WEBVTT - Special Feature: Math & Magic - The Real Story of MTV: Founder’s Edition 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:05.640 You're listening to Math and Magic, a production I heart Radio. 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.840 You actually were the guy who inspired us to do 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.200 animated logos. Do you remember this? I said, well, what 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.200 are we going to do in between the videos and 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.120 the VJs that are we gonna do jingles? And he went, oh, no, 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.040 we can't do jingles? And I said, what do we do? 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.639 He said, how about this? Imagine it's a picture of 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.560 a cow. I said, yeah, he said, and all of 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.479 a sudden, an X comes down and cuts the cow's 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.640 head off and it falls to the ground and you 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.200 see the veins coming out and the blood spurting out, 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.519 and the cow vomits, and in the vomit is the logo. 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:47.479 I went, Oh, my god, I can do anything I want. Hi, 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.040 I'm Bob Titman, and welcome to Math and Magic. Stories 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.120 from the Frontiers and Marketing and we're doing something special 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.240 on today's episode. One of the pivotal moments of my 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.680 life was leading the team that created MTV. I've had 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:01.760 the good fortin of having all the co founders of 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.000 MTV on this podcast with me and in each of 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.400 the interviews, whether it was chatting with Judie Grath and 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.920 Fred Cyber, John Sykes or Yarramon and of course Tom Freston. 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.920 We've always spent a little time talking about MTV, So 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.679 what we wanted to do for you today was pulled 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.760 together those stories for the first time ever. Tell the 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.480 story at the beginning of MTV through the eyes of 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.759 people who were actually in the room when it happened, 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:28.080 because all of us who are really in the room 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.200 often laugh about how far off other people's accounts can be. 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:39.440 So let me set the stage. It's the beginning of 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:43.280 the eighties. Cable TV was still a crazy idea. Most 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.440 business executives and most of America didn't understand it or 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.680 believe in how TV was about to change. And here 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.360 comes this pack of twenty year old with an attitude. 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.120 None of us had ever done the jobs before. All 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:58.200 we knew is we've grown up with rock and roll 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.000 and we've grown up with TV, and the two had 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.360 never successfully come together. We thought it had always failed 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.040 because TV people always wanted to try and make music 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.799 at the TV form a story. We intended to make 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:15.079 TV at the music form mood and emotion. MTV was 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.160 going to be about attitude and something people wanted to join. 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:22.200 We were on a mission. So when I hearts owned 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.079 John Sykes at the time, a twenty four year old 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.280 record executive at CBS Records in Chicago heard what we 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:33.320 were up to. Well, he wanted in, so let's talk 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:37.080 about MTV. It's the word gets out that we're working 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.040 on this do music channel. How do you hear about it? 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:42.680 What does it mean to you? And how on earth 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.080 did you really get connected to us to get on 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.120 that original team. I grew up with three things in 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:52.080 my life. Radio, television, music. That's all I cared about. 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.640 When I wasn't listen to the radio station, I was 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.480 watching TV or listening to music. Those things, to me 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.560 shaped our culture. So I'm at school, ab TV is 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.000 just starting up, and I saw the cable channels were empty, 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:06.200 the music was all over the radio. Was it on television? 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.560 So we used to go and shoot the concerts and 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.920 sarcus and we'd pay them and send him to new channels, 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.000 and we played the concerts and people like, oh my god, 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.360 I can see the band. And all I wanted to 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.919 do at that point was put music on television. When 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.960 I graduated, I went to CBS that let's put music 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.120 on let's run concerts. These three martini lunch guys in 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:27.920 New York looked at me, and I was crazy. I 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.160 got a job in the record business promoting radio stations. 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.799 I wanted to run the radio station. I didn't want 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:34.840 to promote them on the rail, but that's the job 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.560 I had. So then I heard from my friend's deep 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:39.800 Casey was at w LS in Chicago that his great 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.040 friend Bob Pittman was in New York and he was 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.360 going to start a video channel, and I lost my mind. 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.200 It still gives me goose bumps. I was like, this 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.160 is what I was made to do. This is what 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.240 I wanted to do. To me, it was like music 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.560 along on television. So I started calling you, and I 0:03:57.680 --> 0:03:59.200 called you, and I called you and I called you. 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:01.800 And thanks to your assistant and Plunkett, who I was 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.600 annoying so much, she said, all right, Bob, you please 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.840 talk to this guy. And uh we met that day 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.840 with a borrowed support jacket. Because I don't know it, 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:12.840 but you and I connected that moment because we had 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.160 the same vision. Music and television were the two biggest 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.279 forces in pop culture and they were about to be united. 