It was only natural that Andy Warhol would eventually gravitate toward MTV, a network that masterfully blurred the lines between visual art and popular culture even more effectively than his famous portraits of Marilyn Monroe. In 1984, the pop art icon took on directing duties and made a cameo appearance as a bartender in The Cars' music video for "Hello Again," a playlist favorite. However, it was his unexpected role as a talk show host the following year that truly had audiences demanding "I want my MTV."
Warhol's venture into television wasn't entirely unprecedented. "Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes" – named after his career-defining quote to Time magazine from the days when The Factory was the hottest hangout of the Swinging Sixties – wasn't his first foray into broadcasting. In 1979, he had already explored behind-the-scenes fashion coverage for a Manhattan Cable Network show called "Fashion." At the start of the next decade, he expanded the show's scope to include both fashion and entertainment conversations, renaming it "Andy Warhol's TV."
"It was another tool he used to get to know people and simultaneously reach as many people as he could," explained Geralyn Huxley, the Andy Warhol Museum's film and video curator, describing his fascination with television. Warhol's opportunity to reach the largest audience of his career came in 1985 when he partnered with MTV to create another show bearing his name, one that would take pride in subverting conventional television norms.
The show was deliberately unconventional in several ways. Most notably, it featured no music videos whatsoever – something quite rare during an era before reality TV would eventually dominate the channel's programming. Additionally, the pace was relentlessly fast, with most celebrity conversations lasting barely long enough for someone to eat a spoonful of Campbell's soup. Even the title was misleading, as each of the five episodes actually provided thirty minutes of pure, unstructured chaos rather than the promised fifteen.
The premiere episode, which aired forty years ago, immediately established the show's surreal, fever-dream atmosphere. Blondie's Debbie Harry announced the episode's bizarre theme: "Sex, Vegetables, Brothers and Sisters." Living up to that strange combination, "She's Gotta Have It" star Tracy Johns revealed she was a "broccoli freak," while John Oates of Hall & Oates put forward the peculiar theory that "There hasn't really been any sex in New York since 1983."
The episode also included a visit to New York's Pyramid Club, where, according to Harry, "a talented family of self-styled freaks entertain in high style." Other segments featured a montage celebrating the cover history of Warhol's Interview magazine and random appearances by novelist Tama Janowitz and Frank Zappa's children, Moon Unit and Dweezil. In one memorable moment, Warhol advised Jerry Hall to leave her then-husband Mick Jagger and instead become a groupie for Curiosity Killed the Cat, an up-and-coming blue-eyed soul boy band for whom he would later direct the music video for their single "Misfit."
Warhol's collaboration with MTV extended far beyond his talk show. He directed the promotional video for Ric Ocasek's "True to You," appeared alongside Grace Jones at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards before featuring in her video for "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You)," and applied his pop art style to an image of moonwalking astronaut Buzz Aldrin – the same image MTV had used to promote their own "giant leap for mankind." As an avid MTV viewer himself, Warhol had strong opinions about the network's content. In a 1984 diary entry, he criticized the uniformity of MTV's playlist, writing, "I don't know what else you can do to these videos to make them different. They're all the same." Three years later, he mentioned falling asleep to the channel and experiencing "rock-video nightmares."
"Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes" perfectly showcased his talent for bringing together the era's most interesting bohemian figures under one roof. The second episode featured artist Kenny Scharf cruising New York City streets in his graffiti-covered Cadillac and photographer Peter Beard literally swinging on a swing while discussing the city's swinging social scene. Episode three presented garage rockers The Fleshtones providing musical accompaniment to a Shakespeare sonnet recited by Ian McKellen. The series finale was particularly star-studded, featuring an interview with a relatively unknown Courtney Love – then better recognized for her appearance in the spaghetti western "Straight to Hell" rather than as a future grunge icon – and The Ramones discussing the contemporary rock scene before performing their anti-Reagan protest song "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg."
Tragically, the finale also included footage from a memorial service for one of The Ramones members. It was during the filming of "15 Minutes" that Warhol was rushed to New York Hospital for emergency gallbladder surgery. The day after the operation, the man who had revolutionized the art world, transformed the concept of celebrity, and to a lesser extent, reinvented the television talk show format, passed away.
While "Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes" may not be as celebrated as his experimental art house films or iconic silkscreen paintings, it remains significant for several reasons. At best, the show merited only brief mentions in the eulogies that followed his death, and today, the only evidence of its existence consists of various VHS-quality uploads on YouTube. Nevertheless, it demonstrates Warhol's ability to anticipate cultural trends, foreshadowing the gonzo-style programming that would become standard for shows desperately trying to capture young audiences.
The show's brief glimpses into fascinating counterculture movements and performances by artists who wouldn't typically fit MTV's usual programming opened a window into worlds that had previously remained closed to mainstream audiences. Perhaps most importantly, it introduced Warhol's immense talents to an entirely new generation. "More and more kids were watching MTV," producer Vincent Fremont observed in 2017. "I don't know if they knew that Andy was a famous artist, but to them he was certainly a television personality."
This outcome would have undoubtedly pleased Warhol, who despite his pioneering achievements in other fields, had always yearned for acceptance in television. "The few times in my life when I've gone on television, I've been so jealous of the host on the show that I haven't been able to talk," he once wrote. "As soon as the TV cameras turn on, all I can think is, I want my own show – I want my own show." Fortunately for fans of low-budget, unconventional, late-night broadcasting, his wish was ultimately fulfilled.
