Dark Side of the 90's

I thought the most outrageous thing

I could do in this lifetime

was to have sex with 300 men, so I did it.

In the '90s, talk shows are the most

provocative thing on television.

You had Oprah, Sally, Phil, Geraldo, myself.

At one time, there were two dozen talk shows

competing in the marketplace.

You need to find your own man.

And the most violent.

The fists would start flying, the chairs would start falling.

They literally tore the place apart.

No boundaries go uncrossed.

You can't just do this to me!

None delved as low as Jerry Springer.

We were the bad guys.

Until a murder...

You rub two sticks together and you get fire.

forces a reckoning.

It literally became a matter of life and death.

**

**

It is very hard to forgive you for what you did to me,

but I do forgive you.

Daytime talk shows.

No other form of media mirrors

the American psyche quite like them,

How many women have gone to the grave

never saying anything?

- Today, people are revealing... - And in the 90s,

they flood the airwaves completely.

At one time, there were two dozen talk shows

competing in the marketplace for essentially the same audience.

Oprah, Sally, Phil, Geraldo, myself.

Marilu Henner, Charles Perez,

Vanessa somebody that was on "The Cosby Show".

We all went after those topics

that people had never seen before.

What starts out as a forum to discuss social issues

and current events quickly devolves into pure spectacle.

"Oprah" was like the mom show.

And then you had "Maury".

When it comes to three-year-old Kanaya,

you are not the father.

That was "You are not the father"

or "You are the father."

Jerry Jones was like more of a social issues kind of thing.

You never fit in? Shy? Bookworm?

- Yeah. - Geeky, sort of?

But when it comes to trash TV, one name says it all.

"Jerry Springer" was the show where everybody would fight.

Obviously, she's not doing something right in the bedroom

or he wouldn't be coming... -

That was the fighting show, and, like,

and that's kind of what people would tune in for

and it's definitely what people would go

to tapings of the show to see.

None delved as low as Jerry Springer.

Here she is... Mom!

He was the absolute lowest of the low.

I'm Robert Feder.

I'm a journalist who's been covering the media in Chicago

for more than 40 years.

The irony is that there was a point

at which "The Jerry Springer Show"

was the number one talk show in daytime television.

It actually beat Oprah Winfrey at its peak.

And yet it was a talk show where there was very little talking.

People didn't talk.

It was about the conflict and the "Jerry! Jerry!"

I think most people were watching it and saying,

"Who are these people?"

The guests, especially on a show like "Jerry Springer",

they want to feel like they're leaving a mark on the world,

and, you know, unless they become

a serial killer or sprout two heads,

how are they going to get on television?

You say you've been a dog.

Who have you been a dog with?

Her best friend.

My name's Laura Grindstaff.

I'm a professor of sociology at UC Davis

and I'm the author of a book titled

Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows".

She also once worked on "The Jerry Springer Show".

I think most people who are in college

in the '90s watched at least some "Jerry Springer".

Me and my roommates would watch "Jerry Springer"

and just smoke, like, terrible dirt weed all the time.

My name is Katie Rife, and my first job out of college

was as an associate producer on "The Jerry Springer Show".

I think it was the car crash quality of it,

you know, the kind of gawking at a car crash thing.

You can't just do this to me! No!

Make it interesting with the sound off,

because a lot of people are just flipping through the TV.

You hit "The Jerry Springer Show",

it's got to make them want to stop.

I'm Richard Dominick, and at one time,

I was the executive producer of "The Jerry Springer Show".

Can we back up a little bit?

In 1991,

Dominick is first hired to be

just one of Jerry Springer's half dozen producers.

When I first started on "Springer" in Cincinnati,

I didn't know what to expect.

I knew he was a newscaster and he won an Emmy Awards

for being the most popular newscaster in Cincinnati.

And then all of a sudden, this guy came in

and he just looked like a wreck. His hair was all messed up

and he had on a sweater that was too big

and he had sneakers on and jeans.

And we started talking and making jokes and he sat down.

He lit a cigar, and I was a cigar smoker,

and we just hit it off right away.

What a lot of people don't remember about Jerry Springer

is that Jerry Springer was the mayor of Cincinnati

who literally had to step down from office

because he got caught paying a prostitute with a check.

He had written a check to a sex worker,

and so he was traced back to that sex worker,

and, you know.

So he had a bit of a scandalous past himself,

even when he was a politician.

And so people knew him before "The Jerry Springer Show".

If you've just joined us, this is our first show,

and we're putting together people

who haven't seen each other for 35 years.

Back before I took over the show,

when it was a very serious program,

the people running the show, Multimedia Entertainment,

they go over step by step, word for word,

what they wanted him to say.

And he's dressed in a banker suit

and he's got these big, stupid glasses on

like Larry King, you know, those big things.

And his hair was all slicked back

and he looked so uncomfortable.

It was like they had programmed

or were trying to program a robot,

because in their head, he was Phil Donahue.

Springer launched his talk show as a sort of Phil Donahue lite.

People often think about the origins of talk shows

as sort of beginning with Phil Donahue.

He really innovated this format.

He explored reproductive rights, child custody issues, equal pay.

He had the silly moments on there, too,

but he tended to mix the political,

the personal, and entertainment together in a kind of package

that was more socially conscious

than you would sort of see coming up afterwards.

This audience wants in here.

Phil Donahue, on one occasion

to try to contain an unruly audience member

who started yelling out questions in the audience,

Phil Donahue literally stepped across a light grid

and put a microphone in the person's mouth.

That's what started the audience

getting an opportunity to speak back.

"Phil Donahue, Phil Donahue, Phil Donahue."

That's all I ever heard. "Phil Donahue."

And I was so tired of hearing Phil Donahue's name.

To the people running "The Jerry Springer Show",

he was a god to them.

And Jerry didn't want to be the next Phil Donahue.

I just thought, "My God, this isn't right.

This is not the guy."

The guy who I met upstairs on the sixth floor...

He's a TV guy.

People are going to like that guy.

They're not gonna like this guy.

Jerry Springer was going to be a serious talk show host.

One of the famous lines he said at that time was,

"You won't see me dancing with the Chippendale dancers."

Well, that turned out to be quite ironic,

since that would have been mild

compared to what the show eventually evolved into.

If you go back and look at the original "Jerry Springer Show",

the original "Jerry Springer Show"

was as calm as Phil Donahue

and even calmer than my show.

We have a nice surprise for you today, okay?

You are going to meet your daughter, Sandy,

who you have not seen in 35 years. Sandy?

Sandy?

When I think back to that first season in Cincinnati,

in my opinion, it was just dreadful, boring,

and he had a million and one cards in his hands, and...

it wasn't working and it was obvious

it wasn't going to work.

For its second season,

Multimedia Entertainment and NBC-owned studios team up

and relocate "The Springer Show" from Cincinnati to Chicago.

The move does little to boost their ratings,

but for Richard Dominick,

it means a promotion to executive producer.

I was asked to take over the show,

so I said, "Yeah, of course, absolutely."

And they said, "We're going to cancel the show in November."

And this was April. It was like, ay-yi-yi.