Daytime shows have courted controversy long before the Ellen DeGeneres fiasco of recent years. Back in the 1980s, Geraldo Rivera’s mustache lit up some fuses and even sat alongside a broken nose in the process. Years later, Jerry Springer took over the slot previously occupied by Phil Donahue, and the rest was pop cultural history.
In 2018, The Jerry Springer Show look a bow after 27 years full of literal and metaphorical throw downs. Cheaters were exposed, food was thrown in the air for no good reason, and there remain questions about whether some guests were actually actors. Whatever the case, Springer now feels badly about showcasing the lowest common denominator of American society for profit. Via NME, Springer appeared on David Yontef’s Behind the Velvet Rope podcast and admitted that he harbors regrets:
“I just apologize… I’m so sorry. What have I done? I’ve ruined the culture… I just hope hell isn’t that hot because I burn real easy. I’m very light-complected, and that kind of worries me.”
Clearly, this is a bit of a joke, but it’s true that Springer, Rivera, Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael, Jenny Jones, and many others sure did do their best to tank American culture on daytime TV. The audience was there for them, too, proving that the responsibility can be spread around for sure. And Jerry surely never imagined that his show would become tied to a real-life murder case when a guest killed another guest after a particularly unsettling on-air confrontation. That’s an extreme case, but at least to some degree, Springer sounds like he wouldn’t mind erasing some TV sins of the past.
(Via NME)