VH-1: MTV for Your Parents

28:14That's the kind of research you can expect from stuff you should know. Yeah, I think, like, before dad rock was a term, that was probably the angle. What's dad? I've not heard that before. So what does it cover? Dad rock is kind of like, I know Wilco gets thrown in there a lot. as kind of dudes my age that used to go to all the shows, but now just so I could get out to Wilco every year and that kind of thing. I saw this meme on Instagram where it's this girl sitting in a stadium seat, and she has a very unhappy look on her face. And it says, anyone over 40 when the third opening band starts to set up at 9 p.m.?

28:57It's so true, man. That's funny. It just starts too late. Yeah, I'm with you. Shows are starting earlier, though, I feel like. I read that, yeah. Like these legacy shows that I'm seeing, all these olds, they're getting up on stage at like, you know, opening band at 7, regular band at 8, out by 9.30, 9.45. Hey, we start at 7 promptly. If we ever start later. We try to. Yeah, if we start later than 7, it's the venue itself saying, please let us hold because we're making mad cash at the bar. Yeah, it's actually the audience's fault. Yeah, it really is. Because they're like, they're not in yet. They're just getting here.

29:35There's a lot of traffic. It's actually traffic's fault. And some towns are worse for it than others. Some towns are just like, we know you're not going to start while we're getting liquor. Sorry. Yeah. But like with MTV, they would, you know, start sort of changing things and rebranding. These are companies that just seemingly change the channels, not literally, but change their programming a lot and like the names of the channel change a lot yes like you know mtv to mtv2 and mtv classic and vh1 kind of did the same they had vh1 soul uh which is now bet bet soul vh1 smooth which was uh more like kenny g kind of stuff but then they're like who wants that let's change that to vh1 classic rock and then just vh1 classic and now it's mtv classic it's quite a ride for that channel.

30:22Yeah. Yeah, VH1 Smooth, I can't believe that ever made it outside of the initial meeting. Yeah, true. So VH1, just like MTV, is like, okay, if we can't hold people's attention from video to video, we got to come up with a different kind of show. And so they stopped playing videos almost, it dropped almost by 50 % from 99 to 2012. Yeah. And remember, like, it had been relaunched in 94 as like VH1 music first. And it just wasn't sustainable at the turn of the millennium. Right. So they started getting into countdown shows. They figured out how they could keep showing videos. They just needed to adjust it, put them in a certain kind of package that would hold your attention a little more.

31:10Nothing does that better than a countdown. and they kicked it off in grand style with the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll hosted by none other than Kevin Bacon. And this kicked off their whole The Greatest Countdowns format, which started in 98, 99, sorry, and ran to 2012. Yeah, which, you know, I was kind of thinking about it. They ended up, the last episode was 40 Greatest Pranks Part 4. So, and I was like, what a weird kind of thing but it that was right in the middle of the of the listicle revolution sure uh that was going on online and this is kind of the same version of that because i was like oh man i remember when you and i were writers for how stuff works back in the day we were sort of fighting up against that because it seems like that was what the internet became for a period of years was just list top 10 list list list list list yeah i mean where do you think our 10 dumb criminals episode came from.

32:10Yeah. And that's one reason why we don't do a lot of those anymore is because people aren't writing that kind of stuff anymore. I like to think we change with the time. Yeah. Plus also they can be kind of thin. Every once in a while though it's a good one. I can't think of any off the top of my head but we've done some good top tens. Yeah. I mean they're pretty breezy which I think people enjoy from time to time. For sure. So the luridity kind of really started to show itself a little more with Where Are They Now, 1999 show, that basically said, where are one-hit wonders and former child stars?

32:46What are they doing now? Let's just peek in on their sad lives and see what's what. Yeah, they got into movies. One thing we didn't mention was MTV Films, which had some pretty successful movies that they were putting out. I think I remember the movie Election from Alexander Payne, one of my favorite movies. That was a good one. I think that was an MTV film, But VH1 didn't fare as well on the movie front. But they did have one sort of noteworthy one called Two of Us, which was okay. It was in 2000. It was a fictionalized story about when Paul McCartney and John Lennon were hanging out in 1976, the night that Lorne Michaels on SNL on air said, if the Beatles come down here, I'll pay you.

