We watched the first six hours of MTV so you don't have to

Recently, VH1 Classic aired the first day of MTV programming in celebration of that channel's 25th Anniversary. I've just finished the first six hours. Here's what I've learned...

• The station-opening sequence, in which a spaceship takes freaking forever to launch, takes freaking forever. I can't imagine anyone enjoyed watching that.
• A good 30% of the videos in the first six hours are either Rod Stewart or the Pretenders. Especially Rod Stewart, who plays at least twice per hour. And the Pretenders songs are all pretty obscure.
• One of the videos, Thank You For Being a Friend, was probably an awesome hit to rock out to until seven years later when it became the Golden Girls theme.
• Speaking of Golden Girls, check out Boys Keep Swinging by David Bowie, which ends in a truly creepy runway show featuring middle-aged rockers dressed like old women.?
• I totally forgot how great the video for "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads was. Extremely great, that's how great.
• Watching a lot of 1981 videos in a row reminds you that they only had like three video effects back then. Extremely popular: the chromakey (blue/green screen) effect. Leo Sayer's More Than I Can Say probably blew some minds back then. (The good stuff is towards the end.)
• Carly Simon makes an appearance with a completely awful song called Vengeance, which ends with a hilarious freeze frame of Carly rocking out.
• We've established that 30% of the videos are Rod Stewart or the Pretenders. About 50% are super boring concert videos of bands like REO Speedwagon, .38 Special, and The Who; and another 15% are songs and/or artists I've never heard of. Who the hell is Split Enz, and why do they have three videos in the first six hours?