Talk show host Jerry Springer, the ringmaster of a lumpenproletariat circus, is enjoying a wonderful month. The Jerry Springer Show just evicted Oprah from the top spot in nationwide talk show ratings: Springer is now watched by nearly 12 million Americans every day, more than twice as many as a year ago.
Jerry Springer: Too Hot for TV , a video compilation of the show's worst moments, has won a cult following and sold , copies by mail order. Even Springer's bad news is good news: Two weeks ago Sens. Dan Coats, R-Ind. This is an era of aggressively nice talk shows.
Oprah has abandoned sleaze for self-esteem. Rosie O'Donnell has never met a guest she could not drown in slobber. But the Jerry Springer Show is unrepentantly vicious. It's dedicated to strife and misery, to the principles that human frailty should be ridiculed, that the weak and the stupid should be humiliated, and that there is no better cure for your problems than the sorrows of others. On Springer's show, men learn their girlfriends are actually boys; wives learn their husbands are sleeping with their sisters or ex-wives or both; women learn that their year-old daughters are strippers or their year-old mothers are whores; fat people are poked and prodded and berated.
Springer is an endless parade of losers, perverts, and exhibitionists. W hat makes Springer a TV landmark is not its guests-- though they are the saddest rabble in the medium's history--but its violence. Jerry seeks out guests who are too confused and too angry to address their problems rationally and too inarticulate to address them verbally.
Other shows excise fighting and profanity: Springer promotes it. The audience--mostly well-groomed, college-age kids--screams for blood. When one episode of Geraldo erupted in a brawl in , it made national news: Springer has brawls every day and more real-life violence than any show on television. There was also so much cursing that entire segments were incomprehensible they're bleeped out.
Most talk shows maintain at least the pretense of reasoned discussion: not Springer. Springer himself presides, oleaginously, over this spectacle. He's sometimes funny, often smarmy, and always condescending. He brings the dry tinder and lights the match, but he's always shocked, shocked , when a fire breaks out. If guests swear, he tut-tuts them.
If they fight--which is exactly what the host and his producers want them to do, exactly why they have burly bouncers at the ready, exactly what ratings depend on--he admonishes them to control themselves. A lecture from the devil. I t's no mystery why Springer is on television.
A talk show is cheap to produce--one-fourth the cost of a news show, one-tenth the cost of a drama--and immensely profitable. It allowed anyone so inclined to indulge in the id of human relationships in all its tawdry, torrid, and shamelessly sensationalized glory.
Critics have disparaged the show as an embarrassing blemish on the television landscape, the lowest of lowbrow entertainment. Fans have welcomed it as a reprieve from "normal," a delightfully depraved oasis in the desert of vanilla programming.
Whatever your take, there's no denying that Jerry Springer and its eponymous host have left a lasting impression on American culture. But there's more to Springer's story than televised smut run amok. And it's only fitting that a phenomenon fueled by provocative exploits and exploited raunchiness would get intimately probed for the public's amusement. So buckle up and start belting out those "Jerry! You're in for a wild ride. If Jerry Springer's show was a person, it would be legally old enough to binge drink.
There are full-grown adults who can't remember a time when Springer wasn't the Oprah of fistfights and nudity because they hadn't been born yet. Some might know he was mayor of Cincinnati, but most probably know little else about his political career. For example, did you know Springer sat on the city council in the early s and didn't punch his way to power? Instead, he impressed voters with his likability and hippy-hearted gumption.
This American Life producer Alex Blumberg lived in Cincinnati during Springer's political ascension and had this to say on an episode of the podcast: "Nobody had ever heard of him. But he was against the war in Vietnam, and he supported civil rights.
And here's the thing you might not guess: he was fantastic. A third admired his "guts" and cross-party appeal. As WCPO Cincinnati recalled , Springer hit a home run on his first political at-bat in , getting elected to city council. He then got reelected in ' Springer was a man with both bell-bottoms and moxie, enough moxie to steal a bus to make a point and he did when officials usurped the local bus system. He spent weekends chatting with average Cincinnatians, a weekday working with garbage men shown in the above clip , and a night in jail commiserating with inmates.
The occasional crime notwithstanding, Springer tired to court constituents more than controversy. Long before Americans blushed at the dirty deeds of dudes like David Vitter and Elliot Spitzer , Jerry Springer had his own awkward prostitution scandal. On both occasions he paid for his pleasure by check, which made him pretty easy to nail when cops finally dropped the hammer. It may have been the '70s, but even in the age of free love and affection, paying for a lady still earned negative attention, especially for Springer, who had just won reelection.
He was also set to become the nation's youngest mayor following the next election cycle, but that plan quickly died. After initially forgiving Springer, the city council unceremoniously ousted him. He publicly resigned before his sobbing wife and an army of journalists. True to his name, Springer sprang back the next year, once more getting elected to city council and later becoming mayor. But when he unsuccessfully ran for governor in , opponents dredged up and distorted his past.
Per The New York Times , health club hanky-panky became a motel romp with three deviants. Naturally, opponents claimed he wrote a "bad check.
Springer classily responded in an ad above , facing the truth "even if it hurts. Despite falling from grace, he refused to remain crestfallen. Instead, he felled the tree of turmoil and grew as a candidate. Even when he fell short of becoming governor, he didn't just retreat from the limelight to lick his wounds. In lieu of lying low, Springer became a newscaster. As Springer told the Columbia Journalism Review , he never chased his chance to work in news.
Like a moss-less stone, he rolled with it and ultimately rocked at what he did. Ever the professional, Springer refused to let his liberal leanings slant how he reported the news, even when discussing politicians he disagreed with.
However, he still got his two cents in in the final minutes of the show. Sound familiar? This American Life explained that with NBC's blessing Springer concluded his newscasts with a commentary segment which included the now-iconic catchphrase, "Take care of yourselves and each other. During his 10 years as a broadcaster, he won a dominant 10 Emmys.
Then a new opportunity landed in his lap: the chance to host a talk show. Ironically, Springer's on-air wholesomeness led to him becoming the poster child for tawdry entertainment. The Jerry Springer Show first aired in , and it was a slow-motion rollercoaster of meh.
It contained as much adrenaline as a sleeping pill, and the ratings reflected that. The show filmed at least two episodes somedays — minimum — at the height of its success. The Jenny Jones Show set the stage for the talk-show-related crime. He was convicted and sentenced for the crime. Eleanor moved into the home where Ralf and Nancy had allegedly reconciled. When she moved in, Nancy left and filed charges against the two of them for stalking. Ralf and Eleanor were forced to leave the residence.
Eventually, Nancy walked off the stage. Police hunted soon after for suspects, Ralf and Eleanor, but the couple surrendered in Boston four days later.
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