The 25 Most Memorable Moments in MTV Spring Break History

Image via Complex Original

Year: 1987

Back in the day, MTV put on some seriously cool contests. You could win John Cougar Mellencamp playing at your backyard barbecue, or The Who doing your taxes—just over-the-top stuff. But the Beastie Boys weren't quite ready for primetime when MTV made them the stars of its Spring Break Body Snatchers promo. While the contest seemed kind of funny on the drawing board, in execution it was a mess. 

Year: 1990

Up until 1990, the acts that played Spring Break had been very white, a reflection of the music played on the channel itself. But riding a crest of popularity in 1990, Yo! MTV Raps took its show down to Daytona Beach. MC Hammer, Digital Underground and Third Bass all played, but the watershed moment was Biz Markie doing "Just a Friend."

"You just see a sea of white faces, and they know every single lyric," show host Ed Lover recalled. "It was like, Yo, this is dope!"

Year: 1992

Pauly Shore showed up in a wrestling singlet to oil-wrestle two girls within the squared circle. Pauly Shore, girls, and oil—these were all required elements of MTV shows back in the day.

Year: 1993

"Hot body" contests are a staple of spring breaks everywhere, and the most eye-popping swimsuit that ever graced an MTV catwalk may have been this patriotic slingshot from 1993. Host Gilbert Gottfried broke out into the Star Spangled Banner.

Year: 1998 

Some people have foot fetishes, it's a documented thing. But when contestant Kate showed up on I'm Spring Broke (hosted by Jerry Springer), her mission was to win some cash by doing something weird. She proceeded to cover a woman's feet in whipped cream and suck it all off. This was no demure licking, this was full-on toe-llatio. Buoyed by the crowd, she applied and then removed whipped cream from a second partner—this time, a dude.

Year: 1998

Jerry Springer hosted a Spring Break version of his show in '98, and in one segment a guy was informed that his roommate had slept with his girlfriend—the informers being said roommate and girlfriend. The typical Springer violence ensued. Later, it came out that the whole thing had been an act.

Year: 1998

On an episode of I'm Spring Broke, a man jumped rope in the nude to scrounge up cash. It is not clear whether he was being paid for performing this feat or paid to stop doing it.

Year: 1998

Sometimes it's not so much the zany challenge that is so entertaining as the unquenchable thirst it unleashes. In 1998, Spring Break Undercover followed three Michigan State girls who were in an easy clothes-swapping contest at a local bar in Cancun: Just pick a guy, get him to come into the water, exchange swimsuits, and give him a kiss. Simple, right? Yet as MTV cameras were rolling, a near-orgy broke out, with girls whipping off their t-shirts and guys discarding the bikinis they didn't want to be wearing in the first place.

Year: 1998

For an episode of I'm Spring Broke, a volunteer named Shelly had a two-part plan that was super-hot and then super-not. First, she drenched her body (and it was a nice body) with honey, which reminded us of a really good Bo Derek movie we once saw. But then she rolled in feathers to achieve a covering of plumage that made her look more like Burt Reynolds in Stroker Ace. Aww, man.

Year: 1999

A car-crazed guy brought his weird fantasy to the Spring Break Fantasies show, and the result was much, much more humiliating than sexy. See, he had this idea of a car wash with girls in bikinis doing the washing—and with him as the car. So he got down on all fours and some bikini babes gamely attempted to wash him as if he were a car, and not a dork.

Looking good, Lightning McQueen, looking real good...

Year: 1999

A simple lesbian tongue-lock in Cancun becomes something more when two dudes join in; the result is the first-ever (according to MTV) four-way kiss. Not the first, but definitely the most public. 

Year: 1999

If you wanted to be crowned king and queen of MTV Spring Break in 1999, you had to pass the Volkswagen Bug clothing switcheroo challenge (note: not official name). A couple enters the tiny car in their beach duds, strips naked, exchanges outfits, and emerges all cross-dressy. It wouldn't be MTV Spring Break if we didn't get to see a guy with a six-pack wearing his girlfriend's bikini.

Year: 2000

When Tara Reid and David Arquette hosted a game of team strip poker pitting boys against girls, there was an obvious hoped-for result: Naked chicks! Unfortunately, it wasn't in the cards. The dudes lost, and as a consequence the show turned from Joker's Wild to Free Willy.

