13 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Got Their Big Break on MTV

You gotta give credit where credit is due. MTV is a breeding ground for finding—and making—huge stars. We went deep into the vault and discovered 13 celebrities who actually got their big break on a show on the network. We’re talking everyone from a baby-faced Adam Sandler to an anonymous B.J. Novak. You won’t believe how some of these icons of today first made their mark.

Dax Shepard on Punk’d

In 2003, no celebrity was safe from Ashton Kutcher’s wrath on Punk’d. Remember when Justin Timberlake cried because he thought the IRS was repossessing his home? Yep, that’s because before Dax starred on Parenthood, married Kristen Bell, and became a bona fide movie star, he was a complete unknown, just trying to make it and serving as Kutcher’s main accomplice. Watch him in action here:

B.J. Novak on Punk’d

After a successful first season of Punk’d, celebrities started to get paranoid that Ashton was going to “punk” them. And since Dax was no longer anonymous, his presence became a clear signal that something was going down—and what fun is that? So Dax had to go, and who did Ashton name as his new main accomplice? None other than Mindy Kaling’s bestie and The Office star B.J. Novak in what was truly his first big break. He recently said on Watch What Happens Live that playing a crazy driving instructor to an unsuspecting, 16-year-old Hilary Duff was the highlight of his stint on the show. Watch it here:

Kit Hoover on Road Rules

We best know Kit today as one of our favorite morning TV anchors as she breaks down all the latest pop-culture headlines with Billy Bush on Access Hollywood Live. But she’s actually an MTV trailblazer: She competed on the first season of the world’s most adventurous road trip, Road Rules, back in 1995. The show was like The Real World in an RV—if you’re listening MTV, we’d love to see this one make a comeback. Watch Kit as a young road warrior here:

David Giuntoli on Road Rules: South Pacific

One could argue that David Giuntoli’s stint on the 12th season of Road Rules was just research and practice for his starring role today as Detective Nick Burkhardt on Grimm. Proof? This “buried alive” challenge is something the evil forces found on Grimm would definitely be behind.

Adam Sandler on Remote Control

In the late ’80s, Remote Control was one of the craziest game shows around. Contestants answered pop culture (mainly TV-centric) questions—and most were posed by a hilarious cast of zany characters. A very young Adam Sandler (he was still an NYU student at the time) played some of the show’s more popular characters, like “Stud Boy” and the “Trivia Delinquent.” It definitely was the breeding ground for Sandler’s juvenile and irreverent comedy style we’ve come to know him for today. Watch him as “Stud Boy” below:

Christina Hendricks on Undressed

Yes, Mad Men‘s bombshell office manager Joan got her start on MTV’s sexy, after-hours soap Undressed.The campy, scripted series aired from 1999-2002 and followed the love lives of young adults trying to make sense of their relationships, break-ups, and one-night stands in Los Angeles. It was a guilty pleasure and super cheesy. We actually can’t believe that this clip of a very young Christina navigating her crazy hookups on Undressed still exists:

Chris Hardwick and Jenny McCarthy on Singled Out

If you were watching MTV in the ’90s, you were watching Singled Out. The red-hot dating game show featured a group of 50 men and 50 women competing for a date with one main contestant of the opposite sex. Things would get wild and raunchy as each round progressed thanks to Jenny McCarthy riling them all up while Chris Hardwick played it straight as the host. The show made McCarthy a household name and set Hardwick on a career path that would lead him to other hosting gigs like At Midnight and Talking Dead. Watch them in action here:

Aziz Ansari on Human Giant

The origins of Tom Haverford on Parks and Rec, Dev on Master of None, and all of Aziz Ansari’s astute musings on life and love in his stand-up sets of today all can be traced back to his cult MTV sketch show Human Giant. It only ran for one year, but it was such an underground sensation that MTV even gave the cast (which also featured Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer) 24 hours to just take over the network, as seen in the clip below (by the way, nice beard, Aziz!).

Ben Stiller on The Ben Stiller Show

Way before he was strutting on the catwalk as Zoolander and knew There’s Something About Mary, Ben Stiller was fine tuning his comedy chops on his short-lived (only 13 episodes) sketch comedy show back in 1990. This is not to be confused with the much glossier, bigger budget The Ben Stiller Show, which aired on Fox just a few years later. Clips of the original show on MTV are hard to come by, but we rustled up this one below just for you:

Jon Stewart on You Wrote It, You Watch It and The Jon Stewart Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart may never have been without not one, but two shows that Jon Stewart hosted on MTV back in the ’90s. There was You Wrote It, You Watch It where comedians from the sketch comedy troupe The State performed reenactments of actual letters that viewers sent to MTV detailing CRAZY but true stories from their lives. Stewart introduced the sketches as seen here (and get a load of Stewart’s amazing ’90s hair and flannel shirt):

But The Jon Stewart Show that ran on MTV from 1993-95 was actually a huge late-night hit. In fact, one could argue that it was the precursor to The Daily Show. He had huge stars come chat with him ranging from The Notorious B.I.G to Howard Stern to a very young Conan O’Brien, as seen here:

Jamie Chung and Cameran Eubanks on The Real World: San Diego (2004)

The first time seven strangers were picked to live in a house in San Diego, the year was 2004, and who knew that two of those fresh faces would still be such prominent parts of our lives today. Jamie Chung is now on Once Upon a Time and has starred in a ton of big movies like Sin City and The Hangover III. Cameran Eubanks, as we all know, is a real estate agent in Charleston, South Carolina. She’s a newlywed, on the fence about ever having kids, and loves giving advice—especially to guy friends like perpetual bachelor Shep. How do we know? Because Cameran Eubanks from The Real World: San Diego is the same Cameran we love on Bravo’s Southern Charm today!

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