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.119 You look back on any successful product and it seems easy. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.480 You were there when we didn't even have approval from 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:28.320 the board to do it. We just had some money 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.520 to develop it. So give us a little color for 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:33.800 people who think things are easy and they always go 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:36.680 exactly the way you plan. What that early development was like. 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.000 It is funny and people like go, oh my god, 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:41.480 you're in the team that started MTV. That must have 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.080 been a magical and great ago. I don't know. I 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.440 was working too hard. We were so in the trenches 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.400 all the time. It only looks glamorous that day looking back, 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.520 but when you're in it, it's a slugfest. There was 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.360 this idea, but to make it happen, we had no 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.400 money and we all quit jobs. You were at NBC, 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.040 I was at CBS. I was the promotion man of 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.040 the Year in Chicago, and I just said, I'm quitting. 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.440 People like us, we weren't going to fail. I never 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:07.840 thought we were going to fail. I got scared when 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.040 you'd come in and say, you know, they're gonna cut 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:11.640 the budgets. We've got a few more months. We've got 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:13.760 to make our numbers. That just made me say, well, 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:15.200 we're gonna have to work hard to make our numbers. 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.360 I do still remember one conversation we have where I said, Okay, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:21.400 we're going to the board and we're gonna pitch this 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.000 for approval, and you go, what, we don't have approval. 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.800 I quit my job. We don't have approval. No, no, John, 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.640 this was development. All the blood ran out of your 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.840 face at that moment. I do remember I had to 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.080 look up because there was no Internet. I had to 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.640 go into Dictionary look up the real definition of development. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.680 I thought, we're developing something. You development means it's not 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.280 gonna happen yet, but you know something. I was like, 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.320 who cares if it doesn't work, I'll go sleep on 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.479 my sister's couching another job. We were young. John Sykes 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.039 was so hungry he pounded on our door to let 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.880 him in. He believed in music television from the start. 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:57.720 But my good pal Fred Cyberg, the one who came 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.520 out of radio and helped create the graphic of MTV, 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:05.200 his reason for getting into TV was very different. One 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.120 of your great supporters, who I had worked with and 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:09.840 who I loved dearly, Dale Pond, recommended you to me 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.960 pre MTV. It was in the early days to pay TV. 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:15.839 You came over to join us in the cable revolution. 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:18.840 Why did you make that jump? Well, you know this 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.520 is gonna sound flattering. I did it completely because of you. 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.760 Dale had left the country music radio station and left 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.320 me alone, and the guy I was working for at 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:31.440 that time in radio I had no respect for whatsoever. 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:33.760 So you called me one day, you said you want 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:35.480 to be in television, and oh, you said, okay, come 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.040 have coffee with me. I went to Dale's files and 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.320 he had files on everyone in the business, and there 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.240 was one article about you, and I thought to myself, 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.880 you know, this guy is younger than me and I've 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.880 heard of him, so that's, you know, one check. So 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.160 we go, we have the coffee and I walk out 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.880 and I called my best friend and I said, this 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:58.400 guy that I just talked to is so much smarter 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.160 than my Boston radio He goes, what do you think 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.240 about that? I said, Well, here's what Dale taught me. 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:05.840 It doesn't matter what the job is, work for the 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.080 smartest person you can find. And at the time, you 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.560 were the smartest person I could find. That's what that means, 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.360 to truth be told. When you first told me about it, 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:16.600 I thought it was the dumbest idea in the world, 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.560 because I was a music guy and I had seen, 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:22.640 you know, a few crummy music videos. I hadn't really 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.239 thought about it too much, and then luckily somebody played 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.040 me a music video that made, you know, the little 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.200 light go off. I don't know whether it was blind 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.760 faith or I was too naive to know that you 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:36.560 had to have faith, Like you told me it was 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.680 gonna happen, so I believed you totally. I was just 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.840 talking with Alan Goodman, my soon to be partner at 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.520 that point, and he said, you know, we didn't really 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:48.880 know what was going to happen, but you looked at 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:50.520 all the other people that were around you, and it 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.640 just had to happen. I think that's really true. I 