In 1987, music cable network MTV got into the game show business. Their first would be the all-time classic Remote Control, spanning five seasons over two and a half years plus a concurrent single season in syndication in 1989 and 1990. The show was a pop-culture phenomenon, but all good things must come to an end. On June 16, 1990, MTV cancelled the series.
Two weeks later, MTV replaced it with its first all-music game show, Turn it Up.
The show was hosted by Jordan Brady, with Stuffy Shmitt and his band Zombo Combo providing the show’s in-house music.
The music-based game was divided into two parts. The first was more of a straight music trivia round with questions worth 10, 20, and 30 points. Contestants picked a category and a 10-point question is asked. If they get it right, they can stay with the category for more points or move to a different category. A wrong answer carries no penalty, but it opens it up for someone else to steal the points with a correct answer.
The second round has four new categories, three of them always staying the same: Total Recall, where a short clip of a music video is played, then three questions are asked about it; Sing This, where contestants must sing the next line to a song once the music stops; and Say What, where a contestant must repeat a confusing lyric to a song. The fourth category rotated from show to show. The scoring structure is the same as the first round, so falling behind is not ideal. The two highest scorers at the end of the round (either when all questions are exhausted or time is called) advance to the final round, “Add-a-Track”.
In Add-a-Track, the two players listen to a song for 30 seconds, but the song builds from one instrument to a full band playing after 25 seconds. The first person to buzz in with the correct song title gets the points and a prize. Again, no penalty for a wrong answer other than being locked out for the remainder of the song and the opponent getting a chance to steal.
The songs were worth 25 points, and increasing by that amount for each new song. After four songs, their scores in Add-a-Track are added to their previous scores to determine today’s winner, who receives a bonus prize. However, if one player sweeps Add-a-Track (naming all four songs correctly), they win a grand prize, usually a new car or a vacation.
Turn it Up would not be nearly the success of its predecessor Remote Control. On December 7, the show was cancelled, making it the second time MTV dropped a game show in six months. For the record, December 7 was also the day the 1990 version of Tic Tac Dough got cancelled. That's some serious infamy.
Turn it Up would be one of 27 game shows local or national game shows that were cancelled in 1990. And there were bangers on that list too: Fun House and its sister show College Mad House, Scrabble, Super Jeopardy!, Jackpot, and Win, Lose or Draw were among the shows to all meet the cancellation bear.
The show’s largely forgotten, but it’s a fun show. I wish it would get brought back for one more run, but I imagine the changes in copyright law would make it virtually impossible. Anyway, up there’s one of the surviving episodes of the show. Enjoy.