Pop Clips

"Pop Clips" was a music-video television program, the direct predecessor of "MTV".

Former Monkee Mike Nesmith conceived the first music-video program as a promotional device for Time-Warner's record division. Production began in the spring of 1979 at SamFilm, a sound-stage built and operated in Sand City, California by Sam Harrison, a Monterey Peninsula College instructor with a motion picture background.

With an infinity cyclorama as the background, set-flats were composed of the Styrofoam packing used to ship laser-disc players and 3/4" video decks. The first "VeeJay" (a term not then coined) was not Howie Mandel, as has been previously misstated, but Charles Fleischer, a comedian best known as the voice of Roger Rabbit. The director was William Dear. Besides Sam Harrison, the production team was made up of Bruce "Buz" Clarke, Keith Cornell, Marybeth Harris, and Leslie Chacon.

The program was broadcast weekly on the youth-oriented cable television channel Nickelodeon during much of 1981. The channel's owners at the time, Warner Cable, wanted to buy the name and idea, but instead, according to Dear, "they just watered down the idea and came up with MTV."

Early videos broadcast on Pop Clips

Split Enz -- I Hope I Never

Pretenders -- Brass in Pocket

Mike Nesmith --Rio

Huey Lewis and the News -- Some of My Lies Are True (Sooner or Later)

Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons -- Security

Police -- Walking on the Moon

Rolling Stones -- Waiting on a Friend

The Tourists -- I Only Want to Be with You

External links

* [http://www.howdoesitfeel.co.uk/monkees.html Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, Ian Watson, first published in Melody Maker]