Surprising news came Monday night when MTV announced it would end its flagship video show, Total Request Live, in November, after 10 years on the air.
In the late ’90s and early 2000s, TRL was the show you watched for your music video fix. It made stars out of Britney Spears, *NSync, Eminem, Limp Bizkit and especially its host, Carson Daly. TRL shaped pop music at a time when MTV wasn’t just a network for faux-reality shows.
Long gone are the days of TRL’s reign, however; Daly left for his own talk show in 2002, and the show – which featured a rotating cast of young VJs, including Vanessa Minnillo and One Tree Hill’s Hilarie Burton – never quite recovered.
TRL will officially go on hiatus – producer Dave Sirulnick said it isn’t dead just yet – with a two-hour special in November. In recognition, Diversions takes a look at three of TRL’s more infamous moments.
MARIAH CAREY BREAKS DOWN
In 2001, Mariah Carey wanted to become a movie star. On the heels of Glitter’s release in 2001, Carey appeared on TRL, wheeled out an ice cream cart, took off her shirt and said all she wanted was to take a day off so she could eat ice cream, stare at rainbows and learn how to ride a bike. It was either a cry for help or a publicity stunt, but either way, Carey’s breakdown didn’t help Glitter, which tanked both commercially and critically.
EMINEM VS. MARK WAHLBERG
One of the more awkward moments in TRL history came during an oddly booked interview between Daly, Eminem and Mark Wahlberg. All three appeared out-of-sorts during the spot, with Eminem breaking the ice by saying something to the effect of, “Let’s all stand around like a funky bunch.” Wahlberg didn’t take too keenly to the reference to Wahlberg’s former rap group – he denounced his days as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch to move on to an acting career – and a mini-feud erupted, Eminem’s TRL specialty.
THE JESSE CAMP EXPERIMENT
With TRL came a renewed interest in VJs – a term MTV coined for its show hosts – and the winner of the first Wanna Be a VJ contest was Jesse Camp, a homeless-looking apparent junkie and wannabe rocker. Camp seemed ill-fit for the job, and appeared on TRL intermittently the year after he won. He also tried to parlay his fame into a failed music career, but Camp was troubled from the start, and MTV never seemed to get it.