A handful of freshmen got rocking and rolling April 16 when MTV's VJ for a Day show invited a group of Class of 2004'ers to become members of the show's audience.
Freshman class president Eli Goldsmith explained, "They called me a few weeks ago and asked me if I would ask some Princeton students to be in the audience." Goldsmith — who already knew the producer — e-mailed his class, and the first to respond, Goldsmith said, got to go.
The group of 18 freshmen left Princeton before most students were awake that day, and when they arrived at the MTV studio at Times Square, they were given "special VIP wrist bands," Goldsmith said.
On the show, contestants try to convince the audience that he or she is the best VJ. Members of the audience get to dissect the contestants' performances and then pick a winner. The winner then returns the next day to attempt to retain the title of VJ for a Day.
Two shows were filmed the day Goldsmith and his classmates came. One aired that afternoon and the other the next day.
"MTV was a blast," Teniqua Crawford '04, a participant, said in an e-mail — she got an off-screen kiss on the cheek from "hot VJ Jon Jon," one of the contestants in the show. "When he won the competition he waved my national flag on camera for all of America to see."
Crawford, who is from Australia, continued, "I found it interesting because I was exposed to something very American." She said she also found it interesting that the show's hosts changed their clothes between shows so that it appeared the two episodes were taped on different days.
Barnaby Lyons '04 also went on the field trip. "You know those idiots you see on TV . . . well that was us," he said.
Lyons was asked on the show what he thought of one of the contestants. "My first reply was somewhat too sexual . . . They liked it at first. [The contestant] complained, so I had to change it," Lyons said.
Goldsmith and Tyler Mincey '04 also spoke on the show.
"We got to hang out with some of the producers and the host of the show," Goldsmith said, noting that they took pictures with the host of the show.
Goldsmith said MTV has called him several times since the taping of the show, hoping more students will come to be in the audience. "I want to kind of form a relationship between MTV and the class of 2004," Goldsmith said.
He said he hopes MTV will ask University students to talk about issues on their show Choose or Lose, or "maybe do Unplugged in Richardson Auditorium."
"Since Princeton is only an hour away, it is a good opportunity for them," Goldsmith noted. "You never know what could happen."
And members of the Class of 2004 seem to like the idea as well.
"Cheers to big man Eli," Lyons said.
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