In 1981, MTV launched to the world with the Buggles classic, “Video Killed the Radio Star”. Sure enough, the Buggles disbanded one year later leaving its vocalist, Trevor Horn, with plenty of time to get busy writing and producing some of the biggest hits of the decade. Paul McCartney, Seal, the Pet Shop Boys, Simple Minds and Frankie Goes to Hollywood all have Horn to thank for sizeable portions of their 80s success. As does Africa. Horn co-wrote “Do They Know it’s Christmas” for Band Aid.
The impact that MTV had on Horn’s career was profound. The impact that MTV had on the world was seismic. No more so than Australia. At the time, it was a country struggling with its own identity, unsure of its cultural influence and hovering somewhere between Asia and the US. MTV changed all that. A G’Day generation quickly went all West Coast and groovy with an INXS soundtrack to boot. Asian influence was banished to the food junkies which, in retrospect, wasn’t a bad thing at all.
But with MTV culture came a whole bunch of unwanted baggage. The worst of it is Halloween. I have to say I’ve never really understood the unwarranted enthusiasm for Halloween. Case in point, last night I came home to find 50 dwarfs, 16 pixies, 3 witches and 1 hungry looking skeleton parked outside my front gate.
Without exception, they were clambering for chocolate and wailing “Trick or Treat” like some conference of pre-pubescent banshees. They actually all looked rather menacing. Not in an Omen-like uber-freaky way. More in an “I’ve consumed more carbohydrates in the last week than you have in a life-time, Grandad. Make your choice”.
And so I had the decency to way up the benefits of Trick or Treat. On the face of it, it seemed a pretty easy decision. Do I give them a chance to clog their arteries just a little bit more, or do some exercise. As a responsible father I naturally went for the latter option. En masse, they looked at me blankly and sauntered off to the home of their next victim. As of this morning, I am Mr Grumpy at Number 12.
But I did feel mildly vindicated when I read of the latest obesity figures in this morning’s broadsheets. Australia remains one of the porkiest nations on the planet, munching at the heels of the US, UK and Mexico. According to reports, about 25 per cent of Australian children are obese or overweight, as well as about two thirds of adult males and around half the nation’s women. Too many hours in front of the television was cited as a major contributory factor.
From what I saw of the families on Halloween night, I can’t say I’m too surprised. At the end of a long evening of too many treats and too few tricks, the streets were filled with gut-busting monsters and double-chined vampires all wobbling home for a chocolate belch in front of MTV. Video and its successors are killing more than the radio star. There’s a whole generation of Australian’s who now get their weekly exercise by watching “So You Think You Can Dance”. That’s scary.
