The Josh Innes Show - Your Generation Of MTV

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Once again, I intended to go down a different path. Yet, here I am, discussing the different era's of MTV. The kids today will never know what it was like to come home to TRL or Singled Out. They'll never know Daria or Beavis and Butt-Head. Also, how weird is it to have friends for 30 years? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's why, like, you can't look at every week as some sort of indicator of what teams are going to be because it changes every week, especially in the very volatile time of the early season. When we're talking September, when you don't know what you're going to get, you don't know who teams are. They haven't really gone through a real training camp, and in that, I mean, they haven't really played a ton of games. A lot of these guys aren't even ready for the season yet. It's just, hey, we didn't do anything in the preseason. We used the first month as our preseason. And you can't really use the first, you know, three, four weeks as a true gauge about which teams are good. Let's take a quick break, play a couple commercials, and we will dive into that subject.

All right. So, example, you think you know, but you have no idea. Now I'm doing like, what was that show called The Diary? Is that what that's called on, God, if we want to go retro, a buddy of mine sent me a text yesterday and he's like, he's like, you know what I miss? TRL and I'm like, fuck, who are you telling? God, we're so old. I don't, damn it.

God damn it, I don't want to go down this path. I said I was going to stick to sports on this when I had sports thoughts. But it kind of goes along with the school thing that we talked about earlier. So my buddy texts me and goes, like, think about how sensitive. simple times were, where like you'd get to your house at whatever time, you'd be out playing all morning during the summer, and you'd come home and you'd be like, look, it's time to watch TRL. Or you'd come home from school. And I forgot what time TRL aired Central. But now I've got to find out because I'm curious. But let me see. What time did TRL air each day? Let's see.

330 East or 230. So I don't even know if I got to see all of it or not. But I remember you'd watch TRL and there's no way you could DVR it and unless you were really savvy, you couldn't tape it. So you had to see TRL live and you would watch TRL and it was like the biggest deal on the planet. I don't know why I'm in such a throwback mood today. I don't know what brought this on. I don't know why like this thought is crossing my mind. I don't know. But my buddy texts me the other day and it's just about TRL.

He's like the simpler time. Actually, he's like, can we acknowledge that when we were kids, you know, MTV was elite? I think was kind of the juxt of that, or the gist, I should say, of that, the crux or the gist of that. And everybody believes that their generation of MTV was the generation of MTV. So there's a certain generation of people who just bemoan the fact that at some point MTV stopped playing videos. Those people love headbangers ball and yo MTV raps and they want nothing but videos on MTV. And they despise the fact that MTV started airing TV shows. Then there's an era, and I think this would be my era, where it started to evolve into less videos and less shows about videos, and you started getting more television.

So you got real world, you got road rules, but more importantly, you got Beavis and Budhead. And Beavis and Budhead was the most important television show of all time, in my estimation, because I think it is the most hysterical TV show of all time. And the current revival of it is just as good as it was in 1994. Like, Jillie and I just watched an episode of it. Nothing makes me laugh more than Beavis and Butthead, particularly Butthead, who is maybe my favorite television character of all time. I love Butthead. And, like, it's just, like, I enjoy, like, the stupidity mixed with the arrogance of these

characters that is perfect. So, you know, just the, hey, baby. Like, and, like, and he's the brains of the operation, but he's a dipshit, too. Like, I look, I understand you know what Beavis and Butthead is. You don't need me to explain Beavis and Butthead to you. But Beavis and Butthead, Darya, singled out. Like, these were important shows to me. Rock and Jock softball, rock and jock basketball.

Dan Cortez meant so much to me. I don't even know who Dan Cortez is. What Dan Cortez did before he was on MTV. What Dan Cortez does now. I know nothing about Dan Cortez. Like, for the life of me, I could not tell you anything else Dan Cortez ever did. But Dan Cortez in the 90s, like backwards hat, oversized baseball jersey, rock and jock softball, Ozzie Smith catching pop-ups behind his back.

Like, it was everything. And everybody has their generation of MTV that they believe was the golden generation. of MTV, the only MTV generation that mattered. I'm sure there are a large number of people right now who believe that, you know, 16 and pregnant and team mom and snooky, and that's the greatest era of MTV. There are some people who will look at like 17 consecutive hours of ridiculousness with Rob Deere Deck and Chanel West Coast cackling. Like those are, like, that's the golden era of MTV. Like, there are people that are going to believe that. And you always feel that way when you talk with someone who believes

they're in the golden era of something and you're like bitch, you haven't lived. If you think this is the golden era, if you didn't have singled out, if you didn't have hot ass Ginny McCarthy or hot ass Carmen Electra trying to get dudes dates on singled out, if you

didn't have that, you didn't live. You didn't get it. You didn't understand TRL and how important it was to see the top videos in TRL. Have we ever done this? What were the top 10 most voted on videos in TRL history. Most voted on

videos. Remember the box? The box was also like that where you called a number and you would order a music video and I would do that. My dad would get super pissed. Let's see. The Total Request Live number one

music video. So I'm going to guess and I don't have any of the information here I don't believe. I don't think they have the most voted on videos of the top videos of all of them. I have a list of the number one. Okay, so I think they have a final top 10. So this is the top 10 most iconic videos in the history of TRL, okay? I'm going to take a guess on this.

