Jerry Springer Says He ‘Ruined Culture’ – ‘I Just Hope Hell Isn’t That Hot’
Former talk show host Jerry Springer joked about how The Jerry Springer Show essentially ruined modern culture and even took the “blame” for reality TV phenomenons.
Known for shocking reveals on his show, Springer contributed to other formats of shock TV, like reality television. But he looked back on how he went from being a lawyer to the head of his brash and sometimes violent talk show.
Jerry Springer joked about ruining ‘culture’
Springer joked that he essentially trashed the modern cultural landscape. “Yeah, 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, that kind of worries me,” he said on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast. “No, I’m just a schlub who got lucky, and there was never a thought in my mind growing up that I’d be in show business.”
I mean, I’m a lawyer,” he pointed out. “I started out being a lawyer and then working for Bobby Kennedy. In other words, my background is political and legal. And then after being mayor, I was offered the job to anchor the news for the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati. I did that for 10 years. And that was a kind of rational transition.”
How did Jerry Springer get his talk show?
Springer said going from politics to reporting to the news seems like a natural transition. “And then how the show happened was pure luck,” he recalled. “The company that owned the station where I did the news owned talk shows. They owned Phil Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael. Well, Phil was retiring. And so the CEO took me to lunch one day and said, Phil’s retiring, we are 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,” he shared. “So I wound up in show business through no thought of my own. I don’t have any particular show business talent.”
Reality TV is a hit because the public is the entertainment
Springer’s show grew in popularity, and the reality TV boom wasn’t far behind. “In hindsight, it’s just the democratization of our whole culture,” Springer shared. “In other words, democracy is always this big thing. And now with technology, it has gone into the area of entertainment. It used to be for thousands of years that you would have someone on the stage, someone on in the arena, someone on the screen, and the audience would sit around and watch. Observe.”
“But now with technology, the audience has become the entertainment,” he said as a nod to reality TV. “It started with talk radio. You would listen to talk radio because the callers were so fascinating. And then after talk radio, suddenly it became Phil Donohue on television. The audience was what you want.”
“Now you have the people actually becoming the entertainers themselves. They vote you out of the house, they vote you off the island on America’s Got Talent, or American Idol. It’s regular people who audition and get [the roles]. It’s not just a few people sitting in Hollywood or New York deciding who our stars are gonna be. The people vote for who it’s gonna be. And that’s reality television.”
