50 for 50: 1983

YEAR: 1983

AGE: Turned 13 on Nov. 6

LOCATION: Chicago, Rascher Avenue

WHITE SOX'S RECORD: 99-63

SONGS I LIKED: "Mr. Roboto" by Styx; "She Blinded Me with Science" by Thomas Dolby; "In a Big Country" by Big Country

MOVIES I SAW: "WarGames," "Never Say Never Again," "Return of the Jedi"

TV SHOWS I WATCHED: "Family Ties," "Cheers"

VIDEO GAMES I PLAYED: Star Raiders, Kangaroo, Dragon's Lair

MUSIC VIDEOS I ENJOYED: "Sharp Dressed Man" by ZZ Top; "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats

In 1983, I kind of officially became a geek.

I owned a computer (an Atari 400) and was playing more video games than ever. I really started loving Dungeons and Dragons and was playing in three different groups. I loved "Kilroy Was Here" by Styx, which, in retrospect, appealed only to a certain age group that I was in. I was totally into science fiction, and the growth spurt began that made me look skinnier and more awkward than ever.

But for 1983, I'm going to write about something that didn't really change my life but I thought was so ... cool. This was the year I turned into a music video enthusiast. 

Music videos had been around for a few years, and I was able to sporadically watch them here and there. "America's Top 10" aired every week on Channel 9 and would feature a few videos. Other TV shows would air them, from "Solid Gold" to "American Bandstand" to random programs. 

Chicago didn't get cable until around 1986, so I didn't really know about the MTV revolution that was in progress. In the summer of 1982, at a barbecue hosted by a guy who had done our aluminum siding who threw a party every year for his clients. The house had an above-ground pool, and not liking water back then, I wandered into the basement and saw that MTV was on  ... and I was hooked. (In fact, thinking about it, the host played a tape of a video from MTV he recorded for the song "Two Triple Cheese Side Order of Fries" by Commander Cody to one of the guests because he thought it was hysterical.)

I was hooked. The only problem was, we couldn't get cable in the city, and even if we could, I don't know if my parents would have. That just crave music videos more and appreciate them more when I did catch them on TV.

In the summer of 1983, my cravings were sort of met when NBC debuted "Friday Night Videos." Every Friday night (duh ...) at 11:30, the program would air about 15 music videos over 90 minutes.As a 12-year-old, I wasn't quite old enough to stay up that late, so I would set the VCR and watch it the next day. That strategy probably got me more hooked, because I could watch the videos over and over, sometimes keeping two or three episodes on tape to watch again later.

Besides seeing videos for songs that were current, I saw the ones that sent the revolution on hyperdrive. I don't think I had seen "Billie Jean" or "Hungry Like the Wolf" -- two clips that defined music video in 1983 -- until I did on "Friday Night Videos." The show would occasionally air somewhat older videos; this was the first place I heard "Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie (which is a weird, weird video and a cool song). 

Other video shows on free TV soon followed. Ch. 7 produced "Rock on Chicago," which also aired on Friday nights (Mom finally started letting me stay up late on weekends) and was simulcast on WLS-FM. Ch. 60, which was just emerging as a local TV station out of Aurora, began running videos for 90 minutes in the afternoon and then for an hour in the morning (Ch. 60 also introduced to me to World Class Championship Wrestling -- let's hear it for the Von Erichs!). The next summer, Ch. 66 debuted and, at first, played music videos for 24 hours a day until the station switched to all old reruns.

"Friday Night Videos" gradually became less cool, not because videos were oversaturating the culture, but because the format changed, introducing hosts and some more talking. With videos all over the place, it didn't become must-watch/must-record television for me like it once did. 

But I never stopped loving music videos, and eventually, I'd be able to watch MTV (and VH1) anytime rather than just when I was at a friend's house. In the early 2000s, I discovered VH1 Classic, which was 24 hours of videos, all from the 1980s, and truly a blast.

MTV and VH1 started playing fewer and fewer videos, to the point they aren't really video stations anymore. Even VH1 Classic started airing movies and other programming before it became MTV Classic and returned to an all-video format. We cut the cord on cable, but YouTube kind of saved music videos. I've been converting some of the old videotapes to digital, but realistically, if I want to watch a certain video, all I need to do is search.

Discovering "Friday Night Videos" years ago wasn't life-altering or particularly inspiring. It was just neat and fun and interesting. That's how enthusiasm is born.

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