33:28I can't remember. It was like a million bucks or something. I saw$3 ,000. Was that what it was? That's what I saw, which I was like, even in 1976, that wasn't that much money. I can't remember. I mean, you can watch the clip on YouTube and see him say it with his own mouth. I just didn't have a chance. Yeah. But at any rate, it was a fictionalized version of them hanging out that night, which is supposedly a true story. Right. That they were going to come down and play on SNL. Like, it wasn't that far from the Dakota. What happened? Supposedly, they were too stoned. That's as the story goes, at least.

34:01And by stoned, you mean on heroin, probably. No, I think they each took two PCPs. Oh, there you go. As per the instructions? Yeah, yeah. So by this time, they finally dropped pretense. This would be VH1 we're talking about again. And they just stopped using the music first tagline because it was just a bold-faced lie at this point. Legends ended. Pop-up videos ended. And it was time for a new shakeup because John Sykes had done his work. And so MTV Networks hired a new guy named Brian Graydon. And he said, we're going to shift more toward pop culture, right? We're not even going to show blocks of videos anymore and countdowns.

34:40And he hired a guy named Jeff Old, who was new. And he became executive vice president for programming and production. And the thing that Old brought to this whole thing, following the marching orders to make more pop culture relevant shows, is for, he gave his producers free reign to just, you got an idea? Put it on air. And if it works, awesome. If it doesn't, whatever. It's called the agile format of project management where you just do a bunch of stuff. Some of it fails and you just keep going. Yeah. I mean, not a bad idea. No. And the other thing about it too is that kind of stuff, like green lighting a really easy show idea quickly, usually means you can make it very cheaply.

35:25And that was what they did. They made very, very inexpensive shows that still were very, very popular because the concepts were so good. Yeah. And I Love the 80s was the first big, big hit out of that camp that premiered in 2002. It was not a show I watch much, but it was one that was almost kind of hard to avoid somehow. I feel like I remember just seeing Michael Ian Black on my screen a lot here and there. He was one of the comedians. He was. He was on like a million episodes of it, I think. Yeah, he did great with that. But it was comedians and celebrities just sort of, you know, it was like kind of quick clip stuff of them sitting, talking head style, talking and reminiscing about whatever the decade was.

36:11Yeah, it's funny. So it was a clip show of talking heads and it would frequently end up on Talk Soup, which was a clip show of talking heads. Yeah. So Talk Soup would be covering another clip show, but it worked. Talk Soup was great. Yeah, I enjoyed Talk Soup. I Love the 80s was based on a BB show that was definitely a little more serious and sort of recounting the decade. But it was a big hit, again, in the 1849 demographic. And so they did the I Love the 70s, I Love the 90s. They did I Love the New Millennium, which only covered through 2007 because it debuted in 2008. and I think in 2014 I Love the 2000s was the last one in the series that ran another great show was called Best Week Ever and then eventually Best Week Ever with Paul F.

37:00Tompkins because friend of the show and our pal Paul was the host where they recounted the last week and this was a big launching pad for a lot of great great comedians it was a spinoff from I Love the 80s I think P.F. Tompkins was one of the comedians, one of the frequently recurring comedians on that show. Yeah. You want me to list out some comedians who started there? I would love that, Chuck. Please do. And I'm not saying that they were not doing anything, but certainly were not the household names they are now. But Nick Kroll, Paul Scheer, Doug Benson, Rob Hubel, a little comedian named John Mulaney, the wonderful Jessica St.

37:40Clair, Michael Shea, Michael Ian Black, Patton Oswalt. And I was watching some of best week ever this morning. And Paul's wonderful wife, who we've spoken about, Janie Haddad Tompkins, was in one of the little bits. And I had no idea Janie was ever on there. So I'm going to, I took a screenshot and I'm going to text it to her later. Nice. So that, if it was launched in 2004, those people's careers did start to take off around that time or after that. So it must have been a huge launching pad for them, for sure. Yeah, it was a fun show. But it also goes to show you, all of those names were pretty much recognizable today.

38:18That also is a testament to just how popular Best Week Ever and I Love the 80s was. So VH1 was doing a pretty good job shifting away from music, right? But they still hadn't gotten into what we would call reality yet. And it's about here that you'll notice we stopped talking about music pretty much altogether and get into the world of reality TV. All right. I guess that means a break, right? Yeah. All right. We'll be right back.

