This old fella has been feeling very nostalgic lately, especially for the sweet, sweet mindless TV watching of my youth. In particular, I have been gathering a lovely batch of videos MTV played during its first few months of existence. Some fabulous, some scary bad; but oddly enough, I loved them all.

When ever you mention very early MTV in a group discussion, your loudest (and lamest) friend or coworker will no doubt jump in and ruin the conversation with, “Video Killed the Radio Start… Video Killed…!” No shit pal, that’s novice talk.

I’m not taking about the usual crap you hear hack comics discussing on VH1’s Best of The 80s (Michael Jackson, Pat Benatar, etc.). I’m talking to you — my friends and fellow Fourth-Level Dwarfs with hit points to spare — the basement-dwelling, video-obsessed music nerds who watched the once-great video channel from day one (August 1, 1981) and who thoroughly enjoyed seeing the eclectic mix of artists and songs like “No Time to Lose” by the Tarney-Spencer Band and “So Long” by Fischer Z played at least six times day, every day. MTV sure had a lot of time to fill, here are some standouts:

“We Can Get Together” by Icehouse

These guys had one of the first MTV “Triple Dips” with the song “Icehouse” on the album “Icehouse” by the band “Icehouse”. That is quite awesome.

“No Time to Lose” by the Tarney-Spencer Band

This made me want to get high and I didn’t even know what that was.

“I Got You” by Split Enz

New Zealand’s finest export put out a slew of stellar videos, this one still holds up nicely.

“Too Late” by The Shoes

Zero stage presence, but these mop tops produced some of the best melodic power pop ever. Also check out the equally brilliant “Tomorrow Night”.

“Swords of a 1000 Men” by Tenpole Tudor

So freaking bad-ass! Every Brit over the age of 30 worth his salt should know all the words to this classic drinking/sword-fight song. Also check out “Wunderbar”.

“So Long” by Fischer Z

Nothing was more fun then belting out the epic line “Why didn’t you tell me?” in that slightly affected howl. This song rules so much you might not be able to handle it. “Oooohh… you should’ve told me…”

“Guilty” by Classix Nouveaux

Here’s the most famous scary bald front man until that Midnight Oil guy dethroned him. This crazy-ass Goth extravaganza was played about twice an hour, every hour.

Donnie Iris – Ah! Leah!

While the 3 live concert videos really put him on the map, including the epic “Love is Like a Rock,” this loveable nerd enjoyed a minor hit with this ode to a lovely lass (who looks like a tranny).

“What’s He Got” by The Producers

Read review here.

“Edge of Sundown” by Danny Joe Brown and The Danny Joe Brown Band

Sit back and enjoy one of the longest guitar solos ever by multiple guitarists, also enjoy the sweet-ass ax slinging by the dude in the flowing blue tunic. No one took himself more serious than this Danny Joe Brown character.

“Sign of a Gypsy Queen” by April Wine

Three word review: “Triple Guitar Threat!”

“Calling All Girls!” by Hilly Michaels

I despise novelty songs, but this silly and saturated, rotoscoped gem has some serious charm.

“Two Triple Cheese” by Commander Cody

Ear-achingly bad, but visually interesting. Proof positive MTV had hours upon hours of time to fill.

“I Wanna Be A Lifeguard” by Blotto

Catchy. Funny. Weezer must have studied these guys.

“Pop Music” by M

You gotta love the drugged-out chick with the headphones and giant blue sweater singing back-up.

“Hold on Loosely” – 38 Special

I know, not as obscure as the others, but you can’t mention the early days of Music Television without these Wild-Eyed Southern Boys.

“So This is Love” – Van Halen

“I got myself a brand new Oakland scarf right here…” Back in 81, most bands only had live concert footage, which I preferred. Thankfully, Van Halen had a few classics ready for heavy rotation. Also see “Unchained”.

“Some of My Lies Are True” by Huey Lewis & The News

Not to be confused with their later masterpieces, J.J. Jackson and the other drug-addled Veejays played the shit out of this then little-known band, so you can blame them for their popularity. This study in early video choreography and budget effects is actually very fun to watch. Check out the running in place at the end, very athletic.

More Gems!

