In 1999 I was finishing up my undergraduate degree, living with my girlfriend, going out drinking five nights a week.
Today, I’m not using that undergrad degree (or my Masters degree), I still live with my girlfriend (she shares my last name now), and I might go out drinking five nights a year.
Things have certainly changed for me over the last decade. MTV has also undergone some major changes. You see, in 1999 they still played music videos on MTV. When we weren’t watching them as our primary form of entertainment, we’d at least have them on in the background while playing a game of Risk or Star Wars Monopoly.
When the only MTV shows were shows about music videosWatching music videos on MTV was the only way I would have possibly seen the advertisements for an upcoming original program on the network. Nowadays, there could be an upcoming show on MTV called “Howie Decker’s Fart Olympics (Happy Valentine’s Day sweetie!), and I’d have no idea because I haven’t watched one second of MTV programming in several years.
In 1999 we were teased with ads for upcoming MTV original programming, specifically a show called Undressed. The ads weren’t necessarily what piqued our interest, but when my then girlfriend/now wife and I caught the first few minutes of the pilot episode, we were hooked. Undressed was basically a younger, hipper, edgier night time soap opera; and it seemed nothing was off limits.
Created and executive produced by British director Roland Joffé, Undressed ran on MTV from July 1999 through Summer 2002. They packed 6 seasons into three years, each season running at least 30 episodes, the final season airing 52. Undressed was an anthology, meaning different characters and storylines were presented each season and even from episode to episode within each season. The show was relationship-based, focusing on characters whose ages ranged from high school through mid-twenties. The series was on television’s front lines with regard to examining gay relationships and depicting sexual situations in a brazen and candid way. The show won the GLAAD Media Award in 2003.
MTV’s tagline for the show was “No Subject is Too Taboo”. Undressed was as addicting as it was shocking- and it had to be to keep viewers coming back 5 nights a week. In a way, I think the show being on every night added to it’s strong grip on us. If it had been a once-weekly show, some of its momentum may have been lost; and in the pre-DVR days, had we missed one ep we might have given up on trying to catch up and connect the dots (although I’m sure we could have assumed that someone stripped down to their underwear in any ep we missed).
In typical soap opera fashion, the show featured actors and actresses that had largely been unheard of. It’s interesting to go back through the show’s alumni and see how many of them have gone on to Hollywood success:
Christina Hendricks
Katie Sackhoff
Other notable Undressed Alumni:
Adam Brody
Sarah Lancaster
Autumn Reeser
Brandon Routh
Taran Killam
Bree Turner
Jay Hernandez
Chad Michael Murray
Rachelle Lefevre
Undressed began running in syndication on Logo in 2010.
Share your thoughts on MTV’s Undressed! Was it a guilty pleasure? Still won’t admit to watching it? Was it off of your radar completely? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook & Twitter!
Man, I’ll bet Christina Hendricks wishes she could have that footage destroyed! I’ve always wanted to see Undressed, as I know some Power Rangers alums went on to star in a few arcs. Unfortunately, I didn’t have cable in my life until about 3 years ago. And I don’t get Logo, so I guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer.
Sidenote: Sarah Lancaster may have been on Undressed, but she got her start on Saved by the Bell: The New Class. A lot of people jumped ship once Zach and the gang left, but it was the breeding ground for a lot of night time soap/direct-to-DVD stars. I think Sarah’s probably the best thing to come from that incarnation.
I LOVE Sarah Lancaster. I was aware she was on SBTB: The New Class, for some reason I thought that was on post-1999, but you are correct. She continued dazzling most recently on Chuck – thanks for commenting Will, and by the way – your sticker is in the mail!
Yep, that’s where I know Sarah from too is SBTB. I was happy to see her on a normal show I would watch, like Chuck.
Never really watched the show. The memory that I have from the couple of episodes that I remember catching is that the acting was generally terrible.
I watched it a few times, but I never really thought it was that provocative or shocking. Parts of it were like a good soft-core porn without the naughty bits, but it never held my attention. If I wanted to watch a porn (soft or hard core) I would just watch one, the very slight titlation of Undressed never really did it for me.