[764] in Humor
HUMOR(?) Talk Show Victim
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Tue Mar 14 14:20:51 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 1995 14:16:32 EST
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 1995 09:05:46 -0500
From: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: dfitzpat@interserv.com
A TV talk show has claimed its first victim. A Michigan man, John Schmitz,
traveled to Chicago on Monday to appear on the "Jenny Jones" show. He was
told that the reason for his appearance was to meet a `secret admirer.'
When he arrived on stage he saw his friend Donna Riley who lived in his
apartment complex and Scott Amedure, 32, Riley's friend. Schmitz, 24,
leaned over and kissed Riley, believing her to be the admirer. Then Jenny
sprung it on Schmitz that Amedure was really the one who had a crush on
him. Schmitz then told the audience that he was heterosexual and politely
maintained his composure for the rest of the show. Sometime before
midnight Thursday, Amadure was shot in the chest twice and died. Michigan
police said Schmitz turned himself in around 11:00 am Thursday morning. He
was expected to be charged with the murder Friday. Executives at the Jenny
Jones show were not returning press calls Thursday. It was unclear what
the Jenny Jones staff told Schmitz. George Gerbner, dean emeritus of the
University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, said that
in his 30 years of studying television and violence he had never heard of
such a case. Gerbner said that if they participated in a ruse, "that is a
highly dangerous and unethical activity. It is reprehensible if they did
that...being on television, especially being exposed on television is a
highly explosive situation."