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:55.320 don't know if you remember, but we went to the 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.760 head of Warner Communications in American Express, and we got 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.880 a meeting with Steve Ross, who is the CEO of 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.680 Warner along with his deputies David Horowitz, et cetera. And 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.040 we got Jim Robinson and his deputy Luke Gershner from 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.080 American Express. We were worried that when we showed these 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.320 videos too from Americans Press, call what So he said, 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.600 let's find the tamest one of my mind. I think 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.440 we found Olivia Newton John if you remember. But in 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:21.640 the meeting they said you have to play that kind 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:26.000 of stuff, implying Olivia Newton John was too. But to 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.160 their credit, Jim Robinson's the first one to say, Okay, 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:29.760 I'm in from my half. How about you? Steve so 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.959 awesome we locked out. The MTV crew we assembled was 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.520 a bunch of lovable misfits and future Viacom MTV CEO 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.960 Tom Preston was no different. It spent several years living 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.599 in Afghanistan, reporting clothes and having adventures across Asia, but 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.079 when things got two political overseas, he made his way 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.959 back and so so you don't think Tom went saft 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.240 sitting to top Viacom. After he left the company, He 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.280 returned Afghanistan and even has a wonderful story about lying 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:00.599 on the floor and a bar and football with a 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:05.839 firefight going on all around, the bullets whizzing overhead. I 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:07.640 was always trying to figure out where would I fit 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:09.880 in in the business world. There wasn't an artist per se. 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.320 I wasn't a writer or a musician, but I wanted 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.240 to always be around creative people. My first grown up jobs. Essentially, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.600 we're working in an ad agency. My first account there 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:22.640 I worked on was g I Joe Now Money. This 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:24.560 was sort of at the height of the Vietnam War 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.199 and I was in an alienated state to begin with. 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.840 When they were gonna assign me to charm and toilet paper, 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.400 that was sort of my last straw. Called an ex 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.360 girlfriend who lived in Paris. I said, they want me 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.360 to work on a toilet paper account where they had 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:43.080 segmented the population two rollers, folders and crumplers. And she says, well, 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.800 you can't do that. You should quit that job. Don't 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.200 be a moron. Come with me. I'm gonna go across 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.160 the Sahara Desert up in Paris. So I was on 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.559 a plane like ten days later. That was it for me. 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.080 So Tom set up his clothing company Hidnt Do Kush 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.559 and ran that successfully for a long while. When I 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.240 was riven out of Asia, I thought, whatever I do next, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:04.640 I wanted to be something that I also loved deeply, 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.360 and that was music. So I'm methodically looked around getting 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.000 a job in the music business. Through connections. I ended 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.719 up in John Lack's office and I told him I thought, 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:14.520 this is a fantastic idea. He says, we're looking for 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.280 people who have no experience in television. I said, I'm 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:19.720 your man. They didn't even have television where I've been 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.200 living in the last eight years. We were both originally 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:24.320 brought to the company for other jobs, by the way, 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.920 before the MTV development even began, by the incredibly charismatic 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.679 John Lack, who had this wonderful affliction. He liked to 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:34.360 hire people for roles they had never had before. And 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:37.360 you and I benefited from that. But you got in 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:41.520 here the cable revolution wasn't even recognized as being a revolution. Yet, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.080 what did you think you were getting into? I mean, 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.160 this was still sort of Mickey Mouse compared to the 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:46.880 TV business. I thought I was getting into one of 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.719 the greatest ideas that had ever come around. I had 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.240 spent parts of the summers in Europe, and I was 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.719 familiar with the music video which were largely unknown to 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.760 American audiences, and they were infectious, and I thought MTV, 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.960 like all of us on the team, was really one 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.320 of the great ideas. And all of us were essentially 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.880 on a crusade. We got paid nothing. It was the 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.719 early eighties version of a startup, very much so. And 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.080 if you looked at the media environment then nothing had 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.040 really changed in years. The only thing that had come 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.000 around knew had been FM radio. There was still three 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:22.400 TV networks. Pong was only a few years old. Remember 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:24.560 we used to say we're going to do to FM 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.120 what FM did too a M that was our big 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:32.480 plane channels in the home. Can you imagine. Judy McGrath 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.520 was another key employee in the early days. She eventually 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.200 rose to be CEO of MTV Networks. Here she has 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.800 reminiscing about what it meant to make the rules up 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.880 as we went along. The beauty and the wonder of 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.120 MTV was that it was really filled with people that 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:54.760 I thought could not find gainful employment anywhere else. It 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:59.000 would be somebody who had never really shot anything and 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:00.760 just wanted to get their hands on a camera and 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.480 try it. And we were willing to do that, so 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.760 I would say absolutely, But remember, don't fall in love 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.679 with your own idea. This is about someone else, not you. 