The Jerry Springer Show
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The Jerry Springer Show (first aired September 30, 1991) is a television talk show filmed in Chicago, Illinois that has aired during the morning hours of many syndicated TV stations since the late 1990s. It is ostensibly a show where troubled (or dysfunctional) families come to talk about their problems with a studio audience, presumably so that the audience or host can offer suggestions on what can be done to resolve their situations. The show is hosted by Jerry Springer, a former politician.
In actuality, The Jerry Springer Show has come to epitomize the so-called "trash TV talk show," as each episode of the show focuses on lurid topics that usually deal with sex, racism, marital jealousy, and other prurient subjects. Typical topics of discussion on the show include unusual extra-marital affairs, vicious rivalries between families, rebellious and promiscuous teenagers, strippers and adult movie stars, and the like. The show proudly boasts that it was once voted the worst TV show ever. Possibly one of the strangest confessions was when a man admitted that he had married his horse, which became the most memorable moment of the show.
The "discussion" of each episode's subject usually involves an insult-laden verbal exchange between members of the studio audience and the featured "guests" on the show, who trade barbs throughout the length of the episode. Host Springer wraps up each show with a moralizing sermon on the subject entitled "Jerry's Final Thought", often finishing his speech with "Take care of yourself and of each other".
In its heyday the show was quite popular, so much so that it caused contemporaries like Jenny Jones, Maury Povich, and Ricki Lake to "revamp" their own shows in order to improve ratings. Incidentally, the popularity of the "trash TV" talk shows led to a decline in the number of game shows that had traditionally been broadcast on weekday mornings.
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History
The Jerry Springer Show debuted on September 30, 1991, with journalist Sally Jesse Raphel as its first guest. It started as a politically-oriented talk show, a longer version of the commentary Springer had gained local fame for giving as reporter and anchor. Guests back then included Oliver North and Jesse Jackson, and the topics included homelessness and gun control. Low ratings led it to be picked up by a new producer. The search for higher ratings led Springer towards tawdry and provocative topics, becoming more and more successful as the show turned more and more lowbrow. It became, through Springer's own admittance, a "freak show" where guests seek their fifteen minutes of fame through discussion and demonstrations of deviant behavior. Its extraordinary success has led it to be broadcast in dozens of countries.
Ratings on the show skyrocketed when Springer featured representatives of a white supremacist group. The hostile confrontation between the "guests" and the studio audience quickly came to blows, and Springer himself suffered minor injuries as the TV station security cleared the stage. Since then, critics of the show charge, The Jerry Springer Show has encouraged its guests to attack one another and display more on-air fisticuffs, to keep the show's ratings high.
In 1999, the Chicago City Council suggested that if the fist fights and chair-throwing were real, then the guests should be arrested for committing acts of violence in the city. When asked whether the fights were genuine, Springer said, "They look real to me." He then criticized council members for not distinguishing between "violence on the streets of their city" and "rough-housing in our studios." Ultimately, the city council chose not to pursue the matter.
Reality
With the increasingly ridiculous nature of his guests' dilemmas (for example, stories such as 'Daddy, will you marry me'), the authenticity of Springer's guests has been brought into question. Nonetheless, Springer swears on his life that all his guests are real.
See also
- Jerry Springer - The Opera A British opera based on the show.
External links
- Official Site (http://www.jerryspringer.com/)
- Universal TV Site (http://www.uni-television.com/jerry/)
- A petition to release The Jerry Springer Show on DVD (http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/jerryspringerdvd/)