Year: 2000

Lit was playing their hit "My Own Worst Enemy"—not a highlight. Then Carmen Electra sauntered onstage and began shaking her business like the pro she is. Highlight!

Year: 2001

David Spade showed up to hold Cancun Court in 2001. Sample ruling: Two feuding friends were sentenced to team up for a tug-of-war over a pit of guacamole. Their opponent was wrestling star "Macho Man" Randy Savage. It was a total mismatch, and the two young ladies were face-down in guacamole in no time, but Savage (may he rest in peace) was a good sport and jumped in with them.

Year: 2001

When Dude This Sucks came to MTV Spring Break, the stunts were wild, but none quite as captivating as the girl with the grapes. This remarkably flexible woman fed herself grapes with her toes—in three different pretzel-esque positions.

Year: 2002

Rooster testicles, pig uterus and bile—not the margarita you were hoping for? We're guessing not, but it's what contestants had to drink (pureed, of course) in pursuit of a 50-peso reward when Fear Factor came to MTV Spring Break in 2002.

Year: 2002

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most sadistic. The show I Bet You Will challenged two competitors to a contest of drinking really hot stuff. They started out taking shots of jalapeno juice, and both survived that round. But one of them had to bail out during round two: Turns out shots of habanero sauce were just a little too much for his sensitive stomach to take. He then embarked on a vomiting spree that would be right at home on an episode of Tosh.0

Year: 2002

A segment on Full Body Search asked the question: How hot does a guy get with all this bikini madness? Young Danny was hooked up to a heart monitor, and a scantily clad lap-dancer did her worst. His heart rate climbed from 96 to 120.

Year: 2002

The show I Bet You Will is all about making cash-strapped spring breakers do stupid things, but whoever designed this challenge was truly demented. A male college student was made to wear a Speedo, which he then had to cram with as many tacos as he could. (Turns out that number was 13, although that is not important to the story.) He then had to go into the water up to his waist, remove a seawater-drenched taco, and eat it for the miserly sum of $10. A girl was persuaded to eat a taco fished out of the rear of his swimsuit for $100.

Year: 2004

The Spring Break Fantasies show is pretty straightforward: a young person has a dream, and that dream comes true. The dream is usually playfully sexual, as with the dude in 2004 who wanted to be roughed up by a sexy lady cop. After intimidating him with her non-regulation uniform and clapping the handcuffs on him, she sprayed his chest with chocolate sauce, and then drizzled quite a bit on her own as well. Cops do that sometimes.

Year: 2004

For the show Buff Enough, bikini-clad ladies had to clean the whipped cream off the toned pecs of their male partners—whom they'd never met—using only their mouths. This is not legal in most states.

Year: 2008

As part of the search for the hottest couple, male hopefuls had to take a spin on a stripper pole, and the results were pathetic. One of the celebrity presences in 2008 was Tila Tequila, and she took it upon herself to demonstrate the meaning of skills. Her turn on the pole brought the crowd's excitement to its boiling point.

Year: 2011

The chicken comes home to roost as DJ Pauly D takes to the stage at the Palms and gets the crowd rocking. Pauly is arguably the most likeable and possibly the only talented Jersey Shore cast member, and his success has the welcome taste of non-irony. Those kids out there are dancing with him, not at him.

The hair... OK, we still have to have a talk with him about the hair.

Year: 2011

Lupe Fiasco takes the stage at The Palms resort in Vegas and wows the crowd with his party anthem "Words I Never Said." Except "Words I Never Said" isn't a party anthem, it's a political rant. It also happens to be the song he was doing to death earlier this year when he was asked to leave the stage at a pre-Inauguration bash.

Not only does the song complain about the president ("Gaza Strip was getting bombed Obama didn't say shit"), it also compares the crapiness of TV news to the inherent crapiness of MTV's hottest property: "If you turn on TV, all you see's a bunch of what-the-fucks / Dude is dating so-and-so, blabbering 'bout such and such / And that ain't Jersey Shore, homie that's the news."

Who invited Lupe Fiasco to MTV Spring Break? A hero, that's who.