedy, too little music video for a show that tried to find the same balance that Hollywood Julie Brown had achieved with Just Say Julie. Manly World's genesis, I believe, stems from a solo special Quinn had done, Goin' Back to Brooklyn, which included a music video of the same name that parodied LL Cool J's "Goin' Back to Cali", from "Less Than Zero". After 6 months, Manly World was cancelled, right along with Control, and Quinn would soon be on his way to NBC and greater fame.

Following is a sample episode:

I had reviewed this before, but the video I used was deleted by YouTube, and other copies of this particular episode had the sound muted or lowered, which wasn't a good idea.

Colin has done more acting and standup comedy in recent years after leaving SNL, including hosting a talk show on Comedy Central, Tough Crowd, which was created after Bill Maher took Politically Incorrect with him to ABC. More recently, Quinn appeared on HBO's Girls.

Rating: B.