Where was I in 1988? Anywhere but aware. In my fourteenth year on Planet Suburb, folded neatly between the Green Sheets of the afternoon Milwaukee Journal and the abstract piety of St. Alphonsus middle school, I knew not of “Suicide Solution” and the parental panic at heavy metal music. My older sister’s closet door was covered with Metallica’s Ride The Lighting and Ratt’s Out Of The Cellar posters, though each band represented to me nothing more than something loud coming from her carefully painted purple silver boombox.
Did I realize Frank Zappa, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and John F-n Denver had testified against censorship in music before the U.S. Congress? Nope, I was too busy tracking the statistical anomalies of Rickey Henderson and public school girls.
Fortunately for Milwaukee, four aware and articulate teenagers were ready to speak their minds about heavy metal music and pour cool sense on the Satanic panic of 1980s America. And providing the forum to allow their voices to run free? None other than WTMJ’s most handsome weapon, the gentlemen’s gentleman Mike Gousha (god, he’s good), who hosted “Second Sunday: Heavy Metal” on WTMJ-TV Channel 4 in 1988.
Four things happened to me after watching “Second Sunday: Heavy Metal”:
1. I contacted Milwaukee Record to request permission to write about it: Success.
2. I swooned over the clear-headed 1988 heavy metal Milwaukee-area teens.
3. I realized Mike Gousha is the smoothest interviewer ever invented.
4. I decided to track down one of the teens and talk to them about their TV appearance: Success, I found Jeni Czysz (Jenny Foster in the video).
In 1980s America, nothing was more important to parents and politicians than drugs, and lyrics in popular music. Education, including academics, social emotional learning, and loving thy neighbor took an extreme backseat to the words sung by Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest. Before the dude blew the 2000 presidential election (and way before he invented the internet), Al Gore was Tipper Gore’s husband, thanks to her outspoken leadership of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). This sounds zany, but before the extreme Right developed their orange crush, they spent their days pouring over song lyrics, looking for reasons their children had tuned them out.
In 1984 a teenager killed himself after allegedly listening to Ozzy Osbourne’s “Suicide Solution,” and the PMRC was out for blood. Heavy metal, with its dark, fiery imagery and thrashing, speedy sound that inspired males to grow their hair long (gasp!) became Public Enemy Number One. Parental warning stickers were invented, and the PMRC went into full Satanic panic, inspiring huge interest and spiked revenue for every band named on their notorious “Filthy Fifteen.”
Though charges against Ozzy were eventually dismissed, the PMRC had the nation’s ear, which was very easy to get back then, on account of there being only four major networks. One of which was NBC, and its local affiliate WTMJ 4 was willing to invite a group of Milwaukee teenagers to discuss their experiences with heavy metal music.
Despite the Satanic panic that ran rampant through Milwaukee and beyond, Mike Gousha’s Second Sunday provided one half hour (including Brownberry Bread & Denny’s commercials) for Steve, Lisa, Sean, and Jenny to discuss heavy metal music in 1988. I watched the video a few times in the last month; instead of boring you with what I think about it, I’ll just share half a dozen moments that moved me.
1. WTMJ Could Not Define (or find examples of) What Heavy Metal Really Is
2. Parents Should be Glad that Their Child is Getting So Musically Diverse
3. Jeni’s Ozzy Tee & Crucifix: Take it How You Want it, Gousha!
4. The Psychotherapist is Worried About That
5. Dude goes Nuclear on the Paranoid Out-of-Touch Adults for the Win
6. You’re Not the Only One: Music Can Help
I reached out to Jeni via social media, and after the video surfaced on her feed she agreed to meet at a local custard stand to discuss her thoughts on “Second Sunday: Heavy Metal,” then and now.
Milwaukee Record: When did you first see yourself on “Second Sunday: Heavy Metal”?
Jeni Czysz: I never got to see it [in 1988] because my dad was yelling at me to answer the phone. We had one phone and that was in the kitchen. We had one TV and that was in the living room. “Answer the god damn phone!” he said. So I didn’t really get to see it because I had to answer the phone in the other room. My cousin was supposed to have recorded it but she either taped over it or lost the tape so I never got to see it. My friend saw it [in 2026] and she showed it to me. I was like “Oh my god!” I was a little nervous, that was a long time ago.
MR: What did you think after finally seeing the show?
JC: I thought okay, I didn’t sound too bad. I thought to myself, I was very confident in myself.
MR: How did you get the opportunity to be on “Second Sunday: Heavy Metal”?
