When VH1 premiered in the mid-90s, "Pop-Up Videos" are what made the channel worth watching. They were something new after a decade or so of straight-forward music videos, and they offered more: behind-the-scenes and biographical tidbits of information about the people, places and topics of the songs they presented. All without interfering with the videos themselves. Perfectly-poised at the start of the Trivia Age, "Pop-Up Videos" was an icon that was quickly imitated throughout pop culture and is still referenced today.
And now they're bringing it back. After being off the air for ten years, VH1 was ordered 60 new episodes to premier this fall. Reuters reports that the format has been updated with interactive elements that basically allow people on Twitter and other social media sites to create their own pop-ups. This is a genius move on the part of the channel and the show's creators, because Twitter is king at this precise moment in time, and the internet both generates and craves trivia like never before. People want to be able to have a say in their viewing, and a whole generation remembers the show fondly while a new generation is waiting to discover it's wealth of info-bites.
On a channel suffering more and more from "channel drift" so that much of its programming as little or nothing to do with music anymore, this is a perfect balance. "Pop-Up Videos" can bring the music back to VH1 (finally!) without standing apart from the reality programming that currently dominates the line-up. If we're lucky, perhaps it'll usher in a revival of Music programming for the music channels.
(http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/25/us-popupvideos-idUSTRE74O86220110525)
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