#1 Korn’s “Freak on a Leash”
Click to read. In short, they didn’t play it. (P.S. YES, people have informed me of WHY this happened... see FAQ. However it still sucked.)

#2 Juvenile’s “Back That Thing Up”
It’s retired, yet they played it only 56 days. I SWEAR I’ve counted and recounted in my “log” and I SWEAR it was only on there for 56 days. Not 61, let alone 65. There were days when it didn’t make the countdown, so I’m thinking they counted thinking it was a consecutive run or something. BUT IT WASN’T. The "counter guy" must be dyslexic or something.

#3 Mandy Moore’s “Candy”
This video was on and off the countdown for a while. 61 days to be exact. But, guess what? (I bet you can guess.) They didn’t announce that it would be retired soon. You know, like they ALWAYS do on the 61st day a video is played. (Thanks to James for pointing this out. Visit his poll and vote!)

#4 ‘N Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye”
Granted I’m not the BIGGEST fan, but this still irritates me. I’m sure the teenyboppers are pissing their pants in rage over this one. They were retired at #4. That’s gotta suck after almost breaking the record for number of times at #1. But the only reason was that they were taking the votes from the people who were participating in the “Wanna Be a VJ 3” Contest. And of course without the swaying votes of the younguns, this video didn’t stand a chance. And spending it’s last few days out of the #1 spot guaranteed that it wouldn’t break the record for most TOTAL times at #1 (set by BSB’s “Larger Than Life”: 57).

New 12/18/2000 Not only were they retired at an unusual position, but that Thursday wasn’t even the day of retirement. It was only their 64th day. It is possible that the Counter Guy added the “Spring Break Top 5” countdown, but the thing is… that countdown WASN’T counted for both "Make Me Bad" by Korn and "Forgot About Dre" by Dr. Dre. Plus, it wasn't a real TRL; it was only 5 videos.

#5 Britney Spears' “Oops! I Did It Again”
#6 Eminem's “The Real Slim Shady”
#12 'N Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me
#13 Sisqo's "The Thong Song"
Possible Explanation
(The above numbers are based on when the "travesty" was discovered.)

Oops! Britney's played again, and again... by TC

Okay, I'm not quite getting what's going on here: Britney's getting treated unfairly, although I'm not sure which way.

Based on when "Oops!" debuted, it should have been retired on 7.11.00.

There was one Friday (6.2.00, Real World Marathon) that TRL did not air... so then the retire date should have been 7.12.00, last Wednesday.

Let's take a look into the past for a sec, according to MTV:
7.04.00 -- #6 -- 59 days on TRL
7.05.00 -- #9 -- 60 days on TRL
7.06.00 -- #8 -- 61 days on TRL
7.07.00 -- #8 -- 61 days on TRL <--excuse me?
7.10.00 -- #6 -- 62 days on TRL <--okay...
7.11.00 -- #8 -- 63 days on TRL
7.12.00 -- #7 -- 64 days on TRL
7.13.00 -- #5 -- 65 days, it's retired

I'm still not quite understanding this... if anyone out there does, tell me about it.

Is this a TRL "Oops" ?

Eminem
Yeah... again. Two videos in a row. TRL can't count. See above (#5) and replace Britney with Eminem.

Eminem debuted in the middle of Wanna Be A VJ 3 week, at #6, and the next day (Friday, last day of the special week), promptly fell to #10. However, it was never off the countdown, and it should have been retired on Thursday, 7.28. Instead TRL played it an extra day--its 66th.

'N Sync
Again, played 66 days. I'm really thinking that the possible explanation down there REALLY is why the counter guy is adding a day. They must not have counted that day, even though I don't see why they wouldn't.

Sisqo
Well, he was shown a grand total of 66 days too. Sorry it took me so long to catch it. This really is getting tedious.

#7 Christina's “What A Girl Wants” - thanks to Fahad
(This was a long time ago, but just discovered.) Again, the TRL "counter guy" FAILS MISERABLY. Christina's video was overplayed 3 times, for a grand total of 68 days on the countdown. I really think I should be the new counter. I can get up to 65 without screwing up.

#8 Backstreet Boys' “The One”
This is a big one. The 61st AND 65th days went by without a mention of retirement. And, the grand total: BSB was on the show for 75 days. SEVENTY-FIVE! The week before it was retired, TRL was in SoCal, and this video spurred the conversation that TRL might not be live. See #9.

#9 The Conspiracy -- Is TRL NOT live?

#10 Korn's "Falling Away From Me" - Thanks to Doug
(Again, just discovered)
Korn's second video to be featured as a travesty, "Falling Away From Me" was played a total of 70 times, second only to Backstreet's "The One." It debuted on Nov. 9, 1999, and was retired on Feb. 16, 2000, instead of on Feb. 9th.

#11 Orgy's "Blue Monday - Thanks to Doug
Orgy's video started on TRL on and off, and then stayed strong on the countdown. Its last few days on the show, scattered over a couple weeks, added up to--I bet you can guess--61 days. However, "counter guy" sucked again and Orgy's retirement was never announced.

