What's the first video you ever saw?

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and the hard part, do you remember what you thought of it?

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the first I ever saw was ET in a hotel in Spain, so that would probably be hmmm, January 82? sounds about right, maybe 83.

It was on pirate, the quality was awful and I cried at the end.

First one I saw at home was Red Dawn, it rocked (well, to an 11 year old boy obsessed with all things war it would, wouldn't it?)

― chris, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

to clarify for the Brits, I'm not talking about VCRs, I mean those film thingies that they've been setting to pop songs these days.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Total Eclipse of the Heart. I thought it was scary because of the boys with the glowing eyes.

― Nicole, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Beastie Boys-Fight for Your Right.

What year was that out? 86 or 87? I was 3 or 4, and I loved it. Little did I know I'd buy all their albums about ten years later. Oh yes I loved it, what 3 or 4 year old wouldn't have, the pies and such.

― Ronan, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oooohhhhh right, sorry, erm, probably Ashes to Ashes, well scarey.

― chris, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hmm. The first one I consciously remember seeing is Oingo Boingo's "Nothing Bad Ever Happens", but that can't be right. I remember being completely freaked out by the part where the guests at the dinner party tuck into the band members' heads.

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've absolutely no idea. How could I? I remember being upset by Suzi Quatro and Showaddywaddy on Saturday morning TV, but I think they were live appearances, not videos.

― N., Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Probably 'Thriller' or something, I really can't remember. That's certainly the first I can remember. I was rather keen on the vid for 'Sledgehammer', but I would have been 4 or 5 before anyone berates me.

― DG, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

it's difficult to say where video started and elaborate top of the pops appearance stops. does that bohemian rhapsody thing count as a video?

― Alan Trewartha, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ashes To Ashes I think, cos the TV presenter said right this is the most expensive video ever and I think I thought ah wow, and paid more attention. But I must have seen more before then to know what a video was.

I thought it was great cos the presenter had said so. But now I think it's rubbish really.

― Tom, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I love that video. Was it really the most expensive ever? That's so cute! It looks like it was made for 50 pence.

― N., Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dude! It has Steven Strange!

― Nicole, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

were those godley and creme videos earlier than ashes to ashes. was "mind of a toy" one of theirs?

― Alan Trewartha, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Either the J. Geils Band's "Centerfold" or "Our Lips Our Sealed" by the Go-Go's. I remember the latter with more affection.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Why is there so much ILx vitrol toward's Peter Gabriel and/or his videos?

The earliest vid I can recall is "Electric Avenue" and the chorus still sticks in my head.

― bnw, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The Clash's "Rock the Casbah." I was confused but amused by the armadillo. Adam Ant's "Goody Two Shoes" was the second, and Men at Work's "Down Under" was the third.

― Douglas, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Flash Gordon at a mates Birthday party. It was a dodgy Pirate. I refuse to kow tow to the rules set by the questioner, I never have in the past.

― Pete, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

On MTV, while babysitting, 'Homosapien' by Pete Shelley.

― suzy, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm Still Standing by elton john. it's carnivalesque qualities appealed to my youthful exuberance. the significance of the pink-lycra-bespedoed-bulgy-crotch close-ups, however, was a mystery until my more knowing years.

― nickie, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've got a Peter Gabriel one too though, so he must have been doing something right (for the pre school audience) It was Digging In The Dirt. It gave me the creeps.

― Anna, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My answer is the same regardless of the definition of video - 'Laffolympics' with music by Rick Wakeman. We wanted 'Life of Brian' but it was out. Strange that so many videos are remembered as scary; Queen, Bowie, Buggles etc. I thought 'Laffolympics' was shit.

― Peter Miller, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Cheap Trick's "Don't Be Cruel". I liked the checkers. Steve Miller Band's "Abracadabra". I can't recall a damn thing about it.

― David Raposa, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles on PBS, pre-MTV. I thought the little song-movie was cool.

― Samantha, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I must have seen a lot of those promotional film-type things ("Bohemian Rhapsody", "We're An American Band", "Afternoon Delight") on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and the Midnight Special when I was a kid, but I can't remember if I saw them then or on some MTV/VH1 retrospective later on. First video I remember seeing in a club pre-MTV was "Antmusic" and IT BLEW MY MIND!!!

― Arthur, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't know if it was the first video I saw, but "Fade To Grey" certainly stuck itself in my mind. Scared the piss out of me, it did. I was six.

― electric sound of jim, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel. I wuvved the bunnies.

― RickyT, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Paul McCartney's "Coming Up" on Saturday Night Live, after his pot bust in Japan. (They sent Father Guido Sarducci to London, to throw rocks at his window till he came out -- or something like that). Really dumb -- Sir Paul in various costumes (a hippy, a guy with a bowler hat, in drag) playing each instrument (a schtick I think he repeated in a half-zillion of his other videos). No Linda as far as I recall.

First video on MTV I recall (though not the very first video I say thereon) -- Ted Nugent's "Scream Dream." Nugent in a loin-cloth swinging across the stage on a rope-cum-vine. Really stupid.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

probably Dire Straits Money For Nothing (we're living in the future!!). but when i was 12 or 13 i went through an embarrassing phase of taping raw power (the late night/early morning rock show on ITV in the early nineties) because it still had that bad hangover from glam and cock rock were every video that wasnt thrash had young ladies with enormous cleavage in.

see: phantom blue - time to run love/hate - the spinning wheel vince neil - sister of pain some van halen thing

― Wyndham Earl, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The first video I saw sitting in a doctor's waiting room. It was "That's All" by Genesis. They band were hobos and warming their hands in a fire. I thought it was VERY COOL but immediately thought "oh, it's another one of those things I don't know about." Men who can sing and it makes a movie happen around them! Later I remember seeing videos on MTV at my grandparents' in Florida. They were confusing and beyond me (the videos, not the grandparents). A lot of the videos didn't even have PEOPLE in them! Also somewhere in there I was scorched for life by a babysitter (I'm looking at you, suzy) who let us watch SOLID GOLD the night that Wendy O Williams and the Plasmatics played "Black Leather Monster" and she chainsawed her guitar in half!! Unbelievable!

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 25 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm not sure, but the first I remember seeing was Madonna's "Vogue".

― Honda, Friday, 25 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I thought "Why is mom frantically trying to find the remote control?"

― Honda, Friday, 25 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A-ha's Take On Me is the first one I remember. Needless to say, loved it.

― Vinnie, Friday, 25 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Let's see. I can't remember *which* one was first, but it was either Ultravox's "Passing Strangers", Gary Numan's "Cars", or Dire Straits' "Skateaway". This was all in 1980 or so, pre-EmptyV. Oh yeah, I'm not including the Monkees (which always had a "video" bit/skit in the middle of the show)

― Chris Barrus, Friday, 25 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You folks who are naming post-Sean Penn madonna and Beastie Boys vids as your first are making me want to thump you about your collective too young heads. hmph.

― Samantha, Friday, 25 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

eleven years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr6rChjsWgs

― how's life, Friday, 8 March 2013 00:20 (thirteen years ago)

In the mid-70s my brother discovered that the local cable tv company was required by its contract to provide video cameras and training to anyone who asked for it, so the newly created public access channels would have some content to show. He signed up and brought home a camera. It was enormous and had an external battery pack the size of a small suitcase.

Together we made about a dozen homemade videos for our own amusement. When we finished one we hooked the camera up to our televison and watched it. These were the first videos of any sort I ever watched.

― Aimless, Friday, 8 March 2013 02:38 (thirteen years ago)

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