The writing was on the wall when That Metal Show wasn’t renewed, and the rumors have been around for almost as long, but Sunday is the last day you’ll be able to watch VH1 Classic, as on Monday (8/1), the Viacom channel will relaunch as MTV Classic. That date isn’t symbolic, as MTV itself launched on August 1st 1981. What will the new channel feature? Plenty of old stuff, with a focus on the ’90s and early 2000s. It will kick off with the actual first hour of MTV’s existence 35 years ago.
That means we’ll be able to watch Beavis and Butt-head in prime time once again. It also means that they’ll be airing old installments of MTV Unplugged and Total Request Live, to remind you of when music was a significant part of the channel’s programming. Don’t worry, though, there will be plenty of reminders of why music went away, with marathons of Real World and Laguna Beach. It probably doesn’t mean that they’ll be playing music videos from that era, however. It is a bit of a bummer to see VH1 Classic going away. The channel seemed to have almost built their programming around the ’80s metal vibe of That Metal Show, airing old hair metal videos in blocks when it first launched, as well as documentaries like Lemmy and Anvil: The Story of Anvil. But hey, at least we’ll have Beavis.
