When MTV Meant Something: MTV goes to Spring Break (1986)

 Spring Break was already a college tradition, dating back to 1935, by the time MTV took their cameras and VJ's to Daytona Beach in March 1986, meaning that Daytona to television meant something else besides a certain auto race every February.

For 20 consecutive years, ending in 2005, MTV devoted a weekend----originally a full week----of Spring Break programming, including concerts and specially themed episodes of original series, beginning in 1988, such as Remote Control, which did a week of shows from Daytona for 3 consecutive years (1988-90), and the series' official finale was taped at Daytona. 

1990 also stands out for some silliness with Yo! MTV Raps! weekday hosts Dr. Dre (Andre Brown) & Ed Lover, and original VJ Martha Quinn, on her 2nd tour of duty with the network at that point, wearing a oversized Yo! t-shirt. I swear, I'm not making this up, because I tuned in that weekend. 

Speaking of Martha, she MC's this 1986 concert special with Mr. Mister, which was sponsored by Miller Beer, and does a quick post-concert interview with the band.

Judging from some YouTube commentators, Martha really was America's Sweetheart back then.

By the end of the 80's, MTV had switched gears and began scaling back on live programming, due to the unpredictability of Spring Break causing issues with network censors and the FCC. The network moved the annual tradition off MTV itself and onto MTVU after 2005, only to bring it back, at least as an experiment, in 2019. With the channel turning 40 this year, and 35 years after the first week of shows from Daytona, were it not for COVID-19, they probably would be down there again this year, but it wouldn't be the same.