39:01New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the How to Money podcast, and every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.

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40:14We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions. Get stronger, work harder, fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years' experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name.

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41:41So, Chuck, we talked about how VH1 is transitioning into reality shows. And they didn't invent reality shows. They were a really early contributor. And they had a lot of reality shows over the years, still do. But they came up with the term celeb reality. And I did not know this. So, celebrityality is usually minor celebrities in a reality show, sometimes big celebrities. Yeah. But the whole thing that kicked it off, I didn't know this, was Ted Nugent's celebrity reality show, Surviving Nugent. Yeah. I remember that being on. Didn't watch it. But that was, you know, Ted Nugent had people out to do what Ted Nugent does, which is shoot guns and shoot arrows and do things that the Nuge was into.

42:32Yeah, it was like a competition reality show. And he would have it was he was the arbiter of who stayed or went. And competitions would be like them carrying manure with their bare hands or climbing under an electrified fence. And it was real enough that at one point, Ted Nugent suffered a chainsaw cut to his leg, self-inflicted, that required 40 stitches. That's a lot of stitches. It really is. But this was not, so again, this was kind of contemporaneous to the Osbournes, which beat surviving Nugent by a year in the same time as the Simple Life. So this was definitely, it was in the air that people wanted to see celebrities acting bizarrely in real life.

43:16And I just made such air quotes that I actually just jammed one of my fingers. Right. The surreal life became a big hit for them after they co-opted it from the WB a couple of years after it debuted. It was a much bigger hit on VH1. and that eventually led to maybe, I mean, I don't know, I was about to say unlikely, but maybe not because Flavor Flav has so much charisma and personality. I was always so into Public Enemy from like high school on. They were probably my favorite hip hop group of all time. And so it was a little weird for me all of a sudden to see Flav like doing his thing on a reality show.

43:56But the Flavor of Love was a tremendous hit. It was only around for a few years, but it was like it invaded the zeitgeist in a big way. Yeah. And so he he became a reality TV star thanks to The Surreal Life. I think he was in season three. And one of the other shows he was on was Strange Love, which followed his relationship with Brigitte Nielsen, who is a good two feet taller than him. striking blonde um who they fell in love when they met on the surreal life um and they shared quarters with charo dave coulier jordan knight from new kids on the block um and so that spawned strange love and flavor of love and then um flavor of love spawned uh i love new york starring Tiffany New York Pollard, who is one of the contestants on Flavor of Love.

44:52Flavor of Love also inspired Rock of Love, which featured Bret Michaels from Poison, replacing the Flavor Flav as The Bachelor, right? Yeah, still the only show like that I've ever watched. I did watch Rock of Love. Yeah. I don't know why I started, but I started and I couldn't stop. That's the That's a sign of a VH1 reality show right there, buddy. Yeah, for sure. So whoever was pulling the strings, you know, after The Surreal Life was on and Flav was on there, there was some guy, some kind of square in the office that was like, who's this guy with a clock? He's fantastic. We got to get him his own show.

45:35Yeah, I know. It's nuts, but it worked for sure. There were two other big offshoots from The Surreal Life. I mean, there were a cavalcade of them, but there were some other big shows that came from it. One was My Fair Brady, which followed Christopher Knight and Adrian Curry. Christopher Knight was Peter Brady. And Adrian Curry and their unlikely relationship, they met on Surreal Life as well. Wait, who was she? She was a Playboy model. Ah, okay. And then Salt and Pepper had their own show because I guess they were on the Surreal Life. I didn't know that. But they had— I didn't know that. They were reuniting or thinking about reuniting.

46:14I guess Pepper was trying to talk Salt into it. But Salt had had a religious conversion and was hesitant to take up the hip hop life again. Wow, interesting. Well, it sort of filled a void, as Livia sort of aptly pointed out, that, you know, there was a big boom for sitcoms about black families in the 90s and even in the early 2000s. But then there was sort of a dearth of those for a little while. So this kind of, you know, filled that void and VH1 took notice and started sort of delivering content to black America and still do. Yes. And they can take some guff for it sometimes. In part, I saw it best explained on The Root by Danielle C.

