It’s impossible to overstate the impact MTV had when it launched in 1981. The bold new cable station captured the zeitgeist, putting the new medium of music videos at the forefront of pop culture. MTV also helped invent a brand-new on-air gig: the video jockey, a.
k.a. VJ, with five young, charismatic hosts who introduced videos and interviewed artists.
Over the years, MTV would cycle through many different VJs before deprioritizing music video programming altogether — much to the chagrin of anyone who grew up with MTV in its earlier days. But those original VJs — Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J.
Jackson and Martha Quinn — remain icons of the era. Quinn et al weren’t just the faces of MTV — they also became real-life friends, cohosting subsequent shows together, and even coauthoring a tell-all book, VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave , in 2013. Here’s a look at what happened to the original VJs who helped make MTV so special.
Martha Quinn Sweet and perky Martha Quinn went straight from recent NYU graduate to MTV VJ, landing the job through a connection she’d made while wrapping up an internship at the radio station WNBC. She left MTV in 1986, but came back in 1989, and ultimately stayed with the channel until 1992. While on MTV, she dabbled in acting, playing Bobby Brady’s wife on the Brady Bunch sequel series The Bradys in 1990 and appearing in a few episodes of Full House .
After she left the channel for good, she became the c.
