On this day in 2007, the world was blessed by one very special channel's recruitment to YouTube, a channel that was the brainchild of musician and all round groovy guy Phil Thomas Katt - a channel that is called The Uncharted Zone.
UZ-TV as it is sometimes known is the continuation of Katt's love and passion for music and unknown artists, and the earliest example of its conception dates all the way back to the 80s, when Katt would make bizarre rambling answering machine messages to promote his cassettes he had out at the time. With a voice honed from years on the radio and from being in "the biz", coupled with his eccentric self-given titles (examples being "the space happy Phil Thomas Katt" and "the confused Phil Thomas Katt") PTK's answering machine messages became something of a local legend, especially amongst bored teenagers, who must've felt they'd stumbled upon a goldmine of comedic value. Soon enough, Katt begun enlisting other local artists into the fray, expanding on the idea of The Uncharted Zone, before bringing it with him on his triumphant return to radio in the 90s, where The Uncharted Zone became the highest rated late-night show in the history of Gulf Coast FM Radio. Clearly The Uncharted Zone was destined for even greater things, and so Katt continued to toy with the idea.
In 1996, Katt took The Uncharted Zone and headed for local TV stations, where it continued to have its loyal legion of followers during the show's 15 year broadcasting lifetime. Towards the end of this time however, Katt decided to get with the times and shifted the show to one final resting place - the internet. Within two years of broadcasting on the 'Tube, Uncharted Zone landed its first big viral sensation - that being the incredibly angelic voiced Mark Gormley, and his runaway hit, Without You. The track is just as fondly remembered for its music as it is for its video, which featured an abundance of green screen usage, space travel, and of course, the iconic Gormley Power Stance. Thanks to Mark, The Uncharted Zone was now drawing a far higher viewership for their other artists, and soon enough bigger media names came a'knocking.
Gormley was offered numerous talk show appearances to discuss his song and perform it which he turned down multiple times, though he and Katt did make an appearance on G4's Attack of the Show in '09. Meanwhile Katt was contacted by already established artists desiring to be given the Uncharted Zone treatment, rocking up at the Green Screen Studio to be forever immortalised on the channel - these bands were Downtown Brown, Supagroup, Cruiserweight, and The Hard Lessons. Eventually, New York Record Company also got on board the UZ-TV craze and got Katt to do a video for Horatio Sanz of SNL fame, and Frito-Lay poked Katt to produce a music video for General Mill's Fruit Gushers Snacks and also Cheetos Giants, of all things. Truly, for a Youtuber and 90s radio legend, this was very much living the dream.
Not that the increased fame was that big of a deal to Katt, this has been his passion project for years now, as the guy just loves music and loves promoting artists who would otherwise slip through the cracks. Amazingly everything on the Uncharted Channel you see is the work of Katt, who not only records and mixes the songs for his artists, but creates the videos too, which does in retrospect explain why so many of them involve 90s CGI space backdrops. But UZ-TV doesn't just stop at music videos friends, oh no. They also feature podcasts, entertainment news, and comedy videos, ensuring fans of the channel get all manner of entertainment pumped their way.
To date, Uncharted Zone is proud to showcase that they have 6 million views to each of their video uploads, which to say is all due to one dude's idea for a answering machine promotion idea forty years ago, is pretty fuckin' sweet. So thank you, Phil Thomas Katt, Satan lookalike Tommy Robinetti and superstar Mark Gormley, and all the other UZ-TV stars. May you all shine forever.
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