MTV, the first and most popular musictelevision 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.
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.
Dire Straits' 1985 song "Money for Nothing" — 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".
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." [1]
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." [2]
In the episode "Scott Tenorman Must Die", Loder and MTV News were once again depicted in a fictionalized interview with alternative rock band Radiohead. [4]
In 2005[5], 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 20062006[6] and 2007[7].
