Remember the MTV Hawaiian Holiday with Devo?
When you think of Hawaii, what do you think of? Sandy beaches? Beautiful sunsets? Groundbreaking rock bands from Akron, OH? Not many people will think that last one, but thanks to a contest that MTV ran back in 1982, Devo and Hawaii are never far apart in mind. The MTV Hawaiian Holiday With Devo ran for a few months and was featured both in print and on MTV itself.
The winner would get 5 sunny day and 4 thrilling nights in Honolulu with the band. In addition, they included a cool Walkman, DEVO albums, outfits, spending money and much more. Sadly, it was a contest reserved for the 18 year and older crowd, so young spuds need not apply. As a guest of Devo, you would also get to go backstage at their concert. Which took place on February 22, 1982, at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena in Honolulu, HI. Unfortunately, no footage of that concert is online.
MTV seemed to be on a real contest-kick back in 1982. My sister was always talking about the House Party contests that she wanted to win. I think that one took place right after the Devo contest. It was a real fun time to be watching MTV, I can only imagine how crazy it was working there.
Update: The promo for this contest was removed from the internet. This appears to be part of the ongoing effort to scrub the history of original MTV from the internet, even though you can not and will not ever see this material anywhere else.
The paragraph below outlines what you would have seen in the promo.
This classic 1982 MTV promo for the MTV Hawaiian Holiday With Devo features Devo. Plus music video clips from Beautiful World, Whip It, and Satisfaction. In the image above, you can see JJ Jackson and Martha Quinn digging into the crate full of contest entries for a winner. I loved this version of MTV. Not only did they do fun contests, but they were also comically broad in their approach to things.
The winner of the contest was Dolli Markovich. Dolli, coincidentally, hailed from the same town as Devo, Akron, OH. Looking online, I cannot find a Dolli Markovich. If you are out there Dolli, I would love to hear from you and know what winning this contest was like.
I made the original promo and was just -- FINALLY -- talking to Mark Mothersbaugh about it last week at the Cruel World festival in Pasadena. He had absolutely no memory of the promotion whatsoever. I'm trying to find a decent quality file of the video; the best I have so far is this old compilation I did ages ago -- the Hawaiian Holiday promo starts at 05:37
https://vimeo.com/32113954?share=copy