#14 Kid Rock's "Bawitdaba" - Written by Phil K., thanks to him and Doug
Here's another one of those "The TRL guys can't count to 65" cases that happened over a year ago, but nobody picked it up until now. And it bugs me because one of my all-time favorite videos was retired a day early.

KID ROCK'S "BAWITDABA" VIDEO WAS ONLY PLAYED 64 TIMES!

The video debuted on Monday 4/12/99. After being off the countdown on Tuesday, it made a consecutive run starting that Wednesday. Since there was no TRL on Friday 6/4/99, "Bawitdaba"'s 65th show would have been on Tuesday 7/13/99. Yet TRL retired the video on Monday 7/12/99. So Juvenile's "Back That Thing Up" was not the only video to be cheated on the show.

#15 Limp Bizkit's "N 2 Gether Now" - Thanks to Doug
Debuting on 10.19.99, Limp Bizkit's "N 2 Gether Now" started its streak to retirement. The first week, it was played along with "Rearranged," and as inconsistent as that was for TRL, the counter guy made it worse. It retired on 1.18.00, after only 63 days of airplay. Once, during its run, TRL played "Rearranged" instead (on 10.26), but other than that there are no other excuses for the two missed days.

#16 Christina’s “Come On Over (All I Want Is You)”
Here I thought that after all the videos that could be affected by the possible explanation had retired and left, the Counter Guy wouldn’t fail again.

However, I was wrong.

I suppose it’s possible that they weren’t counting the one day they played “Ven Conmigo” (which is void, because they played it the day before retirement and THAT counted) or 9.8.00, when they played her VMA performance, but that’s pretty cheap... she still made the countdown and people still voted for her. This video was played an extra day, definitely.

Although I have to admit that I’m not THAT angry about the inconsistency, because a lot of people have written to tell me that I should be new Counter Person. Oh, and Carson mentioned me because of this video travesty. That might have something to do with it too. :)

#17 Friday 11.03.2000, “Tie” at #1
A Travesty due to popular request... an idea TRL apparently doesn’t understand
Coincidentally occurring on the same day as the “mention,” "Shape of My Heart" by Backstreet Boys and "This I Promise You" by 'N Sync tied for the number one spot.

Oh, wait, no they didn’t. It’s was “virtually” a tie (thanks to Carson for that appropriate word).

Because ‘N Sync had hardly given the BSB competition for the #1 spot, it’s obvious that SOMH was the real #1 video. If ‘N Sync had beaten them for the first time, enough excitement could have been procured for that, and the whole trivia thing that happened wouldn’t have been needed.

Instead of playing SOMH at #1 (where the official online MTV charts put it), TRL hyped the rivalry and held a trivia contest between BSB and ‘N Sync fans. ‘N Sync won (fair and square, although we could bring up the alleged ideas that the BSB time clock started early or that Carson didn’t tell the BSB girl she could pass before they started--two things brought to my attention), and “This I Promise You” was #1.

The worst thing is, they didn’t play “Shape of My Heart” (the supposed NUMBER TWO video) AT ALL.

TRL isn’t about who knows the most trivia. It’s about which video gets the most votes. That’s it. Not only did they lose credibility, add to the media stereotype that stereotypes other things (like the rivalry), but they proved how horrible inconsistency, and not following the simple rules, is.

(Plus, it was horribly annoying: the ‘N Sync fan kept repeating “Bye bye bye Backstreet” and the BSB fan was mentally unstable and threatened to kill her, and Carson. Not healthy.)

#18 Limp Bizkit’s “Faith” - Thanks to Doug
This video debuted on 11.12.1998 and retired on 2.24.1999, after 64 days on the countdown. Right… not 65.

More TRL mistakes... New 12.29.2000
#19 The Video Battle: 12.13.2000
Again, due to popular request. And, of course, because TRL “broke” its “rules”
The Video Battle changed the actual results. For obvious reasons, that’s not fair.

It was advertised in the beginning of the show as an “extension” of the voting. It wasn’t though, because REAL voting would let callers vote for ANYTHING, not just a choice of two videos.

From Michael: Anything that goes against basic TRL procedures is a travesty. All the videos should be played 65 times, and retirement should be announced on the 61st day. The videos should be ranked by the number of votes they received, video 1 gets the most votes, etc. The video battles went against the second set of TRL "rules" so it should be a travesty.

Well put. The placement of videos on this day depended only upon three random callers, who for some reason had the power to override the difference in votes already established. Which of course allowed Jennifer Lopez to “surf” the countdown and land at #1.

The battle also interrupted the streak the Backstreet Boys had going at #1… the video was on its 20th day in a row. That’s only 6 days short of the record. People vote SO MUCH for that video, and for others, because, surprisingly, things like streak records mean something to them. Ironically, the video, after that day, only had 25 days left… not enough to rebuild a record-breaking streak.

All in all… travesty. Out of all the emails I received about this, only ONE liked the idea.

Feel free to verify at the ARCHIVE

Possible Explanation:
The reason why Britney "Oops........" and Eminem "the Real Slim Shady" were played 66 days was because all TRL sites, like yours, counted the Memorial Day TRL Big Deal countdown, which I don't think they counted. Two videos that were out around Memorial Day were Korn "Make Me Bad" and Hanson "If Only." They were played 65 days and didn't make that countdown.
--Doug

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