The video for “Money for Nothing” played a decisive role in the song’s entire history. It was one of the first videos to use computer-generated animation, and it did so with an early program called Paintbox. The characters had originally been designed to be more detailed, with more elements, even buttons on their shirts, but the budget ran out and the final result stayed more simplified, raw, and angular. The video won Best Video at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards.