Thank Goodness Radio Never Added Pictures

Back in the early 1980s, bands like Duran Duran were issuing full-length video versions of albums. This was the heyday of music videos and VCRs. Music journalists were falling all over each other trying to herald the beginning of a new era where the video album would supplant audio-only releases. Looking back, it's amazing how wrong these pundits got it. Music lives and breathes on its own and doesn't need pictures. Besides, it's enough of a production to make a good album; adding pictures only complicates matters.

The comedic geniuses over at SCTV got it right. With the premise of transferring radio formatics to TV, Rick Moranis created a memorable recurring bit, The Gerry Todd Show. The whole radio-as-tv bit, with the pukey DJ (or more accurately VJ) doing the weather with wacky graphics, taking left-field requests for both episodic TV and album rock, and playing watered-down versions of cutting edge rock - TV was always behind the curve back then - is just perfect.