It’s hard to believe but twenty years ago The Real World debuted on MTV and slowly the cable channel which was beloved by a generation went from from showing creative music videos to bland reality television. But before that there was a golden age of a cable channel which dared to be a bit artsy and take some chances. Even though the channel started out with small budgets from the early days they always had animated bumper spots that were just as entertaining as the music videos which were showcased. Here are a small selection of those spots which made a generation tell tell their parents that “I Want My MTV”:

If you’re not quite sure what you just saw — and I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t – it’s a trailer for Gucci’s upcoming fragrance, Gucci Guilty. I’m not even sure a fragrance would even need a trailer, but regardless of how you feel about Frank Miller, or Gucci for that matter, you have to admit that its stunning. From what I can tell,  a full version is in the works which should debut at MTV’s Video Music Awards later this month. Keep your eye on the YouTube channel for more updates and behind-the-scenes content.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as the Features and Reviews Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator. He’s also an Assocaite Editor for the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com.

I was blown away to see that MTV 80s icons Blondie, Joan Jett and Cyndi Lauper have all been turned into Barbie dolls! Of course back in the 80s the animated TV series Jem gave Barbie a run for her money — while Barbie struck back with Barbie and the Rockers it was never quite cool as Jem. Too bad the licensing folks Mattel didn’t approach these 80s rock legends a bit sooner! Here’s Debbie Harry as Blondie doll which comes out in December:

And here’s the Joan Jett Barbie doll which also comes out in December:

And showing her true colors here’s the Cyndi Lauper Barbie doll who will make her appearance in January, 2010:

I wish Mattel would run further with this: It would be very cool to see Barbie dolls in the image of other 80s icons like Tina Turner, Bananarama and Pat Benatar.

Found via ifitshipitshere.blogspot.com.

You can tell that this 1988 promotional spot for Florida TV station WBFS was done on a low budget, but it’s impressive that it features the voice of Pee-wee Herman who had defiantly gone big time at that point. I also love the added touches of the MTV graphics and the matching Madonna soundtrack. It’s funny to think back to a previous era when you’d enter a contest by sending an old school analog letter instead of an email or tweet…

Above: A vintage Michael Jackson record player from the 80s, photographed by Dan Jones.

With the passing of Michael Jackson everyone is focused on title “the king of pop” but to me his contribution was much more important in another area: The fine art of making music videos. This is important to me as I came of age in the 80s and while my taste in music was more on the new wave side than pop or R&B I was (and still am) bery much a hardcore fan of music videos. Yet even if you weren’t a Michael Jackson fan during that era if you were into music videos you couldn’t avoid his domination of the medium. In fact I think it would be fair to say that Jackson was one of the artists that made a network like MTV possible.

What set him apart wasn’t his music (although his music was amazing) but his ability to marry that to the visual demands of a new medium. That ability to play to the camera, especially with his dance moves took him the next level. Up until that point a musician wasn’t expected to dance on the small screen — and the results were always painful to watch with stuff cut out singers flanked by dancers. Not only could Jackson dance, but he could dance well which gave his performance a multimedia quality.

Jackson also knew how to collaborate well with others: To me Thriller is a great example of this with Jackson working with legend Quincy Jones to create a remarkable album that even features Eddie Van Halen on the guitar and Paul McCartney doing vocals. Although even more impressive to me was Jackson working with director John Landis on the music video, this was a brave choice as it followed a low point for Landis after the deaths on the set of the Twilight Zone film.

With a huge budget of $500,000 (some estimates are higher by the way) that video changed everything that would follow in every level from cinematography to choregoraphy. After that a music video could no longer be some sort of after thought be pumped out after the album was cut. Also not as well known is that Thirller really brought down the color barrier at MTV, before then Jackson was struggling to get any air time at all. In fact you could say that if it weren’t for Thriller in ‘83 that the doors wouldn’t have been open for Prince in ‘84.

As the 80s faded so did Michael Jackson and the era of music videos. However Jackson could on occasion pull out a surprise, an example of this was his Scream video with Janet Jackson. Till this day it’s the highest budget music video of all time, but what makes it amazing isn’t the budget (although every penny is on the screen) but the match of music to visuals. Anime fans should also take note that this video includes a clip from Akira. It’s also important to keep in mind that he did that video in 1995, so Jackson was already working in a universe where bands like Nirvana pretty much domolished what was left of the 80s. Also to his credit was working with a director like Mark Romanek who’s just a great film maker above all else.

Sadly Jackson seemed posed for another comeback, so we’ll never know what he could have gone on to do. I suspect the level of attention over the next few days will come pretty close to when Elvis passed away. To me what makes his work in music videos so amazing is that so many years later the work holds up well.

Below: Cover artwork and a screenshot from Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker Sega game from 1990.

Ummm Sir Paul! You can do this but you can’t do a deal with iTunes? Besides aren’t the fab four more a pop act — and the Stones a true “Rock Band”:

The Beatles In Rock Band: MTV Expected To Announce Beatles Deal

“MTV Networks is expected to announce on Thursday a deal to use songs by The Beatles in its popular “Rock Band” video game series, marking the band’s first major plunge into the digital music world. The Beatles’ Apple Corps Ltd and Viacom Inc’s MTV Networks have been in talks for months. They issued media invitations to a teleconference on “a global music project” on Thursday, but did not give more details.”