DTV - Disney's version of MTV?

A look at the long and forgotten music videos made by Disney in the 80s and 90s.

A few years back, I'd say about 2005 or 2006, my old independent video store closed. I used to love going to this store, they had all kinds of stuff, rare too. Disney's Halloween Special, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers videos, the original movie adaptation of Lord of the Rings, all kinds of great stuff there. In the last day or two of business, they were selling away all their videos at $5 apiece. So I went down there, and bought a ton of videos, including Disney Golden Edition tapes, the Halloween Special, the MMPR videos, and a couple of videos that were very special to me, as I used to rent them a good amount. They were, DTV tapes.

But before we get into the tapes, you might be thinking: "What's DTV?" Well DTV was a collection of music videos created by Disney in 1984, inspired from the then extremely popular MTV, from where it got it's namesake. It combined famous songs of the time with multiple different clips from different cartoons. It ran from 1984 to 2002, with a new batch of videos being created in 1989 under the label DTVÂ². Hundreds of music videos were made under the original DTV label, while only a mere 12 music videos were made under the DTVÂ² label.

For DTV, Different music videos were created for different artists at the time. These musicians ranged from Michael Jackson, to Huey Lewis and the News, to Bill Haley and the Rockets, to The Shirlettes, and to Hall and Oates. DTV featured a wide range of musicians over many decades.

Specials were even made for DTV. These specials were shown on certain holidays and special occasions. The 3 specials were:
DTV: Doggone Valentine (Rebranded as DTV: Doggone Hits in reruns)
DTV: Valentine (Rebranded as DTV: Romancin' in reruns
These music videos will probably never be shown again due to extensive copyright laws. But fear not! In it's run, Disney made 5 DTV videos. They're avaliable on VHS, Laserdisc, Betamax, Japanese Laserdisc, and PAL.

They are:
DTV: Rock, Rhythm and Blues
DTV: Golden Oldies
DTV: Pop and Rock
DTV: Love Songs
DTV: Groovin' for a 60s Afternoon

I own the first four VHS tapes, all of which I bought from my local "Mom & Pop" video store at $5 apiece. These videos are extremely rare are expensive when found online. Ebay and Amazon carry few to none at a time, and they can go into prices of $35 and upwards. The latter two videos seem to be the rarest from what I have seen. I have never seen Love Songs online, and I haven't seen much of Groovin' for a 60s afternoon, but it seems to go for much cheaper than the other videos surprisingly.
Each video runs about 45 minutes, and shows a variety of music videos pertaining to the genre of the video. The contents of these videos are as described here:

Pop and Rock shows music videos in the Pop and Rock Genre obviously. The music videos on this tape are:

* Martha and the Vandellas: Dancing in the Street
* Little Richard: Tutti Frutti
* Tommy Roe: Dizzy
* The Diamonds: Little Darlin'
* Stevie Wonder: Uptight (Everything's Alright)
* The Supremes: You Keep Me Hangin' On
* Elvis Presley: Stuck On You
* Stevie Wonder: I Was Made to Love Her
* Danny and the Juniors: At the Hop
* Sheb Wooley: The Purple People Eater
* Johnny Burnette: Dreamin'
* Little Richard: Long Tall Sally
* Jan and Dean: Surf City
* Elvis Presley: Hound Dog
* The Four Tops: Reach Out - I'll Be There
* The Dovells: You Can't Sit Down
* The Beach Boys: Dance, Dance, Dance

Golden Oldies shows music mainly 20 years and older, so that would be music from the 50s and 60s. The music videos on this tape are:

* The Supremes: Baby Love
* Spike Jones: The Blue Danube
* Louis Prima and Keely Smith: That Old Black Magic
* Tennessee Ernie Ford: Sixteen Tons
* Barrett Strong: Money (That's What I Want)
* Burl Ives: Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly)
* Marvin Gaye: Can I Get a Witness
* Annette Funicello: Pineapple Princess
* Smokey Robinson and the Miracles: Mickey's Monkey
* The Cadets: Stranded in the Jungle
* Stevie Wonder: For Once in My Life
* Annette Funicello: Tall Paul
* Lena Horne: Stormy Weather
* Smokey Robinson and The Miracles: You Really Got a Hold On Me
* Spike Jones: Holiday for Strings
* The Beach Boys: When I Grow Up (To Be a Man)
* Bobby Darin: Lazy River (PAL VHS and Japanese Laserdisc Only)

