Remember VH1's Behind the Music? It started in 1997 and ran for seven years. The stories were painfully similar: meager beginnings, early success, epic tragedy, and finally meteoric fame. The direction and editing of the documentaries, themselves, were like an opus of bad hair, groupies, and cocaine. Hot, right? VH1 apparently thinks so. The network has just ordered 10 more episodes of BTM. Confirmed stars include Lil Wayne and Scott Weiland.
"It felt like the time is right," said Jeff Olde, VH1 executive vice president original programming. "There's all sorts of new artists on the scene who have emerged and have these great stories. And there's other artists that we always wanted to do the first time around."
VH1 had a reminder of the show's popularity last fall when it aired a well-received 90-minute live New Kids on the Block "Behind the Music" special. The event showed the group's first public performance in more than a decade along with a "BTM" retrospective.
"We always hear about the show, even now," Olde said. "It's amazing how much affection viewers have for it." (yahoo.com)
VH1 will update the show's format for 2009, but not too much. Jim
Forbes is back as the show's narrator, though the new episodes will add
more current footage to anchor the story in the present day, just as
the New Kids special intercut with a live event. (yahoo.com)
Of course, we have a special place in our hearts for BTM -- right next to our special 1990s place for Ecstasy and a booming economy -- so we're pleased that they won' t be messing with it. We don't care if it's lame, we'd still hit that. Any show that's good enough to get an episode-long Simpsons parody is a keeper. Also: "More Cowbell."
