In his heyday Jerry Springer consistently played down the significance of his talk show and its drift into what became known as “trash TV,” dismissing the daytime program as “stupid” and basically a big joke that the audience was in on. Yet TV paid a price for the excesses “The Jerry Springer Show” helped usher in, with the advent of anything-goes reality television and a nastier mentality that oozed across the media spectrum.
Springer, who has died at the age of 79, had a background in politics as well as television, and he was a cheerful ambassador for his form of TV escapism, calling the show “silly.” His producer, Richard Dominick, spoke of the wacky content appealing to “the Letterman crowd,” a reference to the sophisticated late-night audience, heavily tilted at the time toward college students and young adults, which originally gravitated toward David Letterman’s brand of comedy.
Television hits don’t exist in a vacuum, though, and Springer’s sensationalism bled across the TV landscape, in a manner that was hardly free of consequences. The “craziness” over which Springer presided crept into other daytime fare, as well as the growing trend of “reality” television, mixing the outlandishness of professional wrestling with ordinary people in one big colorful, watchable and occasionally toxic stew.
That included the murder of Scott Amedure, a guest on Jenny Jones’ rival daytime show in 1995, after he revealed his “secret crush” on Jonathan Schmitz, who later shot him. In 1999, a Michigan jury issued a $25-million judgment against the show and its distributor, Warner Bros. (like CNN, part of Warner Bros. Discovery), for its negligence in Amedure’s death.
An appeals court later overturned that judgment. “Jerry Springer” was also sued unsuccessfully in 2002 by the family of a woman killed by her ex-husband after appearing on the show.
Brawls became a daily staple of Springer’s program, offering just enough titillation to keep the audience coming back. Yet as USA Today critic Kelly Lawler noted, while Springer himself was generally respectful toward his guests – and indeed, often conveyed a sense of bemused detachment from the circus where he served as ringmaster – “part of the series’ success stemmed from trafficking in racial stereotypes, homophobia, transphobia and the othering of disabled people.”
While there are few straight lines in pop culture, Springer’s antics clearly played a part in the zigzagging staircase that the media rode into the 21st century, which hinged on pushing boundaries on programming that billed itself as “reality,” despite all the editing and manipulation employed in shaping those stories.
Although there were speed bumps along the way, such as the Jenny Jones case, producers and executives found it difficult, if not impossible, to put the toothpaste back in the tube. The occasional excess, even tragedy, became a cost of doing business.
In a podcast interview last year, Springer apologized for the influence of what his show helped unleash, saying, half-jokingly, “What have I done? I’ve ruined the culture.”
To be fair, Springer had plenty of company and accomplices in leading television down the path that it followed.
Yet even Springer appeared to acknowledge that amid the garishness, money and chants of “Jerry! Jerry!,” there was a darker side, too, to that legacy, one whose ripples can be seen not just in what’s on TV, but what flows from it.