Unearthed Videos

“One man will punch whatever it takes to find the truth!”

Chris Elliott stars as Marshal Chris Monsanto in EAGLEHEART, a new show that promises action, cars, suspense, conversations, intrigue, buildings and copious amounts of needless bloodshed in every episode. Aided by his sidekicks Brett and Susie, and under the watchful authority of Chief, Monsanto’s goal is always the same: to punch people so hard that they explode.

Eagleheart premieres February 3rd at midnight on Adult Swim.

Statler and Waldorf were one of my favorite TV gay puppet couples. From the Muppet Wiki (of course there is a Muppet wiki):

“Statler and Waldorf share the stage left balcony box in the Muppet Theater, and the two delight in heckling every aspect of The Muppet Show. Statler and Waldorf are especially unforgiving to Fozzie Bear. Statler and Waldorf first appeared as a pair in the 1975 pilot The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence.”

Buy: $16.99

I like Nick Swardson. He’s funny. Cats are funny. This sketch show looks good. What else do you want from me? Just watch the damn thing and leave me alone.

Nick Swardson’s Pretend Time is an irreverent sketch show filtered through the twisted point-of-view of stand-up comedian Nick Swardson. Swardson played Terry on RENO 911! and has been featured in two Comedy Central Presents stand-up specials, as well as his own one-hour special Seriously, Who Farted?

Debuts: Tuesday, October 12, 10pm / 9c on Comedy Central

Website: www.comedycentral.com

Okay John, Cathy Lee and Tarks, I agree this episode does sound incredible… up until 1:08 when you show a bunch of cats sitting in pots and running amok on a dirty stove. That’s not so incredible. Liars.

Related Story: There’s a Good Chance Your Friend’s Cat Sat on Your Food

FYI, Cathy Lee Crosby was the boob tube’s first Wonder Woman (1974 made-for-TV movie). It’s hard to understand why she and her sensible, sexy-free crime-fighting outfit were not hired for the weekly TV series made the following year.

Here’s Wonder Crosby almost dying.

Then she remembers she has really strong Wonders Boots.

A show built around awkward prevarication and David Cross? I’m in!

“This show follows the awkward misadventures of an American office temp and convenient liar named Todd Margaret (David Cross).  Margaret bluffs his way into a senior sales position heading up the London office for the new energy drink Thunder Muscle.  This six-episode half hour original comedy series, co-written by Shaun Pye (Extras), premieres on IFC Friday, October 1 at 10:00 PM/ET. Cross’ out-of-control farce reaches epic proportions when his character’s gaffes and misfortunes wreak havoc on the city of London.”

More Previews: www.ifc.com/todd-margaret/

This trailer has two things going against it: the happy voice guy providing the grating narration and the overused Cure song snippet. Both bits of perkiness would be better suited for the latest piece of shit Katherine Heigl film. Speaking of, you know they will not stop making films with her, right? Seriously, I just read she has a 5,000-picture deal with every studio in Hollywood and also, she is immortal. So we better get used to seeing her joyless, perma-perturbed face on the big screen.

Back to the preview at hand: even with those two nit-picky point deductions, I must give this preview a big ol’ Fonzie double thumbs up. The show looks pretty damn funny and it better be considering Will Arnett (basically playing Gob again) and Peter Serafinowicz are the main joke slingers. Keri Russell is well cast as the do-gooder love interest. I’m glad to see her back on the telly. She’s always enjoyable, well except for that one time when she chose Ben over Noel… that really hurt me.

Fox just picked up this comedy and it will debut this Fall. I’m certain it will be canceled after eight episodes and three times changes to make room for “So You Think You Can Perform Surgery?”

“I have a new TV boyfriend!”

Click image above to enlarge or see below.

Thanks to @brad_sukala & @jimtaggart for pointing us to the awesomely and perfectly descriptive Tags for the “Leno Show” on Hulu.

Keep Tagging!

Let’s all JayWalk over to Hulu and add some more! Click “Tags” tab to behold the glory. Just don’t click the play button, unless you really enjoy aggressive audience-to-host high-fiving.

For more Leno fun, please read Gabe over at VideoGum for his latest take on the Denim-Skinned Nightmare Monster.

