This is the thread for older musicians claiming they invented MTV before MTV

It seems that on various Behind the Musics and in some interviews with older musicians, very frequently one of them will claim that they were doing music videos very early on and in fact! they had the idea for a music video channel.

Here's Van Dyke Parks doing it:

AVC: When you say you wanted to make movies for records, do you mean proto-music videos?

VDP: Absolutely. I used the expression MTV. I was directly under the CEO, the head of the company, whose name was Mo Ostin. I asked him for that permission; I used that expression. I told him “I wanted my music television.” I made 13 films, put them on a 10-minute reel so they could show it at a neighborhood theater.

Does anybody else have other examples?

I think I remember Paul McCartney making a similar claim but I have no cites.

S'ok, neither did he.

Yeah, I wish there was some Lexis-Nexis that only covered the texts of old TV rockumentaries so you could just search for the phrase "Y'know, what we were doing, it was almost kind of like the forerunner of MTV today!"

"I invented MTV" -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

hahahahahaha

Mike Nesmith (of the Monkees) is sometimes called "the stepfather of MTV" because he produced a half-hour pilot for a music video show to be called PopClips. The series was never made, but Nesmith sold the rights to Time-Warner, which tweaked the idea and spawned MTV.

Nesmith's mother invented correction fluid -- Liquid Paper -- in 1956.

Liquid Paper was my fave MTV show, all those cool animated clips.

Don't ya mean Liquid Television?

My joke failed!

Bad audience.

hey latebloomer do you have a citation for that quote

bookmarked