MTV was pivoting away from its music origins in the early to mid 2000s, solely focusing on original content. The network produced some truly wild content, many that will live in infamy—Jersey Shore, The Real World, Catfish, The Challenge—and others that have been lost to time. We’ve collected four MTV shows from the 2000s that you probably forgotten even existed.
NEXT
MTV was big on dating shows in particular, especially if it could be made into a competition series. Before there was Love Island, there was Next. The show was a unique concept where singles would go on speed dates with other singles stationed inside of a bus. It was basically Tinder in real life: will you go to the next person or stick with the one in front of you? The longer you stayed on a date, the more money you earned by the end.
Meet the barkers
Celebrity reality shows were also very big at the time. The Simple Life, Girls Next Door, Flavor of Love—all of them were revolutionary for their respective networks. MTV cashed in with Meet the Barkers, a show about Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, then-wife Shanna Moakler and their children. It was the predecessor to Keeping Up with the Kardashians, basically. The show followed the couple as they navigated Barker’s rock-and-roll lifestyle, raising their children and their marriage. The show ran for two seasons.
Viva La Bam
Jackass has a cult following today but in the early 2000s it was just getting started. The success of the pranksters led to skateboarder Bam Margera getting his own spin-off, Viva La Bam. Running from 2003 until 2005, the show focused on Margera and friends pulling pranks on one another—as well as Margera’s parents—stunts, and challenges.
Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica
98 Degrees’ Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson were pop royalty, and MTV cashed in with a series all about the first few years of their marriage. It showed their daily lives off stage, their struggles in their marriage and what life as a bustling pop star is really like. One of the best aspects of the show was often Simpson’s “dumb blonde” moments, chief among them whether the tuna fish brand Chicken of the Sea was chicken or tuna. Riveting content. At the time the show was a huge hit for MTV, but after just three years of marriage they underwent a very public, messy divorce. The show ran until 2005, not long before the divorce was filed in 2006.
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