From Beavis to Britney: MTV turns 25

updated 7:45 p.m. ET Aug. 3, 2006

NEW YORK - No one knows how to throw a party like MTV. So there must be quite a bash planned for Aug. 1, celebrating 25 years on the air. Right?

Sorry. MTV is staying in that night. There are no plans to even mention the birthday.

When your average viewer is 20 years old — too young to remember Martha Quinn, not even born when Madonna buckled on her "boy toy" belt — perhaps it's wise not to mention you're 25. MTV wants to be the perpetual adolescent.

On a relentless mission to stay hip, MTV casually discards generations. Yesterday, "Beavis & Butthead." Today, "Laguna Beach."

And at each stop, MTV changes pop culture.

Without MTV, you might not have reality television. Commercials wouldn't have vertigo-inducing quick cuts. Musicians wouldn't need to look like models to survive. Kelly Osbourne wouldn't have gotten near a recording studio. And only seamstresses would know about wardrobe malfunctions.

Our birthday present is a look back at 25 memorable MTV moments:

1. The debut: Aug. 1, 1981

CNBC VIDEO MTV turns 25 July 31: CNBC's Julia Boorstin reports on MTV's 25th anniversary, as the music channel continues to re-invest itself amid tough competition with the Internet and satellite TV and radio. CNBC

The first video? The slyly prophetic "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the now-forgotten Buggles. Only a few thousand people on a single cable system in northern New Jersey could see it. Sometimes the screen would go black when someone at MTV inserted a tape into a VCR. Within a few years, millions of kids demanded their parents buy cable so they could see MTV. Along with CNN, it led TV's transition out of the three-channel world. "This was the fuse that lit the cable explosion," said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University.

2. Beat It: March 31, 1983
Michael Jackson becomes the first black artist with a video on MTV. The segregation was MTV's early shame, ironic considering its later role in popularizing rap. And the early snub wasn't forgotten: "You don't have all of music television when you are leaving things out," says Los Lonely Boys singer Henry Garza.

3. Thriller: Dec. 2, 1983
Less a video than a 14-minute mini-movie with Vincent Price, ghouls and goblins, the premiere of Jackson's "Thriller" was an event. MTV gave it a set time on the schedule — several, even. It was the apotheosis of the idea of music videos as an art form. With director John Landis involved, it also was proof that Hollywood's finest weren't looking down upon what are essentially promo clips.

4. Madonna busts out: Sept. 14, 1984
Performing "Like a Virgin" at the first Video Music Awards, Madonna popped out of a cake dressed in a wedding gown and writhed through her hit. At that moment, Madonna became a superstar, put the VMAs on the map and set an enduring tone. Who cares about those ugly "moon man" trophies? What matters is making the audience gasp.

5. Money For Nothing: 1985
The Dire Straits song was about MTV, mocked MTV and became the band's biggest hit because of MTV. It was one of the first videos to feature computer animation, and Sting made a clever cameo echoing his role in iconic "I want my MTV" ads. The rules for music stardom had changed. Being photogenic was now crucial; an eye-catching video made hits. "It was America's first national radio network," says record executive Phil Quartararo.

6. Bye-bye VJs
Original video jock J.J. Jackson's contract expired in 1985. Nina Blackwood followed him out the next year and so did Martha Quinn, breaking the hearts of countless teenage boys. Alan Hunter and Mark Goodman were next. Only Adam Curry lasted into the '90s. MTV refused to follow its aging first fans, courting teens instead. It also realized that airing videos was a dead end and began aggressively developing other programming. Those were probably the most important financial decisions MTV ever made.

7. Spring break: March 21, 1985
College students who couldn't make it south in person could turn on MTV to catch the party. Each year it returns, a drunken bash with young, firm, scantily clad bodies oozing with sweat and undulating to the music. Stop us! We need a cold shower. "There were people who looked like they were having sex on the dance floor," VJ Suzie Castillo says about last year's festivities in Cancun. MTV's spring break coverage arguably gave rise to the "Girls Gone Wild" video series, where the breasts didn't need to be pixelated.

8. Rap blasts off: Aug. 6, 1986
It's no coincidence that "Yo! MTV Raps!" premiered about the same time rap started becoming the dominant music form for young America. Hip white kids like Rick Rubin or the Beastie Boys may have loved rap before, but "Yo! MTV Raps!" brought it into every suburban living room. "Going from the network that was called on the carpet for not having blacks to this was a huge leap, and it was the right one for MTV," says Christina Norman, MTV's first black president.

9. Pee-Wee's return: Sept. 5, 1991
It was a hard fall for Pee-Wee Herman, from star of one of television's most popular kids' shows to a national punch line when an undercover officer saw him masturbating in an adult theater. Herman went undercover himself for more than a month until creeping out onstage at the opening of that year's VMAs. "Heard any good jokes lately?" Herman asked, to howls of laughter.

10. Enter grunge: Sept. 29, 1991
Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video killed the hair metal scene and signaled the ascendancy of grunge. The images themselves were an arresting accent, with the tattooed cheerleaders and what seemed like an underwater pep rally in a dank gymnasium. "The band, the sound and the imagery in the video was sort of a breath of fresh air — or a scream," said MTV series development guru Tony DiSanto.

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