Top Ten | Requests for TRL before its cancellation

After an impressive 10-year run, MTV's landmark show TRL will air its final episode in November. Though the show has gone through some changes to stay in touch with young audiences with increasing levels of ADD — including incremental shortening of music video clips — we in the arts section think there might be some changes the network hasn't thought of yet which have the potential to save the show. Rather than send them a letter, we thought the show would appreciate it if we voiced our requests here.

10. Bring back Carson Daly: Let's face it: you probably either loved him or, if you were a teenage guy, you probably hated him for his ability to talk to girls your age without breaking a sweat. Yet he was still TRL's only truly memorable VJ; try as they might, the show just couldn't find anyone who was quite as big a tool as Daly. I guess we'll never know whether he would have kept that stylin' swoosh haircut in the face of impending baldness.

9. Restart the boy band craze: TRL, it's time to realize your potential and consider that, although you may have gotten tired of interviewing what seemed to be the same post-pubescent pretty boy, most of America has not. We wanna see more young men who aren't afraid of dressing alike, singing cheesy lyrics and frosting their tips. You know you have the power, so let's get it done.

8. Fix the live performance sound problems: Everyone would get excited when they heard that their favorite band was slated to play on TRL, but in the end, it was never worth getting excited for five minutes of way-too-loud guitars and drummers looking confused because their bass drum just fell off the stage. All the while, the studio audience is totally phoning it in while trying to act like they know who these people on stage are.

7. Stop blocking traffic: As if there weren't already enough tourists, vendors and homeless people to make Times Square into a hellhole, TRL had to also make it an easy target for pedophiles. "Psst. Did you hear that every day at 3:00 p.m., hundreds of 13-year-old girls ditch their parents, crowd around on the sidewalk,and ‘go wild'?"

6. Play more than 30 seconds of the videos: "Here it is, guys, the second chorus of the song you called in 6,000 times to vote for!" The sad part is that no one was really watching for the video itself anyway. They could just print out the list, hold it up to the camera to let us read it, and then have monkeys salsa dance in drag for the rest of the hour. We have that idea copyrighted, by the way.

5. Sedate in-studio audiences: The only way to actually hear music on TRL was to try desperately to tune out the overexcited rabid throngs of tweens screaming about anything and everything in six-second bursts, followed by the obligatory "Wooooo!" Canned laughter and applause never seemed so good until TRL crammed "music appreciators" into the studio and told them to make "live" more alive than it should ever be.

4. Eliminate shout-outs: Leave out the shouts, for Jesse's sake! We've never been interested in watching a bunch of tube-top-wearing, screaming fangirls yell into the mic, letting us know that they love their boyfriend, mother or mother's boyfriend. If that wasn't enough, we were forced to read the shout-out messages on the bottom of the screen throughout your show. By the way, HEY MOM I'M AT THE DAILY OFFICE WRITING THE TOP TEN!!!

3. Resurrect Jesse Camp: America's favorite "who wants to be a VJ" is … wait, is he really dead? Well, hold on a second, my séance cloak is in the laundry. You brought the goat's blood, right?

2. Play my requests: Wasn't MTV based on the slogan, "I Want my MTV!"? Every time you watch the show, your favorite video would be "on deck" and VJs assured you it might be on the next episode. How about you play a music video that people actually want to see? Start with Prodigy's "Smack My B-tch Up" and move on to "Justify My Love" by Madonna. That will get you some viewers.

1. Incorporate reality TV into the countdown: Why do you think that shows like "The Hills" and "Cribs" do so well on MTV? Viewers don't want music videos anymore, they want reality! Here's what you can do: vote off VJs in the middle of the show, have a candid backstage catfight between Alyssa Milano and Kennedy, film Damien Fahey having a breakdown because he hasn't had his mineral water, or film Daly and zombified Camp in a long lip-locking session. Now that's good TV.