Way Back Wednesday: Quarterflash

My dad likes to play this game where he asks you random trivia questions that he thinks only he knows the answers to.  One day, he asks my sisters and I, "What was the first video played on MTV?"  We all screamed at the same time, "'Video Killed the Radio Star' by the Buggles."  WRONG, he says.  My sisters and I went on the offense and the argument went on for about 15 minutes before he finally conceded and changed the question to, "What was the first video *I* saw on MTV?"  The answer was "Centerfold" by J. Geils Band.  Definitely not the first video on MTV, but probably one of the firsts. 

This may seem like the most stupid thing you've ever heard for anyone born after MTV debuted in 1981.  But, it was a reeeeeally big deal back in the day.  See, this was when we used to have two dials on the TV.  The top dial was UHF for channels 1-13, and the bottom dial was VHF and basically like AM radio for the television, with channels 14-70-something.  This was where, if you turned the dial really slow, you could get a very snowy version of MTV.  I would literally be peeled to the television for hours, squinting my eyes and waiting to see what video would come up next.  I'm not sure if this is the exact first video I saw on MTV, but it's definitely the first I remember seeing:  "Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash.  It's got everything you want in a video:  sweet leotards, creepy children, motorcycles, a tractor, a keyboard and sax solo, mullets, fire, destruction and several locations including a desert, a warehouse full of water and a hallway with secret doors (which turns out to be a trailer).  Plus, I'm pretty sure that Daft Punk makes their first appearance as a human drum set.  Harden my heart, indeed.