



Dinosaur Jr. persisted for eight years and four studio albums after the departure of Lou Barlow in 1989. In the spring of 1997 the band released Hand It Over and spent much of the year touring North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. On November 6, 1997, Dinosaur Jr. played Tramps in New York City, and while they were in town they taped an appearance on The Jenny Jones Show. A few days later the band would play its final show in its original iteration at the Middle East in Boston, not far from J. Mascis’ hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts.

I can’t say I ever watched it, but all available evidence suggests that The Jenny Jones Show was a very weird venue for a Dinosaur Jr. appearance. The show’s closest cousins are the scandalous daytime programs hosted by the likes of Sally Jessy Raphael, Jerry Springer, and Maury Povich, none of which, I am pretty sure, ever chose to invite Throwing Muses or Redd Kross on to perform a rousing musical number. But Jenny Jones did like to have musical artists perform on occasion, although the show’s emphasis was squarely on what is euphemistically called “urban music”—noted guests include Usher, Ludacris, Nelly, and Three Six Mafia.

Like the competition, The Jenny Jones Show loved to rile up its audience with shows involving strippers, feuding neighbors, paternity tests, “out-of-control teens,” celebrity impersonators, talent contests, and so on. A famous 1995 program on “Same Sex Secret Crushes” actually led to a murder after Scott Amedure’s on-air confession that he had a crush on Jonathan Schmitz. Three days later, Schmitz killed Amedure with a shotgun, leading The Jenny Jones Show to cancel the airing of the episode.

Aside from that, The Jenny Jones Show was mainly known for humorous rhyming show titles, such as “I Don’t Mean to Be a Pest, But You Need to Cover Up That Chest!,” “I Flash My Body ‘Cuz I’m the Next ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Hottie!,” and “You Said I Was a Weasel, But Baby Now My Body’s All Diesel!”

The Dinosaur Jr. lineup at this point was J. Mascis, Mike Johnson, and George Berz. The two songs performed on the daytime program were “Never Bought It,” off of Hand It Over, and “Out There,” off of 1993’s Where You Been (Jones calls it “Outta There”).



“Out There”:



“Never Bought It”:



via Obscure Media



Previously on Dangerous Minds:

Dear Boy: Advice column for ‘Sassy’ teenagers from Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis

J. Mascis singing Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade into You’