JC: I think it was a guidance counselor or something who came to me and said they want to talk to you about your music. I was like okay, I guess. I either took the city bus or someone from school would have driven me there. I never met any of those people before, we were all from different areas.
MR: What do you recall as being the reasons for the show, if they gave any?
JC: “Suicide Solution” [the Ozzy Osbourne song], you remember the whole thing about that? I was really pissed off about that. You’re gonna say that someone killed themselves just because of a song? That really pushed the envelope with the parents, they were like “You’re not gonna listen to this.” We were all in the midst of the Satanic panic thing. I think that’s why Gousha brought up the cross thing. He didn’t outright say it, but I think they were leaning toward the devil aspect of it.
MR: I loved your response to him, when he asked if the Ozzy shirt and the cross was somehow a contradiction. “YOU CAN TAKE IT HOW YOU WANT IT.”
JC: Good lord the most pious people sometimes have the biggest skeletons in their closet. With me, it’s pretty much you get what you get. I look back and wish that we would have gone farther…with more interviews and follow-up.
MR: What was it like for you, in 1988, being someone easily identified as “metal”?
JC: A lot of times I was on the defensive but I’m not gonna lie, there were times we’d get tired of it and just lean into it. “Yeah, we’ll eat your kids!” I know I was irritated with the insinuations. The cops would harass us all the time. You know, call us the long hairs. We wouldn’t even be doing anything wrong. People would shout things at us on the street. I remember the Woolworths on 27th and the little old lady, the minute we walked through, she’d follow us around the whole store. We even had our money out to show her we were paying.
MR: Was there a lot of discrimination against heavy metal teens in Milwaukee back then?
JC: It was more just judging a book by its cover kind of thing. I don’t know how many men, boys I should say, had to cut their hair to get a job. At that time, McDonald’s wasn’t begging for people to work there. The job market was different. It was hard to find a job. I was on cheerleading. A lot of people were like, how are you in cheerleading? My metal friends were like, how are you into sports? Well, it’s something I enjoy. I got the most pushback from teachers than anybody else. Not all my friends were standup citizens.
MR: Back to the interview. Was Gousha nice?
JC: I remember him being very nice. I look at it now and think he was trying to bait us. Was that him or his bosses trying to get more of a reaction out of us? In that Satanic panic thing, Geraldo was the real sensational guy then. The “Wild Thing” song was the biggest joke. Sam Kinison was a comedian for one. No one took that seriously. No one was like, I’m gonna call in and request Sam Kinison’s “Wild Thing.” I would’ve expected they’d pick something from W.A.S.P. or something more controversial. I remember people saying, “You can’t listen to them, that stands for We Are Satan’s People.”
MR: The psychotherapist, Dr. Doug Meske. Beyond the most ’80s comb over in history, no disrespect, what did you think about his contributions?
JC: We were teenagers and that’s the kind of stuff as teenagers you used to run with. The fact that all four of us didn’t laugh was pretty good I thought. Knowing how I was then, I just thought he was out of touch, old fashioned way of thinking. I look at it now and I think he really believed what he was saying, I think it’s probably been proven wrong. I remember thinking that was so old-school thought. But I could tell he cared.
MR: Do you continue to enjoy metal?
JC: Oh yeah, god, I couldn’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen Metallica. I went to Las Vegas to see them a couple years ago. I still enjoy live music. I went to Rock Fest. I like all kinds of music. I feel like a lot of metal people are like you have to either like this genre of metal or this one. I like a couple songs of this, a couple songs of that. I love the females [in metal], pretty much all the females, I mean Lzzy Hale is to me what Lita Ford was back in the day, but Lita Ford was the only one. Now there’s a lot [of women in metal] and I LOVE it.
MR: What did your kids have to say about the video?
JC: They laughed, I guess. That was one thing my kid said that we did pretty good. We didn’t have any practice in front of the camera. They laughed at my hair. The hair was a lot of work. I probably went through a can of Aqua Net a week. I had to Windex my mirror pretty often to get all the over spray off of there.
MR: If you could go back to that day in 1988, what would you say to your younger self?
JC: Stay that confident, strong person. Hold on to your convictions.
Call it corny, but intergenerational conversations among strangers who are willing to listen and to be heard can improve our shared experience of being human. Whether it’s sharing your love of music with someone older than Tony Bennett, listening to a psychotherapist list their concerns for teens beyond his reach, or simply letting someone know that they can take it how they want it, our world only improves when we listen to each other.
Also, I wish I could lead an interview as well as Mike Gousha, that handsome devil.
Want more Milwaukee Record? Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and/or support us on Patreon.