Winger - Karma (2009)

Winger was the subject of constant ridicule in MTV's animated series Beavis and Butt-head during the mid 1990s. The neighbor boy Stewart, who was always trying to be accepted by Beavis and Butt-head, was usually depicted wearing a Winger T-shirt, as opposed to the heavier Metallica and AC/DC shirts worn by the title characters. Beavis and Butt-head thought of them as "wussies". According to the documentary Taint of Greatness: Part 2 on the Mike Judge Collection Volume 2 DVD, this was due to Winger telling MTV he would not let the show make fun of him. This has been cited as a reason for the band losing popularity. Mike Judge would continue to slyly mock Winger in his next animated series King of the Hill, as the character of John Redcorn was a former roadie for the band until embarking on a Native American vision quest, where he discovered that "wrangling groupies for Winger was not my proper life path."

About this same time, Lars Ulrich of the band Metallica could be seen throwing a dart on a poster of Kip Winger in the video for "Nothing Else Matters". When asked about this, Kip Winger once stated: "Our band was known to musicians, and a lot of musicians showed up to see me play - watching trying to figure out how I'm playing - we were like the 'hair band' [version of] Dream Theater -- That is why it's the great irony that we ended up on that geeky guy's shirt on Beavis & Butthead, because Metallica couldn't play what we play, they couldn't do it, they literally - technically couldn't do it. And I'll fucking challenge those chumps to that any day of the week, but we could play their music with our hands tied behind our back. And so, I was a little t'd off about that, but in the end, none of that shit matters..."