46:56Belton. And she basically says they broadcast for black Americans, but they're not at all beholden to black Americans. So they can do basically whatever they want. And they very frequently feature stereotypes of black women. It's like angry and violent and prone to yelling and stuff like that. So it's like a mixed bag. Yeah. But however you approach it, as of back in 2014, I didn't see any more recent statistics. But in 2014, VH1 was the number one network in African-American households, followed by BET and the Oprah Winfrey Network. So they were definitely doing something that Black America liked.

47:36They beat Oprah out. Yeah, that says a lot. Yes, it does. And BET. Yeah, for sure. Another show that got them a lot of flack eventually was Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew Pinsky. That premiered in 2008. There's a critic that Livia found named Kaylee Donaldson called it perhaps the most evil reality TV series of all time. You probably know Dr. Drew from Loveline with Adam Carolla early on. And Dr. Drew was and is, I guess, a real therapist and trained at treating addiction. So he wasn't just some pretty face that they put on TV. And he claimed that he wanted to make it like a real, a real, like meaningful show where it was like an antidote to the cruel tabloid depictions of these people that were suffering through addiction.

48:24But he, you know, he also had to deliver an entertaining show. And those two things could be at odds. And it got a lot of flack because like people started dying from their addictions. Yeah. By 2024, 12 of by my count, about 45 rehab patients on the show had died. a lot of them from like overdosing or direct complications from their addictions, like brain aneurysms, which is about more, it's a little more than a quarter, which apparently is actually in line with the success rate of traditional rehab. It's just much, much, much more visible. But it was also, again, the L word, lurid, to just show people's, you know, low points and rock bottom after rock bottom on TV for money, for ad money, you know?

49:16Yeah, for sure. And speaking of Lurid, we're loathe to mention Diddy, but there was a show called I Want to Work for Diddy in 2008. And a silver lining of that is that it launched the career of Laverne Cox and also just launched the sort of normalization of trans people on TV. A couple of years after that show, Laverne Cox and fellow trans women Jamie Clayton and Nina Poon got their own VH1 show called Transform Me. It's kind of a queer eye for the straight guy kind of thing, but for cis women. And it was one of the first shows with trans stars. Yes. Like, period. And you put all this together and VH1 had its highest Nielsen ratings ever in this era.

50:02the late 2000s. The aughts, as we who live through it call them. And then tragedy struck, and the publicity was so searingly bad that VH1 essentially threw the company that had been cranking out hit after hit for them under the bus. And it centered around the murder by a man named Ryan Jenkins, who had been a contestant on not one, or had been featured on not one but two VH1 reality shows. He murdered his wife, Jasmine Fiore. Yeah, he was a real estate developer. He was a, you know, they got rich guys to be contestants on a dating show called Megan Wants to Be, or I'm sorry, Megan Wants a Millionaire.

50:51And 51 Minds was the name of this company that was like churning out these shows. After the show ended, he married Jasmine Fiore, and he got on I Love Money 3, another BH1 show, and they said 51 months is like, hey, in retrospect, I remember this storyline we had. It was going to revolve around him calling his new wife a lot and seemingly obsessive and jealous and very suspicious. And he ended up murdering her in August of 2009. Yeah, it got even worse than that. He tried to prevent her from being identified, So he removed her fingers and her teeth. He folded her up in a suitcase and dumped the suitcase in a dumpster.

51:36And I read that it almost worked, but they identified her. They had to identify her through the serial numbers on her breast implants. And so all this comes out, and it's very clear that Ryan Jenkins was to blame. He hung himself in a motel room. And in his note, even, he blames Jasmine Fiore for him killing himself. It doesn't take any responsibility whatsoever for killing her. I remember that now. That's, I wasn't familiar, but as soon as he said that, I kind of remember that storyline. Yes. And all of this happens in one month in 2009. And if you are pumping out lurid reality show after lurid reality show, your viewership is going to be highly interested in this story.

52:19and it's going to get out and it's going to get out to the rest of America who's going to make a bunch of noise about how terrible these reality shows are. And here's evidence of it. Because also that Ryan Jenkins guy, it turned out that he had been convicted in Canada of assaulting his girlfriend and it didn't show up on a, or he had been arrested, I'm sorry, of assaulting his girlfriend in Canada, hadn't shown up on a background check. So people were like, this stuff is terrible. And VH1 said, you know what, we agree. It's all that company that sent us these shows. We didn't even want them. We didn't even ask for them.