Baby one more time is going to be in there. Okay, baby one more time may be number one. I think it's very possible. Brittany's going to have a couple and maybe Christina. I don't think Dirty came out. Was Dirty out before this? I don't know. What's also wild is that TRL ran until 2008.

That is fucking bonkers. Thing was on for 10 years. So, like, when it ended, the videos you were getting were, like, like, a Neo and Destiny's Child and Lose Yourself, like, anyway, so I think this would be the end of it. No, I'm looking at 2000. Okay, my bad. Fast forward a little bit more. I got the dates wrong on some of these. But the point remains, like, it, like, this thing ran.

I think there was a revival of it as well. Anyway, final top 10 videos. Let's see. The number one video, according to this list, was a Britney Spears baby one more time. Not a shocker. I'm going to say that I won it that way by the Backstreet Boys was one of the most voted on videos in the history of TRL. Like, that video was on nonstop. It's going to have to be like boy band videos and like teeny bop videos of the late 90s.

There's got to be a Christina video in there somewhere. I don't think it's dirty, but that was a hot. video, but there's got to be like what a girl wants or come on over or one of those type of videos. But then the thing is like, I bet all the small things. All right, I'm going to go all the small things, which I believe is the one that mocked the backstreet boys. I'm going to say all the small things would be a top 10 all time video. I'm going to say one of Kid Rock's videos would have to be there. M&M will have one of them. Stan? Was Stan too late for that? I don't know.

But Stan or the Real Slim Shady, one of those? Let's look. Outcast, hey, yeah. What's my age again? Usher, yeah. Beyonce Crazy in Love. Kid Rock, Bah, Wada, Christina Aguilera, dirty.

In sync, bye, bye, bye, backstreet. I want it that way. Eminem, the Real Slim Shady. So I got a good number of those. God, it was good. I don't know why I'm waxing on the simpler times. I don't know why I'm thinking of these things right now, because there was a simpler time.

There was a time where Jimmy Kimmel wore blackface and nobody cared. There were simpler times in this country, in this world. But, man, you'd come home, turn on TRL, then you'd call your buddies on a landline. And then the worst, you'd call somebody on a landline, and you'd hope they picked up. But if they didn't pick up, I have to be like, hey, hey, Ms. Lendez, Tant home.

Tant's like my best friend, still is my best friend. And it's also so crazy. We talked about this last episode. How crazy is it when your best friends with someone for 30 fucking years? Like, I'm watching the Charlie Sheen documentary, and he's had the same best friend through ups and downs for like 40-something years. And it's fucking crazy to think that you're best friends with the same people. Like, some would view that as well, that's, that's lame.

Like, no, it's fucking great. How cool is it to know someone that you have 25, 30 years? I have almost 30 years of history with these people. I'm never going to meet somebody again that I'm going to have 30 years of history with. There's no, I cannot meet, there's no way that I'm going to meet somebody today that I'm going to have 30 years of history with. I'm 40 right now. I may not live to be 70. I'd say the odds are pretty good that I don't live to be 70.

So when you think about it that way, if I meet someone today, like these people I've met at this radio station today and I've met some wonderful people since I've been here in the last couple months, 30 years from now, We will probably not be friends. And we will not have 30 years of history, continuous history, where like the first half of those 30 years were a daily interaction. Then the next 15 of those were texts and calls and I'll see you know, once a year type of deal. That will never happen. Do you guys think of these things or am I alone?

Do you guys think of the fact that you will never have friends like that again? That you will never meet someone that you have that kind of history with, the people that know where the bodies are buried. That's not to say you can't have great friends. You might meet someone today when you're 35, 40 years old, and they may be your friend. And you may, like me and Big Jim Mud, I've known him since 2010. So I've known Jim for 15 years. And Jim knows a lot about me.

But they'll never be someone like that that you know that you had a friendship with someone since middle school, since elementary school. That is a special fucking thing, bro. Again, totally random. I get it. But that is a special thing. Anyway, I'm all over the place. I get that I'm all over the place. Tuesday, I'm all over the place. I got energy for days. I haven't even taken my energy drink. I use this Under Armour Flash IV with caffeine. So it's electrolytes and caffeine. And it's zero sugar. Anyway, more to come.