![]() In the promo, Tommy Lee really sells his pirate impression, though Vince Neil’s could use some work. But to be perfectly honest, the footage from the actual contest pales in comparison to the bonkers promo, in which MTV apparently bought a third house, had a bunch of college kids paint it pink and let someone drive a chopper right through it.Īnticipating the musical cruise fad by a couple decades, this contest let one lucky fan ride straight through the Bermuda triangle with Mötley Crüe and a whole host of strange characters. Mellencamp also treated Miles to a ride on his motorcycle, a free house show and a private screening of the 1984 flick Streets of Fire (cool?). The deed to the non-toxic house ended up going to a Seattle, Washington woman named Susan Miles, who, as part of her prize package, also received a pink jeep, a new stereo and - because why not - a garage full of Hawaiian Punch. Per Sykes in I Want My MTV, the first house stayed on the network’s books until about 1992 when they were finally able to write it off. The concept was to buy a house in Mellencamp’s hometown of Bloomington, Indiana and give it away to a fan on the condition that they paint it pink, after the rocker’s 1983 hit, “Pink Houses.” But the first house MTV purchased was right next to a toxic waste dump, and they were forced to buy another. “Paint the Mutha Pink” With John Mellencampĭirector of Promotion and Artist Relation John Sykes was the mastermind behind most of MTV’s contests during the Eighties, and “Paint the Mutha Pink” stands alongside “Lost Weekend” as one of his most famous - though not necessarily for the reasons intended. But as Jefferis’ story shows, there was often a seedier side to these contests that emerged when the cameras were turned off. They capture the sublime ridiculousness of the era, when the network was flush with cash and eager to attract viewers and win the good graces of the world’s biggest musicians. Thanks to archive-minded MTV viewers, many of the promotional spots for these contests have made it onto YouTube. ![]() “Lost Weekend” may go down as MTV’s most infamous contest, but it was one of many outrageous ideas executives cooked up during the Eighties and early Nineties. ![]() ![]() “They were flying by the seats of their pants, trying 100 different things to see what stuck.” “This was the Wild West of the cable era and were doing anything they could to connect with viewers,” Thomason recently told The New York Post. Jefferis story is now the subject of Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb’s new short documentary, Lost Weekend, which recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. “On the second night, Alex Van Halen handed me a sixteen-ouncer and said, ‘You’re not leaving this spot until you drink that beer.’ I poured it out in a trash can.” “The next morning, I had one of the worst hangovers of my life,” Jefferis recalled in Rob Tennenbaum and Craig Marks’ MTV oral history, I Want My MTV. Finally, a friend he’d brought along alerted producers that Jefferis had a plate in his head, the result of a traumatic injury, and that he should not be consuming drugs and alcohol at all, much less imbibing at VH levels. But as the night wore on, it became clear that Jefferis did not have the constitution for this kind of partying. But there was also plenty of footage not suitable for broadcast: Van Halen and their crew pumped Jefferis full of drugs and booze, and at one point David Lee Roth locked him in the shower with a stripper. The promotion was a massive success for MTV, which aired much of the mayhem, including the moment Van Halen brought Jefferis on stage, smashed his face into a giant cake and showered him with champagne. Jefferis was the winner of MTV’s “Lost Weekend” contest and his prize was a few days of debauchery on the road with the Eighties metal legends. In 1984, a man named Kurt Jefferis nearly partied to death with Van Halen.
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