B Movies Blog

Hello, Movie Mavens! Welcome back to the B Movies Blog. Today, we’re popping the MTV shows I grew up with into the ol’ VCR. 

I’m a huge fan of Jaime French’s channel. This includes her “Member That?” videos where she talks about the media we grew up watching but might have forgotten about in the deep recesses of our brains (I’m sure it has nothing to do with us being the generation that just keeps living through unprecedented times). Anywho. 

She has a video about the show Becoming, and it inspired me to talk about some of my favorite shows from MTV in the 2000s to the early 2010s.  

Additionally, I read Grace Perry’s book The 2000s Made Me Gay where she talks about The Challenge and other pieces of content in relation to her coming out a few months ago. 

Needless to say, I was feeling inspired and decided to talk about some of my favorite MTV shows from the same time period. This isn’t to discredit the musical days of MTV; I was just more of a Fuse girl when it came to music videos, and it definitely shows (this is a shoutout to all of my Nighttime Clap and Pants Off, Dance Off fans). 

Without any more fuss, let me take you back to the days where MTV would give you musical credits on the bottom of the screen during the actual show. 

Disclaimer: I haven’t watched most of these shows in over a decade, so if there’s anything extremely problematic I’m not remembering, apologies in advance. 

Awkward.

The grip Awkward. had on me in college. I went to a liberal arts school where I would drink lattes underneath a giant oak tree while listening to a She & Him Pandora station, so it very much tracks. 

Jenna is one of the reasons I started blogging over 12 years ago. Please keep that between us.

Made 

I rooted for every single one of the people on Made. I didn’t care if a 16-year-old high schooler wanted to be a presidential candidate. You get on that ballot, girl! Don’t let the legal age requirement of 35 get you down! YAAAASSS! 

And y’all said watching marathons of this show would never come in handy. LOOK AT ME NOW.

True Life 

True Life walked so that modern, limited docuseries could run. This show had EVERYTHING and ran for almost 19 years. Some episodes would highlight boxers training for fights, and other episode topics ranged from from drug addiction to childhood trauma. It was truly wild. 

True Life: I spent countless hours of my youth watching True Life.

Death Valley 

I absolutely loved this show. Death Valley only ran for one season, but it checked all of my boxes: 

• Horror
• Horror comedy 
• Horror comedy mockumentary
• Horror comedy about a task force that only brings in monsters, cryptids, and other figures
• Bryce Johnson (If you’re a Popular fan, check out @popularforever on Instagram btw)

This screenshot should tell you everything you need to know about Death Valley. 

My Life as Liz 

Y’ALL. The grip My Life as Liz had on me was tighter than the one Awkward. had. It was filmed in the area I grew up in, and I compared myself to Liz Lee way more than I would care to admit. I watched every single episode the night it premiered in my dorm room, and I still can’t believe that they left us on a cliffhanger. 

Man, I love Paramore.