Video on Trial
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| Video on Trial | |
|---|---|
| Image:Img videoontrial.gif Video on Trial logo | |
| Format | Comedy Critique |
| Starring | Various Judges |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| No. of episodes | 53 (as of January 21, 2007) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 Minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | MuchMusic |
| Original run | August 15, 2005 – present |
Video on Trial (abbreviated as VOT) is a half-hour MuchMusic television program where a panel of musicians, comedians and entertainment columnists critique music videos.
In the opening credits, the narrator describes the show as being "the show that will never rest until all music videos are brought to justice".
Contents |
[edit] About Video on Trial
[edit] Show structure
The concept of the show is to put a set of five music videos in a fictional court-room with five comedians acting as the jurors; they poke fun of and question each artist's behaviour in each video. Also, artists' personal lives and off-set behaviour are mocked by the critics in relation to the music video.
In the conclusion of the TV program, humourous verdicts are given to the artists which most often relate to them in real-life. For example, in the first episode, Gwen Stefani and her video for "Hollaback Girl" were sentenced to "stay 400 metres away from any Harajuku Girls."
[edit] About The Accused Videos
Most of the videos featured are generally recent, with at least one of the five videos per episode still being in rotation. Older videos are still featured, though, mostly those from the early '00s, and popular videos from 1997 to 1999 have been played on rare occasions.
Special editions of VOT have occurred. Several were '80s Specials known as "Totally 80's" that featured classic 1980s videos. The jury was dressed up in 1980s-styled clothing, and the black background behind them was replaced with various neon colours. Another special was Christmas-themed that featured holiday-themed videos. The jury was dressed up in holiday sweaters or Santa outfits. A special Centerfold Edition was also made, featuring three Playboy models on the jury. As well, a 90s spinoff was created, ("So 90s"), poking fun at artists famous in the 1990s. Some other special episodes, were One Hit Wonder Video On Trial, where the background was gold and the announcer's voice was different. Another was Totally Naked, in which all jurors were naked.
The most accused artist that has been on Video on Trial is Justin Timberlake with 10 accused videos. So far, he has 4 with N'Sync, 5 by himself, and one with Snoop Dogg. The runner up with 8 accused videos is Gwen Stefani. Gwen has a total of 5 videos judged as a solo artist, and 3 with the rock group, No Doubt.
Oddly enough, despite being aired on a Canadian music network, only seven of the featured videos so far were made by Canadian artists (ones by Massari, Shawn Desman, Avril Lavigne, Simple Plan, Tom Green, Nickelback, and finally Hedley), which has brought up a few complaints from some fans.
[edit] Jurors
Some jurors make multiple appearances on the show, and the ones who appear most often are generally Canadian stand-up comedians, including (alphabetically) Nicole Arbour, Trevor Boris, Debra DiGiovanni, Dini Dimakos, Sabrina Jalees, Ron Josol, David Kerr, Alex Nussbaum, Nikki Payne, Darrin Rows, Ron Sparks and Fraser Young. By contrast, some judges make just one appearance and never return.
The following have all appeared as a juror at least once:
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Canadian Stand-up Comedians
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Musicians
Television
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Radio Personalities
Playboy Models
Other
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[edit] Episode Guide
A complete VOT episode guide is available on the separate page: List of Video on Trial episodes.
[edit] Verdicts
A list of verdicts is available on the episode guide.
[edit] Quotes
A list of some of the show's best known quotes can also be found on the episode guide.
[edit] Trivia
| Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- Almost every guest on the show has appeared as "themselves", but there have been a few notable exceptions:
- Sean Cullen appeared as a "Stand-in for Ron Sparks" in season two during one video (after Ron said that he couldn't stand it), "Smack That" by Akon.
- ????? appeared as "Hugh Phukovsky" (a rock-and-roll comedian).
- Ron Sparks appears so frequently on Video on Trial that in newer episodes he is listed as various fake occupations instead of just "comedian". He has been billed as such things as (in order of use):
- a handsome bachelor
- a movie star
- a hand model
- a member of the Justice League
- the president of the Shawn Desman Fan Club (an in-joke, as Ron often makes fun of Desman)
- a Man About Town
- a Ghost Whisperer
- a haberdasher
- a vampire slayer
- the inventor of techno music (coincidentally during an episode featuring a techno music video)
- a Crocodile Hunter
- a ninja assassin
- a macaroni artist
- a non-union stuntman
- a birdhouse architect
- Star of "Sorority Shootout"
- not cool in the '80s (During the "'80s Superstars" episode)
- Santa's biggest elf (During the "Holiday Crap" episode)
- Debra DiGiovanni has made the most appearances as a juror, with 16 as of November 19, 2006. She is also one of the show's most popular jurors.
