When was the last time you saw a new episode of MTV Unplugged? Come to think of it, when was the last time you saw music programming of any type on MTV? (Ah, that playful jab never gets old. Or inaccurate.)

According to Entertainment Weekly, MTV is planning to resurrect the dormant Unplugged once more. The acoustic performance show began most humbly back in late 1989 with a pilot that featured Squeeze and Syd Straw, hosted by singer-songwriter Jules Shear. Quite an alliterative start to a stripped-down showcase that very few at the music network felt would succeed, but one that helped give the MTV brand a much-needed identity in the Nineties.

Early Unplugged episodes featured The Smithereens, Graham Parker, The Alarm, Michelle Shocked, and Joe Walsh. Not exactly the stuff over which barns are burned, but soon headliners like Don Henley, Elton John, and Paul McCartney took to the stage, attracted by the unique spotlight the show provided. Unplugged captured an intimacy between artist and fan rarely seen on television (nodding, of course, to precursors like Elvis Presley’s ’68 Comeback Special and PBS’ Austin City Limits).

Paul McCartney’s Unplugged performance was the first to be released on CD, as a numbered “official bootleg.” The limited-edition run of 650,000 copies sold quickly (I picked up #054129 at a Kmart, of all places), firmly establishing Unplugged as a pop-culture phenomenon. It became the show to do, and artists as disparate as Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton, Tony Bennett, and Nirvana signed on. (Carey went to #1 with her performance of the Jackson 5’s “I”ll Be There,” while Clapton and Bennett both won “Album of the Year” Grammys for their Unplugged releases. Nirvana’s 1993 appearance took on additional significance upon Kurt Cobain’s death the following spring, as MTV aired the band’s episode seemingly non-stop.)

But like all things hot in pop culture, enthusiasm for Unplugged cooled. After 1997, the show popped up on MTV’s schedule only sporadically, with just a dozen or so English-language episodes produced in the decade that followed. In 2007, Unplugged was relaunched as a multi-channel franchise; sets from Bon Jovi, John Mayer, Maroon 5, Mary J. Blige (who participated in 1993’s “Uptown Unplugged” episode), and Kenny Chesney appeared on MTV, VH1, and CMT.

Yeah, I don’t recall much about that run either. But MTV certainly has me anticipating the upcoming 2009 re-start because they’ve lined up the lovely Adele to participate. I’m looking forward to seeing what the rest of the roster looks like, but we’ve got at least one reason to tune in to Unplugged 2009, as the London-born singer-songwriter is both hugely talented and humbly so.

For a sampling of what acoustic wonderment awaits us, check out Adele’s performance of “Hometown Glory” on The Late Show with David Letterman this past March. I still can’t get over the fact that the two-time Grammy winner is just 20 years old:

In the MTV Unplugged companion book published in 1995 (another limited-edition run of which I’ve got #042541), series co-creator Robert Small wrote:

“The show is constantly struggling to maintain its integrity—to stick with the original idea of raw and simple, and still be fresh. Though the integrity of the idea will always prove to be a challenge to live up to, it’s also precisely what will keep everybody reinventing what Unplugged means—and that’s what makes it so great.”

Here’s hoping this latest reinvention captures that early magic once more. No pressure, Adele.

Purchase Adele – “Hometown Glory” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.