Even with their annual Video Music Awards, MTV is seen less and less by people as a music-first channel. People will cite their numerous reality shows and say the channel hasn't been about music videos for a while, but they were in the full music video swing back in 1992, when The Real World first debuted.
That said, they hit a weird swing in 2005 with Next, a dating game show that ran for six seasons until 2008.
The premise for Next was pretty nuts: a person would go on blind dates with people who sat on the "Next Bus," a.k.a. an RV that was located in a secluded area. The single person could reject the contestants with a "Next" at any time, either during their interaction or right when the person first got off the Bus. As the show got popular, it seemed like MTV went out of their way to pick people who were obviously outrageous—or just plain out there.
That's where Dicky comes in.
In the above clip, Amanda is a 19-year-old looking for a guy who was rough around the edges. There were four normal bros on the Bus... and then there was Dicky, a 21-year-old (at the time) wearing a red suit and a matching hat. Dude was clearly here to win, or hit some Halloween party as a weird pimp/bassist of a '70s funk band, complete with wild red bell-bottoms.
The outfit of a winner, honestly.
You knew the sh*t was about to hit the fan when he got picked and start doing a creepy Birdman hand rub/laugh thing. And then we learned a little more about him, thanks to those random-ass facts Next provided for every contestant exiting the Bus. We're not sure who would be attracted to a guy who not only "collects Hawaiian shirts," but "does his homework while pooping," but it sure wasn't Amanda. She hit homeboy with the "NEXT" seven seconds after seeing him step off the Bus in all of his glory. His response?
"Too bad, you couldn't handle the Dicky," he said, before hitting a weird spin move that ended with him putting his hand on his belt like he might, ahem, show her "the Dicky." What's wild is this wasn't even the first time he was on the show!
That first time, he only lasted 14 seconds, but those extra seven seconds were mostly because he couldn't hear homegirl screaming "NEEEEEXT" immediately as he walked off the Bus. He was rocking the same red pimp hat, but this time with a too-tight, too-small leather vest. He also dropped a "You don't screw the Dicky the Dicky screws you!" to the camera, because...ratings? Nonsense? Who knows.
On both episodes, he pulled out a recorder and serenaded the other contestants, because that must be what you do when you're rejected on a MTV reality show and you kind of look like a "member of Poison."
So, what happened to Dicky? This Reddit thread not only says that Dicky works/worked for Google, but it would appear that Dicky is regularly on Reddit, talking politics, Fallout 4, and much more. That's interesting as SHIT. We just hope he's found a woman who can handle the Dicky, or at least someone who can tolerate his pimp hat and recorder.
