Jerry Springer (from his website)
Jerry Springer has finally come out and admitted that he may very well have personally ruined western culture as we know it. When this sort of thing happens people usually view it as a sign that the coming of the Messiah is imminent.
Jerry Springer, of course, is the man who stole the daytime talk show format pioneered by Phil Donahue in the 1970s and turned it into a travesty of American culture. Donahue had devoted his program to informing the public of a multitude of social issues long before it became acceptable to discuss them in public. In the 1980s Oprah Winfrey became a household name by copying this format. And then in the 1990s just about everyone, from Ricki Lake to Geraldo Rivera, had their own daytime talk show. But it was the Jerry Springer Show that was undeniably the worst of the worst.
The Jerry Springer show became best known for it’s on air brawls between the guests and the need for a full time bouncer on stage.
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In an interview with David Yontef’s Behind the Velvet Rope podcast Jerry Springer admitted his role in the devolution of political discourse and public debate in America which bang long befor the advent of the blogosphere saying, “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,” he quipped.
As for how the 78-year-old former Mayor Cincinnati became a television star, it began after Jerry Springer left politics when it came out that a check he used to pay a prostitute bounced. Then he went to work in local television news which in turn led to his daytime talk show.
“I’m just a schlub who got lucky,” Jerry Springer explained. “There was never a thought in my mind, growing up, that I’d be in show business. I started out being a lawyer and working for Bobby Kennedy. My background is political and legal.”
“The company that owned the station where I did the news, owned talk shows. They owned Phil Donahue and Sally Jessy Raphael,” he said. “Well Phil was retiring, and so the [station] CEO took me to lunch one day and said, ‘Phil is retiring, we’re starting a new talk show, you’re the host.’ So I was assigned to it as an employee and then all of a sudden the show took off.”