Rock, Rhythm and Blues shows music videos featuring R&B Songs. The music videos on this tape are:

* Hall and Oates: Kiss on My List
* Jimmy Cliff: Wonderful World, Beautiful People
* Richard Thompson: Two Left Feet
* The Jackson 5: Dancing Machine
* Gladys Knight and The Pips: Friendship Train
* The Doobie Brothers: It Keeps You Runnin'
* The Supremes: Stop! In the Name of Love
* Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell: Ain't No Mountain High Enough
* Stevie Wonder: Signed, Sealed, and Delivered
* Jimmy Cliff: You Can Get It If You Really Want
* Gladys Knight and The Pips: I Heard It Through the Grapevine
* Hall and Oates: Private Eyes
* Burning Sensations: Belly of the Whale
* The Blues Brothers: Flip, Flop & Fly (PAL VHS and Japanese Laserdisc Only)
* The Coasters: Charlie Brown (PAL VHS and Japanese Laserdisc Only)

DTV: Long Songs shows music videos that feature love and romance songs. The songs on this tape are:

* Juice Newton: Love's Been a Little Bit Hard on Me
* The Temptations: Just My Imagination
* Elvis Presley: All Shook Up
* The Marvellettes: Don't Mess with Bill
* Stevie Wonder: My Cherie Amour
* Gene Chandler: Duke of Earl
* The Drifters: Some Kind of Wonderful
* Mary Wells: Two Lovers
* The Marvellettes: Too Many Fish in the Sea
* Dee Clark: Raindrops
* The Temptations: Ain't Too Proud to Beg
* Otis Redding: Try a Little Tenderness
* Yes: Owner of a Lonely Heart
* Sister Sledge: We Are Family

Groovin' for a 60s afternoon (Sorry about the stock picture) contains music mainly from the 60s, some from the popular California Beach bands such as The Beach Boys and The Mamas and the Papas. The music videos on this tape are:

* The Mamas and The Papas: California Dreamin'
* Joey Dee: Peppermint Twist
* The Beach Boys: Catch a Wave
* The Shirelles: Mama Said
* The Mamas and the Papas: Go Where You Wanna Go
* Wilson Pickett: Mustang Sally
* The Beach Boys: I Get Around
* Stevie Wonder: Castles in the Sand
* The Mamas and The Papas: I Saw Her Again Last Night
* Aretha Franklin: Think
* The Supremes: Nothing But Heartaches
* The Beach Boys: Be True to Your School
* Wilson Pickett: Funky Broadway
* The Mamas and The Papas: Dedicated to the One I Love
* Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston: It Takes Two
* Stevie Wonder: Hey, Harmonica Man
* The Beach Boys: California Girls

I used to love watching some of the songs on these videos, and during the making of this article, I just took them out of the basement with the rest of those videos I got from my local video store. Here's to you!

Many other songs were not released on video tape, but some of these, and the specials can be found on Youtube thanks to users such as DTVzone and taegdv.

And now for the finale, I present the DTV music video, one of my special favorites..."Private Eyes" by Hall & Oates! Thanks for reading everybody and God Bless! I'm going to go watch my tapes now. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzpikP9WcGc
(Copy and paste into address bar to watch. Seems I can't embed the video.)

Comments

These would drive my sister and I absolutely Ca-RAZY! It was in between 1997 and 1999 or so. I forgot when they stopped airing DTV's on the Disney Channel. We were trying to tape them, and they'd almost always play the same ones over again. The ones I remember seeing most often were "Can I Get a Witness" (Marvin Gaye), "Groovin" (the Rascals) and "Listen to the Music" (Doobie Brothers). I also remember I got ticked off at seeing Anne Murray's version of "Daydream Believer" as a DTV, instead of the Monkees version.

I BRIEFLY REMEMBER OF THEM, BUT NO FOND MEMORIES THAT I CAN RELATE 2! GOOD ARTICLE THOUGH...

I think Disney did a good job at selecting the clips to go with the songs. Boy that brings back memories.

