User:Blathnaid/MTV

MTV, the first and most popular music television network in the United States of America (U.S.), has been referenced in popular culture countless times. Other TV channels, TV shows, musicians, films, and books have referenced MTV in their works.

Usually, MTV is referenced in popular culture after events or material within the channel and/or its programming generate controversy or embarrassing events. Examples include the controversial MTV reality program Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, which has generated much criticism and controversy for its indecent material and negative portrayal of Laguna Beach, California, and the MTV Video Music Awards, in which Late Night With Conan O'Brien character Triumph the Insult Comic Dog mocked artists like Eminem and Christina Aguilera.

In addition, other general reasons to include MTV in popular culture is to mock the channel for its move toward reality programming as opposed to music videos, or its decisions to promote "bubblegum pop" music. Otherwise, MTV is simply used as a pop culture reference to enhance the program or simply to support the plot, without any connotation or criticism.

In music

 * Dire Straits' 1985 song "Money for Nothing" &mdash; at the start and end of the song, guest singer Sting repeatedly sung the channel's slogan, "I Want My MTV".
 * The song "MTV - Get off the Air" by the Dead Kennedys was a protest against the content and style of music that dominated MTV during the '80s.
 * Also in the song "1985" by Bowling For Soup the song sings about how thing have changes since 1985 and the lyrics "when music was still on MTV" is used in the choros
 * Avril Lavigne's Song Skater Boy says "She turns on tv, Guess who she sees, Skater boy rockin' up MTV".
 * An early Beck song is title "MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack"
 * Shakira's song Timor says: "It's alright, it's alright/If the planet’s split in three/Cause I'll keep on selling records/And you've got your MTV"
 * The Corrs song I never Loved you Anyway : "You watching MTV while I lie dreaming in an empty bed"

In television

 * The satirical cartoon series South Park depicted MTV several times in its run:
 * In the 1998 episode "Chef Aid", Eric Cartman tells Chef that he had seen the Alanis Morissette video "Stinky Britches", which is a fictional song created in the series, "on the radio, MTV, everywhere."
 * In the episode "Timmy 2000", the MTV announcer describes the network as "the cool, brainwashing, twelve-year-old-and-younger station that hides behind a slick image", and is "so cool, we decide what's cool." MTV News as "the news that is singlehandedly dumbing down our country (which is cool)." Kurt Loder describes himself as "the oldest person in this network by at least 40 years."
 * In the episode "Fat Camp", Howard Stern interviews "Tom Green" and "Johnny Knoxville from MTV's Jackass", as he announced.
 * In the episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Loder and MTV News were once again depicted in a fictionalized interview with alternative rock band Radiohead.
 * "Hell on Earth 2006" is a parody of MTV's reality series My Super Sweet 16, as in this episode, Satan has a huge birthday bash in Los Angeles.
 * NBC's sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live has also made spoofs of MTV:
 * In 2005, a skit regularly appeared covering a television program called Deep House Dish on the fictional "MTV4" television network, its slogan "The Alternative to the Alternative", in response to MTV establishing the Hispanic-oriented spinoff channel MTV Tres (tres being Spanish for "three") as well as numerous other MTV-branded channels targeted towards people who are of a certain ethnicity or prefer a certain genre of music, as the main MTV channel reduces its focus on music videos. The skit also appeared on episodes of Saturday Night Live in 2006 2006 and 2007.
 * [[Image:Daily show's laguna beach.JPG|thumb|right|Title card of Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County parody featured on Comedy Central's The Daily Show in February 2007. The title card is designed very similarly to the actual Laguna Beach title card.]] Comedy Central's satirical news program The Daily Show With Jon Stewart ran a two-part segment on February 1 and February 6, 2007, "The Daily Show's Laguna Beach: The Real, Real Orange County", hosted by correspondent Jason Jones. It parodied the MTV reality show [[Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County]]. The segments, which are structured very similarly to the average Laguna Beach episode, even including the Laguna Beach theme song "Come Clean" by Hilary Duff, investigate controversies over the depiction Laguna Beach poses over the city of the same name.

In books

 * In the Family Guy book Stewie's Guide to World Domination, Stewie gives a list of reasons as to "why MTV is the root of all evil".