Bring back the good old MTV Europe days! That's what I say!
Ray Cokes Most Wanted followed by Beavis & Butthead - those were the days!
100% agreed. MTV was at it's best in the 90's, when it was still MTV Europe. Ray Cokes was one of the main presenters.
I know the word "legend" gets bandied about a bit too much these days, but Ray Cokes was a legend! MTV's decline began
when they let him go after what I like to refer to as the Infamous Hamburg Incident! For those not in the know, I shall explain.
Ray Cokes used to present a live prime time entertainment show on MTV Europe called "Most Wanted". It was originally a
music video request show, but Ray always had long chats with the callers, before asking them what their "Most Wanted"
video is. The show had features such as the "Bingo Wall Of Death", and "Clean Our Souls", as well as live music on
almost every show. From 1994 up until the very last show, Most Wanted had a small studio audience made up of
about 15-20 people from all over Europe. This was "Club Bed". And I was once a member of that (almost)
prestigious TV club ... September 27trh 1995! A night I doubt that I'll ever forget!
The show was on every Tuesday-Friday at 8pm UK (9pm CET) and until Beavis and Butthead came on ninety minutes later.
The last two series of Most Wanted, during 1995, had Will MacDonald (a former Big Breakfast researcher) as the producer.
He was always referred to as "Wicked Will" by Ray. In 1996, "Wiiiiiiilllll" became Chris Evans' stooge on TFI Friday!
After the last ever edition of "Most Wanted" went out on December 15th 1995, about three months or so later, a new show
fronted by Ray Cokes started on MTV, called "X-Ray Vision". The new show also featured two of the popular regulars
from Most Wanted ... Naughty Nympho Nina and Pathetic Pat. "Clean Our Souls" was back, and a new version
of the "Bingo Wall of Death" was introduced called "The Wheel of Misfortune" . . .
X-Ray Vision had a very similar format to Most Wanted, except for the fact that it featured a bigger studio audience, was
only on Thursday nights, and was broadcast not from the old Most Wanted studio, but instead from the MTV studios
foyer, near the reception, but converted into a big, (but makeshift) studio.
Where it all went wrong, was when the bosses decided to take the show to Hamburg in Germany for a special O.B. edition.
It took place during a rock festival, on one of the stages. It was all organised about two days before broadcast. The crowd
were very drunk, and kept throwing beer bottles at Ray and the MTV production. Lincoln the cameraman, who was black,
was apparently subjected to racist comments from the drunken crowd who were there for the rock festival, and only
wanted to see a German rock band (who I believe were quite popular back then) called Die Toten Hosen.
Ray got very annoyed, and ended the show about twenty minutes early. On the next show, back at MTV HQ in Camden,
it was announced that it would be the very last edition of X-Ray Vision. I can only assume that Ray had had a very big
argument with his bosses, and resigned in disgust after what had happened the week before in Hamburg.
Essentially, MTV fecked up, and ended up losing the best presenter they'd ever had.
Having said that, Ray briefly returned to MTV's Camden studios, the former home of TV-am, in the summer of 2001 for a
retrospective weekend of progams, mostly looking back at Most Wanted and Ray career at MTV. The weekend was
themed, "Ray Cokes - Still Wanted?", and was, perhaps ironically, broadcast on ... VH1, not MTV!
Ray Cokes has an official website at - http://raycokes.com/ - although it's not been updated in quite a while.
Really only the pay per view channels play music and besides its quite a good idea as you have to wait ages until it actually plays. At the moment one of the most popular payper views, the box, is going through a change every 5 minutes as in on screen graphics. As for VH1 classic it is probably the only one. MTV hits has quite a good mix but you always have "matchmaker" or horroscopes at the bottom of the screen. Woah what a rant!
As far as I know, MTV and VH1 are the main channels that show more music-themed programmes than others. I think it was since more music channels were being launched on satellite, as when Analogue was avaliable, it was only MTV, The Box (when it was good) and VH1. TMF obviously show music-themed programmes, being a combination of the two, and, seemingly, broadbast exclusively for Freeview... or am I thinking of The Hits?
Themed channels like MTV Dance or VH1 Classic should still just show music videos, excluding MTV Base whereas they show plenty of Pimp My Ride.
