Now for those who don't know, TRL (Total Request Live) was a show on MTV that consisted of Carson Daly counting down the top 10 requested videos in the span of an hour (or an hour and a half...its not really that important). The show took place in a building in Times Square. The studio held somewhere near 5o people, the camera crew, Carson Daly, and his ego. As the videos played, there would be a ticker on the bottom of the screen which showed messages from the people watching. At times there were also video interruptions of someone in the audience giving a "shout out" to someone watching. Now, that all sounds like a typical MTV show and I guess, for what its worth, it was. To me, TRL was on par with a modern day incarnation of American Bandstand...only worse. Nobody danced, the videos were shortened, and Daly was super awkward at times (not to mention they had their share of TV uh ohs's like Da Brat revealing her bare breast on live TV years before Janet Jackson did). Like I said before, TRL was similar to American Bandstand. Who wants to watch Dick Clark stand in front of a bunch of teens...talking...trying to be funny? Nobody. Well that can't be true because TRL ran for ten years. Daly was only there until 2002 but I never watched an episode without him in it.
Another crazy point about TRL was the juxtaposition of the comments and some of the songs featured on the show. Imagine a teenage girl interrupting Papa Roach's "Last Resort" to say hello to their grandmother back home. Is grandma really watching? Do we really need to hear you screaming with excitement about how awesome it is that you are on TRL? No. Let me listen to the mediocre song and get on with my life.
I know I didn't have to watch TRL but Carson Daly was just so damn cute.
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