I’ve heard that years later, both Kip Winger and Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge have buried the hatchet and made peace. Kip was a good sport about it, but you could tell that he was obviously not happy with the band’s portrayal on the show. When I asked if he thought the show was responsible for ruining Winger’s rise, he replied with a simple “Well, it sure didn’t help us any”. I wasn’t trying to insult him in any way, but ask his thoughts about it. He rolled his eyes at the question, but I honestly couldn’t blame him. I asked him if he had seen “Beavis and Butthead’s portrayal of the kid in the Winger shirt, to which he replied rather unhappily, ….yes. He was doing acoustic shows for his solo career. I had a chance to meet Kip Winger somewhere in the mid 90’s after Winger had broken up. Once the show got started regularly airing episodes with a boy many would consider a mama’s boy, wearing the band’s shirt, Winger seemed to go from hero to zero almost overnight. While AC/DC and Metallica were the real deal for metal. In short, Winger was deemed a band that was safe. One of the characters on the show was “Stewart” a simpleton looking kid who always wore a Winger shirt. Their job was to take MTV videos and make fun of the bands in them, as well as criticize almost everyone and everything while lacking the I.Q.

Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butthead animated cartoon was centered around two heavy metal loving morons who wore t-shirts with AC/DC and Metallica on them. Ironically, MTV which had made Winger a household name, would also be the catalyst for ousting the band from the realm of coolness at the time.

With the second album going platinum and touring with the likes of KISS, Scorpions, Extreme, Cinderella & more, the band was growing in popularity, even while glam metal was starting to lose it’s hold on the charts. After a successful first album, the band then released “In The Heart Of The Young” and once again the band received solid radio airplay and heavy video rotation on MTV. Winger’s debut album went platinum in the U.S. From the late 80’s into the early 90’s Winger built momentum and became an overnight sensation, in part thanks to heavy rotation of their videos on MTV, which at that time, actually showed music videos.

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