Jim Fraenkel: Smells Like Fun

“I will never forget this one day where Nirvana was in the office…”

That’s Jim Fraenkel, current EVP of Documentaries and Current at World of Wonder, one-time VP & EP of MTV News, and all-time King of VO, recalling the first days of his career.

Where did it go from there?

This week, Jim, takes us from the driver’s seat of his Picasso Pizza delivery days and his stint at the legendary Geffen Record, to landing his MTV News Internship and flipping it into a nearly two-decade run.

We find out how he broke into the Buffalo, New York, classic rock radio scene, was nearly cast in Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video, and invented a certain very-famous, very-timely catchphrase.

“I was like, ‘Why don’t we become our own best marketing machine?’”

We travel with Jim from interviewing ‘NCYNC in Orlando, Florida, to covering Matthew Shepard’s murder in Laramie, Wyoming, and get lost in Harlem at 3 a.m. with a very-pregnant Sandra Bernhard.

We listen to R.E.M. rehearse, watch Kurt and Courtney cuddle, and feel all the feels at a private dinner with His Royal Badness.

“It was a lot of fun,” he says, atypically understated.

Listen to “You Hear It First” on Apple or Spotify right now.