TV & VIDEO - Sept. 6, 1988

From our Department of Irony: Dick Clark is hosting MTV’s fifth annual video awards show Wednesday night. The irony? As it happens, Clark may owe part of his success to the early failure of music videos--in 1956 when “American Bandstand” brought him on as a substitute host. The original concept for “Bandstand” was for two disc jockeys, Bob Horn and Lee Stewart, to serve as hosts of a show that would include film clips of singers doing their songs. But Clark said the idea wasn’t received well, and the decision to go back to an all-dance format was made.