52:55This company, 51 Minds, they just made us run these shows. And they really threw them under the bus and made it look like they were turning their back on the whole concept. And they did. Largely, there was a huge shift. But there were still shows like Dating Naked that was on from 2014 to 2016. and a lot of their existing reality shows continued on past this scandal. But they did shift a little more to reality TV that was made by black creators. They kind of moved away from the more lurid stuff to a little more engrossing black created shows. Yeah, RuPaul's Drag Race has been a big hit, sort of a niche hit, but very, very popular show.

53:43It's, you know, it's RuPaul. So it's campy. It's a parody of reality competition that launched in 2009 on Logo, but then moved to VH1 in 2017 and then eventually MTV in 2023. That's a long run. Yeah. Love and Hip Hop has been a very big show created by Mona Scott Young. It started out with kind of being about Jim Jones, the rapper, and then eventually shifted over to his girlfriend, Chrissy Lampkin. and just the hip-hop scene in New York and their world. Same with Basketball Wives by Shaquille O 'Neal's ex-wife, Shawnee Henderson. Yeah, big hit. It just had its 12th season. And then Nick Cannon presents Wild Nout, which is an improv competition show.

54:28And they're still making new episodes. It started out on MTV and then moved to VH1 in 2019. And very much like Ridiculousness, reruns of Wild Nout are carrying VH1 right now, apparently with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and My Wife and Kids reruns. I never saw Dating Naked. What was that about? It was exactly what it sounds like. Oh, okay. Exactly. It needs no explanation whatsoever. Okay. I was kidding. Oh, man, you got me, buddy. I think we're even for all time now. Okay, good. Well, Chuck said, okay, good. And we don't have anything more to say about VH1 except go watch some VH1. And that means it's time for Listener Mail.

55:15That's right. By the way, I was not bagging on Wilco. I hope it didn't come across that way. They are sort of thrown in that dad rock category, but I always love Wilco. I read all of Jeff Tweedy's books. I was big into Uncle Tupelo, so I'm not bagging on Wilco. I like Wilco. Jeff Tweedy's The Spymaster and The Tinkerer? Yeah, of course. And The Tinkerer, too, is really good. hey Chuck, Josh, and Jerry have been a listener for a few years and used to do the sandwich method for listening to the episodes but recently decided to work all my way through and catch up to the present I find this is a better method personally since listener mail and references from past shows don't really make sense when listening to newer episodes before listening to the episodes that came before anywho, this is not why I'm writing in I'm not sure if you're aware but Chuck Stradamus struck again the episode April 26, 2018 does pyromania actually exist josh brings up john leonard or convicted serial arsonist mass-murdered uh former firefighter arsonist investigator and chuck around 34 39 says that's a movie waiting to happen well my friends seven years later apple tv releases smoke tv show based on john leonard or wow if you haven't watched the show i definitely recommend watching even though i've spoiled the plot uh keep up the good work guys p.s is chuck's ability a gift or a Crazy coincidence.

56:35That is Brenda S. from Dallas, Texas. And Brenda, I love that you're getting my back as Chuck Stradamus because of my past predictions of Hugh Jackman playing P.T. Barnum. And most notably, that I thought Jared from Subway was a creep long before his truth came out. Don't forget predicting Sharknado. Oh, and Sharknado. That's true. That might be the feather in the cap. But in this case, I don't know if you can really claim Chuck Stradamus territory if it's just like, hey, that would make a good movie. And it became a movie. I feel like you really just burst Brenda's bubble. No, I'm bursting my own bubble.

57:15What do you think? Can I get a ruling from you, dear leader? I will allow it as one of Chuck Stradamus' predictions that came true. All right. It's canon. Okay. Not Nick Cannon. No. We're not wilding out here. We're not. Uh, if you want to get in touch with us like Brenda and try your luck at having us burst your bubble and have a lot of alliteration as we do, you can send us an email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.

57:46Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

58:01Hey, it's Joel and Matt from HowToMoney. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

58:57Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything but gay, but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Palk story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

59:38This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.