Pop Up Video

Pop Up Video is a music video anthology series on VH-1.

What sets this show apart from other music video anthology shows is its use of little "info nuggets" that pop into the screen (with a distinctive "bloop" sound) during the video. Most of the nuggets feature background info and amusing trivia about the video being featured. Some also have background info marginally related to something featured in the video, and many of the nuggets add snarky commentary.

In its original incarnation, Pop Up Video ran from 1996 to 2002. Happily, it was brought back in 2011 with newer music videos and redesigned info nuggets.

Occasionally, classic episodes of Pop Up Video air on VH-1 Classic, although they only run about the same sixteen episodes or so.

Tropes used in Pop Up Video include:
  • Back to Front: Gleefully played with during the video for "Return to Innocence" by Enigma.[1] They put the end nugget at the beginning, set the regular nuggets up to appear with a reversed version of the standard pop up effect, put the regular nuggets in reverse order, and ended the video with the standard intro info.
  • Brick Joke: When "Always Something There To Remind Me" by Naked Eyes was featured. In one scene, singer Pete Byrne crosses the street and is hit by an inattentive driver. An info nugget says the director admonished the driver saying "Don't run over Pete." Near the end of the video, several mnemonics are listed including an unknown one called DROP. What does that stand for? Don't Run Over Pete.
  • Caption Humor
  • Deadpan Snarker: The info nuggets.
  • Elephant in the Living Room: The 2011 revival mentions this trope by name in the treatment of "She Bangs" by Ricky Martin. The nuggets on that video didn't outright mention Martin's homosexuality (he came out about a decade after releasing the song), but the captions did acknowledge that particular elephant in the room (complete with a rainbow graphic on one nugget), and added an elephant-shaped nugget every so often.
  • Executive Meddling: Billy Joel and the Police didn't like the treatment the show gave their videos, so said videos were pulled from future airings.
  • Follow the Leader: After the show became a hit, other shows (such as Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Avatar: The Last Airbender, though the latter being made many years later) started adding their own (unofficial) info nuggets to their own shows. Several of these knockoffs were made fun of on the production company's website.
  • Info Drop: The premise is to provide a whole string of these.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Aside from Pop Up '80s receiving a VHS / DVD release in 1999, the series has never seen a proper DVD release (presumably because of music rights issues).
    • The official "Pop Up" versions of TV shows are even worse when it comes to copyright issues. The Pop Up Brady episodes don't air anymore at all, because they were exclusive to Nick at Nite and TV Land, and neither network shows Brady Bunch reruns anymore. In addition, Pop Up Millionaire was apparently ABC-exclusive, and is never shown on GSN's reruns.
  • Pop Up Trivia: The Trope Maker.
  • Running Gag: Whenever a video focuses on someone's buttocks, an info nugget with the word "But" pops up over said buttocks. It's typically used to humorously transition to another bit of info.
  • Shown Their Work: And how! Just watching one video on this show gives you a whole wealth of information about the artist, song, and video.
    • They did make at least one mistake which they've owned up to. In the video for Sheryl Crow's "Everyday Is A Winding Road", they claimed that she wore a blonde wig while working as a backup dancer for Michael Jackson. When they featured another Sheryl Crow video, "My Favorite Mistake", they admitted their error and mentioned that she actually dyed her hair blonde.
  • Signature Sound Effect: bwup!
  • Uncancelled: Oh yes.
  1. ↑ Which, for those of you not in the know, is already a trippy Back to Front video on its own.
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