After shaky starts, MTV and ESPN soared
(This is the latest chapter of the book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” For the full thing, so far, click the category, “The Book.”)
In the halls of history, Michael Nesmith actually gets three spots.
He was a Monkee … he was a white-out heir … and he was a music-video pioneer. That last one is important here, but let’s admire the others first.
The world knew Nesmith as a star of “The Monkees” (shown here, with Nesmith at left), a bright, Beatle-ish show that had two fun seasons (1966-68) on NBC. It was about a make-believe pop band … which, in real life, then had three No. 1 hits.
Before that? As Nesmith told it, his parents divorced and he grew up with his mom, who was a good artist and a not-so-good secretary. To cover her typing mistakes, she used her art skills to create a white-out. She called it “Liquid Paper,” built up her company … and sold it to Gillette for $47.5 million.
This was the ideal combination for a music-video pioneer: Nesmith was a musical guy who had inventive roots and the financial freedom to dabble Read more…