I’m talking about the weaving of big-name social networking sites into the plots on Law & Order (and its spinoffs such as Major Cases and Sexy Victims’ Units), made extra weird by the fake names the shows’ writers have come up with presumably to shield against legal action: The amusing “Facespace” (a kind of MySpace/Facebook hybrid) has recently changed to “Faceunion.” The same recent episode featured an iPhone app and website called “Anonymous Quickie” (obviously meant to stand in for Grindr, the GPS-based hookup tool that promiscuous gay future Sexy Victims use).* I’m waiting (on L&O or off) for an x-rated Facebook called Facef*ck.

Look, I don’t have a fancy writing degree from New York City’s prestigious Hudson University. And yet with my new storyblog I’ve had occasion to come up with some, dare I say, ingenious pseudonyms for many of the people, places, and things in my true stories. I went “à clé” to protect their identities, especially mobbed-up people I’ve known.

So I thought I’d quickly just try my hand at this, with some…

Pseudo-Names for Social Networking Sites:

• Foursquare: “Self-Stalker”
• MySpace: “FOXySpace”
• Meetup.com: “WeirdHobby.com”
• Plaxo: “NoThanxO”
• Friendster: “MeSoHornyMeLoveYouLongTimester”

More New Fake Names for Social Networking Sites, and Ideas for Plots Involving Them:

Flickr: “Pitchr”

Uniformed Officer: (bursting in to precinct, breathless) “That missing little girl in Far Rockaway… someone just tagged her in some vacation pictures on his Pitchr account! We gotta move on this!”

Lt. Van Buren: “Ugh, not again. I forgot my damn login for that site. I never use it anymore. Does anybody in here share photos with loved ones on Pitchr? Get over here and log in for us, will you? Goddamn websites are getting on my last nerve today.“

[OPENING CREDITS BEGIN, THEME MUSIC UNDER]

Twitter: “Pitter-Patter”

tweet: “patty-cake”

Det. Benson: “Captain, we’ve got a situation. A lady in the Bronx just patty-caked an S.O.S. to Pitter-Patter from her handheld! She is being attacked by a sex criminal. She asked her Pitter-Patter followers to contact SVU for her, and we’ve been getting dozens of frantic patty-cakes at @sexyvictims.”

Cap’n Cragen: “Followers? Is she a cult leader or something?”

Det. Benson: “No, but she is a top patty-caker. People hang on her every patty-cake. Excuse me, I have to go RP this post.”

Cap’n Cragen: (looking sadder than usual) “S.O.S. by SMS? Re-patty-caking? Liv, I don’t know if I can live in this world anymore. What ever happened to pens and papers?”

[OPENING CREDITS BEGIN, THEME MUSIC UNDER]

LinkedIn: “ChainedTogether”

Det. Eames: “So what are you telling us, professor? Somebody used ChainedTogether to find all their former colleagues from the bank where they worked, and then had bombs delivered to those people’s current places of employment? That’s just sick.”

Det. Goren: “I know. Whatever happened to just ‘going postal’ the old-fashioned way?”

Det. Eames: “Hey, remind me to go reject the ChainedTogether invitation Detective Munch over in SVU sent me last week. I don’t want to be chained up with him in any way, shape or form.”

Det. Goren: “You’re on ChainedTogether? So am I! Why haven’t we chained up yet?” (Det. Eames looks down at the floor.)

[OPENING CREDITS BEGIN, THEME MUSIC UNDER]

*I can’t remember what they were, but these shows have used other stand-in names for things like Craigslist and YouTube. Can anyone remember what they were?

Read more SM SHRAKE at You Wanna Know What? and The Shrake-tionary.

Got some favorites? Let me know in the comments section below.

HBO Intro 1983

CBS Special Presentation

ABC 4:30 Movie

ABC Sunday Night Movie

ABC Afterschool Specials

CBS Saturday Night Movie

WOR-TV Channel 9 “Million Dollar Movie”

ABC Weekend Specials

Wonderful World of Disney

Bonus: 80′s After School Special Dance Fight

Starring the uglier older brother from the creepy Mr. Belvedere show.