So you’re watching a classic music video from the good old days of MTV and VH1, and you become curious as to the story behind the video, the song, and the artist who made it a hit. Suddenly, information pops up on the screen to give you the information that you seek, and then some. That, in a nutshell, was the premise of VH1’s Pop Up Video, which began airing on VH1 in 1996 and lasted until 2002. This popular series aimed to reveal fascinating tidbits about the music videos as fans watch them, and succeeded in creating a trend that other companies occasionally utilize to inform people about the stories behind TV shows or movies. Let me give you some information about this awesome, but canceled, series from what I consider the golden age of television, before it became clogged up by too much reality programming.
Each half-hour episode would contain five randomly-selected music videos, many from popular artists such as Madonna, Elton John, and the Rolling Stones, with songs from one-hit wonder artists also featured. As the video played, information related to it popped up on the screen (hence the title) in the form of a bubble. Typically in the early parts of the video, an artist’s birth name, date, and location were revealed. Other tidbits that could be shown include inspiration for the song’s creation, how special effects in the video were pulled off, and information about any special guest stars who appeared in the videos. Did you know that the blind student in Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello” was not blind in real life? How about the fact that Pat Benetar’s “Love is a Battlefield” was the first music video to integrate dialog with the music? Or that Janet Jackson’s “Together Again” was written for a friend who had succumbed to AIDS? These and many other facts would educate the audience who may have been curious to learn more about the songs in the days before Wikipedia became a popular, if not 100% accurate, source of information.
In addition to the facts related to the songs and artists, the writers inserted other facts that were indirectly related to the songs in some form or another. Some of this data was quite serious: in Kenny Loggins‘ “Danger Zone” video, it was revealed that people have a 1 in 4.6 million chance of dying in an airplane crash (since the song was from the movie Top Gun) and a 1 in 3 chance of dying in bed (since Kenny sang the song while laying in bed). Other information was more humorous: towards the end of Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters” video, some famous ghosts such as Casper and Patrick Swayze (the star of the movie Ghost) were presented. This made the show quite educational and entertaining, something that does not come along so often anymore. Additionally, every video ended with a text box containing a few more facts about the song; for example, bands that might have broken up after their song became a hit. This made the videos educational from the first frame to the end, giving a lot of facts that could not be found hardly anyplace else.
Various Pop Up Video episodes simply featured a random selection of videos. They could be a mix of 1980s and 1990s videos, or songs from both well-known and lesser-known artists. However, there were also special themed shows, such as those dedicated entirely to a specific year, decade, or artist. There were some episodes that had all of its videos culled from soundtracks of various songs, and others that only featured songs from heavy metal bands. Even so, one never knew which songs would be featured in which episodes until he or she watched them. There were brief teasers for each song at the start of the show as well as in segues for commercial breaks. Otherwise, the show was often of a random nature. I mean that in a good way because it presented anticipation about whether or not a particular favorite song would be profiled. People had 209 chances to find out, as that was the number of episodes produced before VH1 decided to pull the plug on the series.
The series was so popular that over time, the pop up concept found its way into other shows and even movies. During one of the celebrity editions of ABC’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire, pop up facts would appear with information related to the stars. When the Rocky Horror Picture Show was released on DVD for its 25th anniversary, the song “Hot Patootie” was given pop up information. Other movies such as Spider-Man had bonus features in which the viewer could opt to see pop up data while watching the films. Even commercials have been given the pop up treatment: an ad for FreeCreditReport.com has pop up facts appear when it is aired on VJ1 Classic during Pop Up Video repeats. It is nice to know that the format is still alive and well, even if the series is no longer in production.
Being without cable for years, I had always wanted to check out the show for myself on a regular basis, but I had to settle for occasionally catching it at Wal-Mart, which aired VH1 on its TVs in the electronics department. Recently, my family and I obtained VH1 Classic as part of the AT&T; U-verse cable service, and that is where Pop Up Video has aired since 2006. After catching some episodes, I quickly became hooked. The facts are informative, interesting, and sometimes hilarious. The videos themselves were cool, or cheesy, to begin with, but the pop up facts make them even more fun to see. Having text commentary is better than vocal commentary in this case because the latter would ruin the song and has the tendency to be either bland or annoying, though not every commentator is that bad. If there is one problem with the show, it’s that VH1 Classic never gives it a specific time slot, even if it were to occur only once a week. One day, it may air in the late afternoon, and the next, it could air after midnight. It is in such circumstances that I wish VH1 Classic would make up its mind and give it a permanent home in one time slot, as spreading it around sporadically can be quite chaotic.
It is nice to know that, even as the quality of television programming continues to decline with the debuts of one reality show after another, the great shows of the past can still be enjoyed in various forms. Pop Up Video is one of them, though for the most part, repeats are limited to airing on random time slots on random days. One DVD of the series, featuring music videos from the 1980s, was released in the late 1990s, but it is long out of print. More Pop Up Video DVDs would surely be welcome, though as luck would have it, select pop up videos have surfaced on the VH1 website. The series may not be in production anymore, but it is certainly not forgotten, and thanks to repeats and Internet videos, it is definitely not dead. The use of the pop up device in other shows and movies reiterates that statement. One wishes, however, for VH1 to revive the show using music videos not used in the original series or for videos to be updated with new facts about the artists. Even so, Pop Up Video was, and still is, a relic from a time when television was truly grand and less of a “vast wasteland” than it is today.