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:13.520 This is about the person on the other side. They're 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:15.599 like you, but you can't make this just for you. 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.120 And there are really no other rules aside from you know, 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:21.559 no full frontal nudity. Go out there and do it, 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:26.640 and it was so much fun to have the freedom 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.480 to meet people who were far more creative than I was. 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.360 I mean, when I joined, I didn't know anything about television. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.319 I didn't even like it. My interview was with Fred, 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.920 who said, so, what kind of music do you like? 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:42.960 And I think I said Bruce Springsteen, I'm not sure. 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.160 He said, well, you're wrong, and I'll tell you why. 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.400 And then about forty five minutes later, I left, not 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.599 having said anything else. And the next thing I know, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.959 they were like, well, you know, look, this is just 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:55.600 a few of us were trying to get this thing 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.600 going if you'd like to join, And it was kind 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:00.520 of like how fast can I it out the door 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.079 of Conde nas and jump on this thing whatever it is? 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.360 These people are crazy. What's funny is that when I 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.640 asked Fred about it, he remembered the story exactly the 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.360 same way. She said Bruce Springsteen. I said wrong, because 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.360 I don't have a good thing about Bruce. The fact 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.559 that she cared, you know, the Bruce haters are coming 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.240 after you right now. Believe me, They've been coming after 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.280 me my whole life. The fact that she cared meant 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:27.880 all the difference to me in the world. Not that 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:32.160 I agreed. You know, I've just found the camaraderie and 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:37.319 the purpose in the sheer invention of something that didn't exist, 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.880 so irresistible. And again on the math side of it, 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.079 I was saying, I mean this with all sincerity. You 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.640 had a map in the creative group, you had a plan, 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.920 and the plan were promises, and I loved that. I 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.559 am making a promise to you. You sit here, I'm 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.880 going to deliver something that you've been waiting for. It 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:04.079 is the first music television network. It is exactly for you. 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.360 And I thought, wow, I want my MTV and I 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:12.160 have no idea what it is, but those are powerful 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:17.359 words my in an era before social media and social engagement. 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.000 Something for me that felt like mine and want What 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:26.760 a powerful word, right, I want my MTV. I took 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:29.800 that very seriously. I took those promises to heart. Twenty 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.160 four hours a day terrific in stereo, not really, but 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.840 you know, hey, it's mart that sounded good. People who 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.800 did have stereo. I remember you saying to me, we 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:44.800 want people to think it sounds better than regular television, 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:47.240 and they did. It just felt to me like if 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.240 I could marry all the things I'm interested in, with 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.280 these set of principles and join this crazy band of 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:58.200 people who have no right and a lot of audacity 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.640 and a firm belief that this can work. What a gift. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:07.320 I never looked back, not one second. Let's go back 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:13.160 to Fred and chat about that iconic MTV logo. Talk 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.720 about the logo you set out, You've got the mission. 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.640 You and I had these discussions. I've naively said, we'll 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:20.760 do our own Star Wars logo because everybody has a 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:22.600 Star Wars log and you go to bob Ours will 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.640 look cheap. You said, Look, if we do something no 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:28.360 one's ever seen before, they won't know it's cheap. So 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.440 tell me about the logo. Well, the logo itself actually 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.080 came about because I was too scared to go to 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:37.800 someone famous. I wanted to go to Milton Glazer, who's 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.080 one of the most famous graphic designers of the last 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.160 fifty years. And I was like, oh, well, he's gonna 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:47.400 be really expensive and we'll get all the credit. And 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.880 I wanted a little credit, you know, at least. So 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.520 my childhood friend, who I've known since I'm four years old, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.880 a guy named Frank Olinsky, had just started a little 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.960 design firm behind a tai Chief studio above Bigelow Chemists 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.040 on Sixth Avenue. And Frank had been the guy because 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.560 he's a year older than me, who would always introduced 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.560 me to every new rock band. He introduced me to 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.240 the Monkeys, he introduced me to the Mothers of Invention, 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.760 to the Who, to Jeff Beck. So I go down 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:15.040 to his little Taichi studio place and I go, will 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.960 you guys design a logo for this rock channel we're starting? 