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There’s also some ridiculously corny footage from the contest as well - though the audio quality is warped beyond belief - in which the band narrate their adventures on the high sea in messages-in-bottles that later wash-up on the shore.ĭespite the lack of on-camera mayhem, one of the lucky cruise attendees, Guy Furrow - a.k.a.
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In the promo, Tommy Lee really sells his pirate impression, though Vince Neil’s could use some work. But to be perfectly honest, the footage from the actual contest pales in comparison to the bonkers promo, in which MTV apparently bought a third house, had a bunch of college kids paint it pink and let someone drive a chopper right through it.Īnticipating the musical cruise fad by a couple decades, this contest let one lucky fan ride straight through the Bermuda triangle with Mötley Crüe and a whole host of strange characters.
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Mellencamp also treated Miles to a ride on his motorcycle, a free house show and a private screening of the 1984 flick Streets of Fire (cool?).
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The deed to the non-toxic house ended up going to a Seattle, Washington woman named Susan Miles, who, as part of her prize package, also received a pink jeep, a new stereo and - because why not - a garage full of Hawaiian Punch. Per Sykes in I Want My MTV, the first house stayed on the network’s books until about 1992 when they were finally able to write it off. The concept was to buy a house in Mellencamp’s hometown of Bloomington, Indiana and give it away to a fan on the condition that they paint it pink, after the rocker’s 1983 hit, “Pink Houses.” But the first house MTV purchased was right next to a toxic waste dump, and they were forced to buy another. “Paint the Mutha Pink” With John Mellencampĭirector of Promotion and Artist Relation John Sykes was the mastermind behind most of MTV’s contests during the Eighties, and “Paint the Mutha Pink” stands alongside “Lost Weekend” as one of his most famous - though not necessarily for the reasons intended. But as Jefferis’ story shows, there was often a seedier side to these contests that emerged when the cameras were turned off. They capture the sublime ridiculousness of the era, when the network was flush with cash and eager to attract viewers and win the good graces of the world’s biggest musicians. Thanks to archive-minded MTV viewers, many of the promotional spots for these contests have made it onto YouTube. “Lost Weekend” may go down as MTV’s most infamous contest, but it was one of many outrageous ideas executives cooked up during the Eighties and early Nineties. “They were flying by the seats of their pants, trying 100 different things to see what stuck.” “This was the Wild West of the cable era and were doing anything they could to connect with viewers,” Thomason recently told The New York Post. Jefferis story is now the subject of Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb’s new short documentary, Lost Weekend, which recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.