Joan Myers, les garland’s secretary: The first interview of the day was Jack Nicholson. Mark Goodman asked him some questions. And all Jack says is “I sure wish I knew how to play guitar.”

Brian Diamond: After Jack, everything was cake. Mark Gastineau of the Jets was there; we talked to him. The Pretenders, Phil Collins—got them. All kinds of characters were running around backstage. I went up to the Beach Boys’ manager, explained what we wanted, and he said, “Hang on a sec.” He then sits down on a bench and puts his arm around Brian Wilson and says, “O.K., Brian, we are going to do this interview, and we are going to feel good about this interview.” I was like, “Wow!”

Joan Myers: The only one who wasn’t very cool was Madonna. She had tons of people around her saying, “Don’t look at her.” We were all “Excuse me? I just had coffee with Bob Dylan and this one and that one, and she is saying, ‘Don’t look at me’?”

Tom Freston: It was great validation for us. ABC was there, but they telescoped everything into three hours, and our ratings were in line with theirs. We were viewed as a real, legitimate player in the music and the media business. We were the centerpiece of a force in the culture. “Live Aid” took us up to a whole other level.

Sue Binford: That was a moment when you thought, This has gone beyond being a 24-hour music channel that is playing a lot of bands and selling a lot of records. That was a moment when you really appreciated where MTV was taking you.

The self-congratulation was brief. In late August a last-minute snag in the negotiations with Ross allowed Viacom to up the bidding and seize MTV.

John Sykes: We had the press release written up announcing the buyout, and we took one of the Forstmann brothers to the Springsteen concert at the Meadowlands to celebrate. And at the eleventh hour, Viacom came in and offered $525 million. We went back to Forstmann Little, and Teddy Forstmann said, “No cable channel is worth over half a billion dollars. We’re out.”

Tom Freston: The new owners came in, and the first thing they say is “We know that a lot of you have stock options and that you expect them to be paid out. We’re not sure that legally we have to do that.” Those were their first words. So, like, “Not only do you not know us, but we’re going to fuck you” was the message. Then it was like, “Whoa, this party is over.”

John Sykes: They spoke to us at a management retreat. It kind of felt like I was watching a Republican convention. Basically they said, “You’re a bunch of kids. We’re going to show you how to run this.” It was like having your grandfather telling you, “Do this, don’t do that.” At that point, we all knew we were gone.

Kevin Metheny: I guess if there was one big blinding glimpse of the obvious it was that the limo rides around the block were about to be over. It seemed like a good idea to take the check and go.

Many of those who’d created MTV did go, among them Sykes, Brafman, Brindle, Rachlin, and Garland. The original V.J.’s soon departed as well, and bit by increasing bit MTV replaced its all-video programming with a more traditional “show” format, covering aspects of the youth lifestyle beyond music. Ordering the initial changes was Bob Pittman, who replaced David Horowitz as MTV president and C.E.O. in December 1985. But after eight months Pittman resigned to embark on a high-profile career path that eventually led to his current position, president of America OnLine. Tom Freston took over Pittman’s duties at MTV, which received a welcome jolt of support when Sumner Redstone took over Viacom in June 1987. Freston continues as C.E.O. of MTV Networks, a multibillion-dollar combine that transmits in 12 languages and includes Nickelodeon, VH1, and Country Music Television (CMT). In 1994, Sykes returned to lead a top-to-bottom renovation of VH1, where he remains as president. Under the leadership of another veteran of the old days, Judy McGrath, the MTV mother ship recently launched “MTV2,” whose programming is close to that of the channel that changed the culture, one minute past midnight, August 1, 1981.

John Lack: I said one time, “Guys, you are going to get up on a wave, and this baby is going to roll a long way. Because we are onto something here that this country is going to jump on. So don’t fuck this up, we have a big one ahead of us.” And they believed it—because if you looked on the screen, it was the most exciting thing you ever saw. It was television that didn’t look like television. This was rock ’n’ roll. And for my generation, rock ’n’ roll was our passion, our poetry, really. I mean, “Desperado” is still as good as anything in any poetry book. Who said, “You better let somebody love you before it’s too late”? Wasn’t Shakespeare, wasn’t Yeats, it was Don Henley. You better let somebody love you before it’s too late. That was this generation.

Robert Sam Anson is a Vanity Fair contributing editor.