Video’s success fed many an already massive star ego. “I was a big extras person, to be honest. Rick Springfield recalls how he “pulled an extra out of the crowd and took her in a back room” while filming “Affair of the Heart.” “That went on all the time,” said Springfield. Band member Roger Taylor risked serious harm when the elephant he rode mounted - and had sex with - another elephant, as Taylor hung on for dear life.īut with music video fast becoming a sensation, the sex was hardly reserved for elephants. While using doves in one of Prince’s videos, the production manager threw the doves into the air, and they headed straight for a giant fan, which chopped them up and sprayed them all over Prince’s band.Īnd when Duran Duran rode elephants for “Save a Prayer,” they didn’t count on the elephants getting frisky. Stevie Nicks almost died on the set of “Stand Back” when a horse she was riding headed straight for the trees, and the decision to use a real live panther while filming Hall & Oates’ “Maneater” almost fatally backfired when the panther got loose on set. Sometimes this ineptitude almost led to disaster, especially when animals were involved. “I thought, maybe if I shake it fast enough, it’ll look like a maraca. “Next thing we knew, we had a Top 40 hit.”įor Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl,” Joel said the director told him to “look at the picture in your locker as if you’re in love with this woman and then dance around with a wrench in your hand,” to which the piano man replied, “Are you f – – – ing kidding me?” And yet that - and the appearance of Christie Brinkley - made the song a hit.Įven Weird Al Yankovic has a tale of ineptitude from his $3,000 “Ricky” video, in which he was supposed to shake maracas, but no one remembered to bring them. With record companies highly skeptical about the network’s potential and less than 300 videos in existence, early videos were the musical equivalent of C-level Roger Corman films, with unproven talent, minuscule budgets, and a dearth of ideas - but fans couldn’t get enough.įor INXS’s “The One Thing,” the band “fed Valium to a few cats and had them running around a table, while we had a feast with sexy models and Playboy centerfolds, ripping apart a turkey,” according to band member Tim Farriss. The early days of MTV were very stripped-down rock ’n’ roll.
Veteran music journalists Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum show that the golden age of MTV - from its formation in 1981 until the end of 1992 - was just as wild and debauched as you would hope. This story, and hundreds more along similar lines, makes this new oral history of MTV a rollicking one. He was singing ‘Satisfaction’ by the Rolling Stones while doing a Mick Jagger impression.
“He was holding the transvestite’s and pretending it was a microphone. One little guy was “wearing a black cape,” said Angelus. The set of Van Halen’s “Pretty Woman” video was a bacchanal filled with Jack Daniel’s, cocaine, midgets, transvestites, hunchbacks and hot video vixens in bikinis.īut at one point, the midgets went missing.Īfter 20 minutes of searching, Angelus found them when he opened the door to a transvestite’s dressing room. Director Pete Angelus was looking for his midgets.
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