- Debra DiGiovanni and Trevor Boris went on tour together with a standup comedy show in January, 2007.
- Hugh Phukovsky pulled all the "Video on Trial" listings from his MySpace page, claiming "I gave those fuckers some GOLD!" and that they cut it all out with "humourless editing".
- The sentence for Paris Hilton's "Nothing In This World" video was to "have a Video On Trial viewer add her picture to the Wikipedia entry for 'loser.'" Although there is no such Wikipedia page for "loser", rather just a disambiguation page, fans of the show subsequently added her photo to Wiki pages that the disambiguation page led to.
- Oddly enough, the episode containing this verdict aired shortly after a Wikipedia entry covering all of the show's verdicts was considered for deletion.
- In April 2007, MuchMusic's Video on Trial web forum was shut down (along with threads for several other MuchMusic shows. MuchMusic's registered users were invited to vote in several polls, here are the final results:
- Nikki Payne (71%) defeated Sabrina Jalees (28%) in a "Who Do You Like More" showdown voted on by MuchMusic website subscribers. Nikki Payne was only on a few episodes but was popular.
- Ron Sparks (69%) defeated Fraser Young (30%) in another showdown.
- Jully Black won the "WORST JUDGE" poll:
- Jully Black - 25%
- Sabrina Jalees - 21%
- Trevor Boris - 15%
- OTHER - 13%
- Nikki Payne - 11%
- Debra DiGiovanni - 9%
- Ron Josol - 4%
- Ron Sparks won the "BEST JUDGE" poll:
- Ron Sparks - 32%
- Debra DiGiovanni - 15%
- OTHER - 13%
- Fraser Young - 9%
- David Kerr - 9%
- Sabrina Jalees - 7%
- Nikki Payne - 6%
- Anna Von Francis - 3%
- George Pettit - 2%
- Esthero - 0%
- It should be noted that most of the "OTHER" votes were for Trevor Boris, whose name was for some reason left off the poll, likely because it was posted very early in the show's run.
- In unofficial polls Aaron Merke seems to be the winner of "Judge vs. Judge in Hand-to-Hand Combat" and Debra DiGiovanni seems to have defeated Sabrina Jalees in a "Who Do You Like More?" showdown.
- The Bloodhound Gang and Weird Al Yankovic are the only two cast members (so far) to have appeared on the show both as jurors and artists in their accused videos ("Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo" and "White & Nerdy", respectively).
- Musician Jully Black actually critiqued a portion of her own video "5x Love" at the end of an episode in which she was a juror (keeping with the tone with the show, she didn't go easy on it). However, no other judges were involved.
- Black actually insisted that her own video be included, and that she be the one to criticize it.
- Sunsilk has parodied the show in a series of commercials for their hair care products. The spoof is called "Hair On Trial" and features frequent VOT cast member Trevor Boris as the juror endorsing the product. Not surprisingly, the commercials usually ran during airings of the show.
- On a Kelevision radio broadcast, guests Darren Frost, Boomer Phillips and Aaron Berg discussed the show and its shortcomings (Frost and Phillips had both appeared on VOT). Frost was especially upset about the show, particularly the small fees that comedian guests were paid. To date he has not appeared on the show again.
- Jacob Hoggard of Hedley was suppose to appear in an episode of video on trial, but backed out at the last second. Instead, the jurors got to critique their video for "She's So Sorry".
[edit] Most Accused Artists
Justin Timberlake has had the most videos tried on the show so far, with ten in total (four as a solo artist, four with 'N Sync, and two collaborations - one with Snoop Dogg and one with T.I.).
Gwen Stefani takes second place with a total of nine videos accused on the show so far. Gwen has done six videos as a solo artist, and three with her band, No Doubt.
P!nk, Christina Aguilera, Beyoncé, and 50 Cent are tied for third place, each with seven of their videos tried so far. P!nk has had six of her videos featured, and so has Christina. Along with that, they both collaborated with Mya, & Lil' Kim for "Lady Marmalade". Beyoncé has done five videos by herself, one with Shakira, and one with Destiny's Child for "Video on Trial: Holiday Crap". 50 Cent has had four of his videos featured, along with two collaborations with G-Unit. However, it should be worth noting that 50 Cent's video for "Candy Shop" was actually tried twice on VOT, once during a regular episode and another time in the "Centerfold Edition" (Trevor Boris actually joked during the latter episode that 50 cent had appeared the most times on the show, and gave him a mock "lifetime achievement" award for sucking).
Fergie is in fourth place, being accused with 4 solo videos, and 3 with the Black Eyed Peas.
- Fergie (three with the Black Eyed Peas, and four by herself)
[edit] See also
- Stars on Trial
- LOL!
- Video on Trial: Holiday Crap
- Video on Trial: 80s Superstars
