Hi folks,

MTV Europe broadcasted a documentary looking back at 15 years of MTV Europe
at the beginning of this month.

If you are able to get a look at it in rerun, You sure should!

It all starts with the launch of MTV Europe back in 1987 and certainly the
footage from those very early years is great to watch. I was totally amazed
with how the VJ’s acted at the end of the 80s. It was a very alternative
way of presenting and kind of controversial from time to time. It was a
Monty Python kind of humor. Apparently those first years the VJ’s had a lot
of artistic freedom and pushed the boundaries of television further and
further…

There’s also some footage of Ray from those early years, but he only
becomes the key player when the story moves to the 90s. Without a doubt, he
was the face of MTV back in the early 90s and it’s great to see footage
from those years, comments from big stars about how they liked him and
Ray’s own comments (recorded recently) about those years. It also
emphasizes on how cutting-edge his way of presenting was: never before crew
members had played such a key role and that created a large part of the
atmosphere.

The story continues and after the highs, come the lows. For the first time,
we get an honest look at the whole X-Ray Vision story with some truthful
comments from Ray and the MTV bosses. Ray confesses that it maybe wasn’t
such a great idea to make such a large show (the 2nd biggest budget MTV
Europe ever had) around him: a bit of the magical Most Wanted atmosphere
(amateuristic and low budget) was gone, but nevertheless the viewers
stayed loyal… And then came Hamburg were all went wrong. An MTV executive
tells that in 1996 they didn’t have much experience with outside
broadcasting and they handled it completely wrong. It was the toughest
neighbourhood and a newspaper article incorrectly told that Die Toten Hosen
(German punk band) would play live on stage (it was a live broadcast from
Cologne) lead to a very hostile environment. Ray’s macho behaviour against
the crowd only enlarged the hostility. The situation escalated and we all
know how it ends.

The documentary continues (without Ray) up to the present day MTV Europe
and it all ends with some present day footage in which Ray says “I’ll be back”

Recommend viewing material if you told me. Hopefully it will be rerun soon
in your area and otherwise you’ll have to wait for the end of year repeats.

Reinhard