I’ve talked a lot about the contests that MTV held in the 80’s, and I’ve linked
a bunch of them down below in the description box, but today I want to talk about a contest
I hadn’t covered before and that was the time the network gave away Jon Bon jovi’s
childhood home to one lucky couple.
Or at least they thought they were lucky.
The contest would end up being more of a curse than a blessing & today we're gonna talk about
the full story
In 1988, Bon Jovi was set to release their new album titled New Jersey.
To promote the album MTV and the record label wanted to do a contest that would somehow
tie it to the name new jersey.
According to the new york times MTV initially thought about buying the house of Jon’s
guitar teacher in his hometown of Sayerville, New Jersey and giving it to one lucky fan.
An MTV Spokesperson would go on to tell the times the network had some other ideas to
celebrate the release of new jersey revealing 'We talked about giving away a bar, a piece
of the Boardwalk in Asbury Park, something tangible that would say New Jersey and would
give some additional notoriety to the region,''
It would be Bon Jovi’s younger brother Matthew who was still in high school at the time who
came up with the idea of MTV buying their family home that they were currently living
in and giving it away to one lucky fan or family.
The home was located in Sayerville, New Jersey on robin hood drive & was part of Middlesex
county, a borough of about 34,000 people.
The idea seemed perfect given that Jon’s parents wanted more privacy as they sometimes
complained about the street in front of their house being clogged with fans when their son
came to visit and it got to the point that the police had to be frequently called.
Jon Bon Jovi would reveal that he lived with his parents in that very house during the
making of his group’s first three albums telling npr “The money wasn’t that quick,”“The
first two albums I lived at home, and it wasn’t until the success of the third one [in 1986]
that I was able to even afford an apartment, let alone buy a house.”
It was the norm back then according to the rocker Since it’s hard to get a record deal
and even harder to make money off of one.
The other members also lived with their parents at the start of their music careers.
After finally being able to move out of his family's home Jon would move to Rumson NJ
and live a few blocks away from fellow New Jersey Native Bruce Springsteen,
In February of 1989 MTV would end up buying Jon Bon Jovi's childhood home.
While his parents and brother still lived there, the idea was for the family to live
there until June of that year so Matthew could finish school.
The network claimed to have paid fair market value for the home and while they wouldn’t
give an exact figure the new york times would report that homes in the area were selling
for around $300,000.
Here’s the promo mtv ran for the contest.
Hey Jon I heard that you're giving your house away or something.
It's winter time what are you going to do.
This isn't just a house, it's the place where i grew up.
Aww I get it!
You're giving away your parents house.
What are you going to do with your parents?
That's my boyhood home.
This is Sayerville, New Jersey this is the place where i learned about the finer things
in life like rock n' roll and women down in that basement of yours i remember.
It's not graceland, but this is my own little piece of new jersey bon jovi style rock n'
roll history & I want you to have it.
Two three four.
You could win the house that jon bon jovi grew up in mtv's giving away bon jovi's home
contest.
Just watch MTV March 28th when you see three bon jovi videos in a row and a message from
Jon call the flashing 1-900 number to win.
We'll fly one randomly chosen winner and friend to new jersey so jon himself can conduct a
personal tour of the place and hand over the keys and deed to his graceland.
A two-storey colonial in beautiful sayerville with 4 bedrooms, two and a half baths and
pool.
We'll also throw in $10,000 bucks for property taxes, plus a Kawisaki eliminator motorcycle
and then it's off to party with the rest of the band.
We'll fly you to Bon Jovi's next gig Are you sure you want to go through with this?
Ah, what the hell i'll have other childhoods.
Following the contest closing, the new york times would write and i quote “The Tuesday
night contest caused jammed telephone lines in some areas as 800,000 callers tried to
reach that number, with 192,000 calls coming during the first two minutes of the sweepstakes,
An MTV spokesman would tell the times ''We blew out the phone circuits in Chicago and
Newwark,''
MTV would choose eight callers as finalists & the network would hire an outside independent
firm who asked the finalists for their family information and based on what was provided
they selected a winner.
The winners would be a couple from pennsylvania named Jay and Judy Frappier’s The Times
interviewed Mrs. Frappier who said she tried to call the network 15 times before winning
the contest.
Here’s some snippets of MTV covering the contest winners who got a tour of Bon Jovi’s
childhood home.
Hi I'm Judy Frappier and I'm Jay Frappier and we're the lucky winners of MTV's Bon Jovi
house contest.
Let's check out the house.
Where's Jon.
Come on inside.
Hey, how are you doing?
Come on in, let me show you around a little bit.
The downstairs & we've got the bathrooms and all that stuff.
That's important.
Yeah.
This is the kitchen, this is where we would spend a lot of time in this house & the spaghetti
sauce is cooked here eveyr week you know.
You get up in the morning and trudge downstairs and bfore you'd go to work and school or I'd
come in around 3 or 4 in the morning from playing.
Still, it seems like everyone would sit here, this was the choice seat in the house and
this is the rec room.
That's what we call the rec room.
You were calling it the tv room, but my house is the rec room.
I want to know if this comes with the house staged.
You're going to have fight my father.
These are the one's that we gave to my family.
So where are you guys from.
Levitown, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania.
How far is that from philly?
About 15-20 miles from Philly, so you guys are sixers yeah.
Alright.
You get the house.
Here's the cheque that even i get to sign.
Here's the deed to the house.
Woooo
Things would quickly turn sour afterwards though.
Frappier would be interviewed by the new york post almost 30 years after winning the contest.
Even after bon Jovi’s family vacated the house they still had to deal with fans of
the rocker coming to the home with Mrs. Frappier recalling to the new york post “I would
be washing dishes in the kitchen and through the window see a camera flash going off,”
On top of that, the prize money the couple was awarded, wasn’t nearly enough to cover
the taxes on the prizes.
She would tell the post “[The bill] was in the $70,000 range,”
“We had to decide what to do in quickly in a distressed real estate market.”
It wasn't too long after the couple won the contest that they ended up selling the house.
they would end up moving south to texas where they still currently reside.
That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching.
be sure to hit the like button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true
stories.
Take care.