Money for Nothing by Dire Straits beat out Take On Me and three other nominees to win the 1986 MTV Video of the Year award. The video was one of the first uses of computer animation, intercut with rotoscoped concert footage and just a little T&A parody.

Ian Pearson and Gavin Blair created the animation, and the studio they later founded was responsible for another milestone in computer animation, the Saturday morning cartoon ReBoot.

Composer and lead vocalist Mark Knopfler said the lyrics were transcribed from, or at least based on, what a real electronics store customer said while watching music videos on the televisions there. It’s use of an f-word (six letters, not four) later caused it to be banned by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. Like offensive stereotypes in some 1940s cartoons, that slur can be heard as what some loser might mutter in the 80s, even though we know better now.