Another great memory of mine growing up. I never actually rented these from the video store, but always saw them on the shelf there. I probably caught close to all the videos on the Disney Channel though in between shows. Especially shows like Donald Duck Presents or Good Morning Mickey. They would show a single video, what I remember as being pretty randomly, in between the shows or during a commercial or something. For being so much, they had to have been pretty simple to make. Just take a pre-existing song, add clips from the cartoons, and there you go. I miss the old days of Disney in the 80's and early 90's. I saw part of a current Disney cartoon, computer animated now of course, with Mickey, Goofy, and Donald. It just didn't seem the same. Story wasn't very good at all and the whole thing didn't have the warmth that I remember in old Disney cartoons. Oh well, times change I guess and every generation probably longs for the way things were during their own childhood. Good article and reminder. I nearly forgot about this one.

Love Disney, but had no idea about any of this so it was a very informative article for me. Thumbs up.

I completely remember watching DTV as a kid! My niece (we were almost the same age) would spend the night and we would get up bright and early to catch it on TV. We would lay out towels and use them as exercise mats and "workout" while watching the videos. How lame! LOL Thanks for sharing the article, good memories!!

Oh yeah! A trip down memory lane. Even if they brought this back to Disney they'll probably use today's songs which are awful or make it look like today's MTV almost TRL style if you know what I mean. We only have the Doggone Valentine special recorded, I never cared too much for the Romancin' special but I enjoy the Monster Hits (mostly because I really love Halloween). I don't know if Disney will put DTV on DVD because of copyright issues.

DTV was quality!!
Didnt they used to play the videos on a massive tv in a restaurant in Disney land? I think it was the one opposite the speedway
Can anyone confirm that and back me up? or am i going mad!
Good times, thumbs up

very interesting - thank you. . .

I remember DTV VERY well. I used to have a tape of their "Monster Hits", featuring Jeffrey Jones as the Magic Mirror (from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"

. Not to mention the various DTV and DTV2 music videos they played more often than not back in the day...

Disney really should re-license all that music and resurrect DTV on DVD!

Unfortunately, second exodus, they can't release those Dtv videos on to DVD because they'll run into the same problem that they're having with getting The Wonder Years on DVD and that's securing the music rights to the songs used in the videos.

What version of Halloween Special? Is it the one with the mirror, the one with the security guard, or the one with just the narrator's voice? I wish they would release some of the 80s and 90s stuff on the collectible Walt Disney Treasures DVDs, I guess 80s and 90s aren't old enough yet.

Yes, thank you! Now I know I didn't make this up!

This is exactly why I love Retro Junk. This article is a perfect example. I had completely forgotten DTV until I saw this article and especially when I went to YouTube. So thank you for reminding me about this. I remember watching it after school in Kinder to third grade. They defenatly don't make tv like this anymore.

I think the Betty Boop one you're referring to is a short put out by Cartoon Network Groovies set to the song Rollin.

cartoon network would play some of these late night a couple years ago. i saw a donald duck one going to Listen To The Music, i believe by the Allman Brothers. there was also a Betty Boop one with racing scenes, but i don't remember the name of the song. nice article, thumbs up.

I think you need to talk to Vertex before you submit the article to post a video.

I actually remember those music videos they would produce. Vaguely, but I remember them. Course that was also back when, when they would air a movie, they wouldn't put in any commercials at all.

These music videos, to an extent, went on into the 90's though. Instead of a normal song to clips from a specfic movie or short though, it would be an actual movie clip (that involved a song, of course). I can only remember three of these and ALL three are from A Goofy Movie. There had to have been others though.

Wow, I can't believe I missed these specials growing up. They must not have shown them during the Disney Channel preview periods for cable. That was a great time of year,when you would get free cable for a month while they tried to get you hooked on their programming.

I only remember very faintly a couple of these (My Cherie Amour with footage of Snow White). It's a damn shame that these aren't being aired today,really,because it's a great way to introduce kids to the Disney classics.

I loved DTV growing up. It was great to hear these songs and see the images that were set to them. The video for "Private Eyes" was a particular favorite. Good article.

DTV didn't last that long, I don't think. I remember watching DTV and DTV2 in the late 80's and early 90's on the Disney Channel. Some of the videos weren't all that interesting, but it was the show's intro that got me all pumped up!

They used to play these segments late at night in the late 90s on the Disney Channel. Good stuff. Thumbs up.