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:20.920 And they're like yes, And they didn't ask me anything. 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:22.360 They didn't ask me how much they were going to 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.600 get paid or anything like that. And this was right 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:30.160 after you sent out the first memo in June, and 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:32.560 boy do I wish I had that memo. So for 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:37.320 a year they designed logos and I just rejected everything, 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:43.240 probably five hundred designs. Finally they come in the office 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.560 one day. We're actually going to go on the air soon, right, 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.160 and we still don't have anything, and they bring a 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.080 pile and I'm like, no, no, I'm going through the 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.960 whole pile. And at the bottom of the pile is 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.600 a piece of tracing paper. Remember that, you know the 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:58.800 paper you could see through and it was all wrinkled 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.320 and they had flattened it out. It was just like 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.720 a sketched TV and went, Okay, that's the one I 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:10.240 can see. Frank like rowling. He and I now disagree. 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.480 But what I had heard is that there's three partners 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:15.680 and one of them wasn't really a designer. She was 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.720 a production manager and she had done it, and Frank 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.200 saw it and hated him, threw it in the garbage. 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:24.600 She fished it out and put it at the bottom 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.840 of the pile. He says, that's not true, but you know, 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:31.080 maybe a good story. The only reason I said yes 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.679 is that Dale had taught me one lesson about design. 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:39.000 You need to dominate the space, and that big block 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.760 e M was the only thing they showed that when 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.200 you put it on a TV screen, filled the whole screen. Okay, 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:46.720 we dominate the space, and in a world of thirty 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:50.119 channels in a day, when the screen was square exactly right. 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:55.280 So then I go, oh, you know, we need official colors. 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:59.359 So they come to my office with about ten different 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:02.800 boards and then a little board where Frank had illustrated 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.600 ten or twelve of them on acrylic overlays and said 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.720 this one will be for the heavy metal show, and 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.840 this one will be for the new Wave show. And 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:13.760 I'm like, Frank, We're not gonna have shows, you know. 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:15.680 I put it aside. So I put all of the 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:20.480 boards up on my pegboard and couldn't decide, and this 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.480 one on literally for like weeks and weeks and weeks. 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.639 And then I start looking at his little acrylic thing 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.359 with all the illustration, and I said, why don't we 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.359 just use them all at once all the time? Or 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.159 television we move, shouldn't the logo move? And to be 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:40.280 honest with you, that was my first real revelation that 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.159 I was in television, that we had come up with 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:47.200 an idea that only worked in television. You actually were 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:52.199 the guy who inspired us to do animated logos. I said, well, 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:54.040 what are we going to do in between the videos 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.080 and the VJs that are We're gonna do jingles? And went, oh, no, 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.119 we can't do jingles. And I said, what do we do? 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.840 He said, how about this? Imagine it's like a picture 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.919 of a cow. I said, yeah, he said, and all 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.520 of a sudden, an X comes down and cuts the 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:11.960 cow's head off and it falls to the ground and 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:14.600 you see the veins coming out and the blood spurting out, 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.919 and the cow vomits, and in the vomit is the logo. 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.400 I went, oh my god, I can do anything I want. 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.680 This is the most exciting moment of my life. And 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:28.359 we started hiring animators to do all that stuff. The 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.399 other thing you did when you did those promos, you 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.920 laid the music bed down first and cut the music. 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:37.480 People forget this, They don't realize that was an innovation. 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.119 So I got that all from Dale. And when we 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.280 started making our first radio spots, we would film country 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.920 music stars and then he said, we'll go to the 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:50.600 audio studio and cut the audio track. And I went, well, 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.080 the video guy tells me, no, you have to first 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.440 do the picture. And then he goes, Fred, we own 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.479 the audio studio. It's free. If you get it right 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:05.400 in the audio studio, then the three an hour video 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.000 studio will go much faster. By the time we got 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.359 to MTV, I realized that he was absolutely right. Now 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.840 fast forward twenty years. I go to MTV one day 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:16.680 and I go, who's the promo department? Now on the 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.160 one you're the one, Well, what are you talking about? 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.200 And they said, they make us do the audio. First 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.080 we're filmed. People like why so twenty years later they 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.080 were still doing it. But boy, what it did is 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.560