Jerry Springer Admits He Helped Bring About Culture’s Downfall With Talk Show

Jerry Springer is looking back on his infamous talk show and drawing a few conclusions about the impact he left behind. According to Insider, Springer appeared on David Yontef’s Behind the Velvet Rope podcast and looked back on his TV tenure, including his role in ushering in the collapse of high culture.

Springer gets labeled the “granddad of reality TV,” which isn’t a stretch to say. The Jerry Springer Show was the top of a heap that included Maury Povich, Jenny Jones, and other scandalous daytime talk staples. Similar to shock jocks like Howard Stern at the time, Springer’s show pushed the limits of syndicated TV. The 78-year-old can laugh a bit now, despite his feelings about his legacy.

“No, I just apologize. I’m so sorry. What have I done? I’ve ruined the culture,” Springer says when asked if he likes being the forbearer to Reality TV. Luckily he also has quite a sense of humor. “I just hope hell isn’t that hot because I burn real easy. I’m very light-complected, and that kind of worries me.”

The former politician and mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio does feel fortunate about his career, calling himself a “schlub who got lucky” with his raunchy show. In a way, he was the normal side of the U.S. holding up the mirror to the portions we all know exist but didn’t enjoy the light of fame. Guests on the show would tell wild stories, strip their clothes off, and would always be primed for a fight.

Folks who were married to animals, mother-daughter dominatrix teams, cheating husbands, unfaithful housewives, and all sorts of naked body parts were possible on the show. At its height, the show spawned PPV specials for its hottest moments, a stage show that tried to capture the feel in a staged fashion, and even had a feature film based on it all. Ringmaster starred Springer as a version of himself, featuring Michael Jai White, Jaime Pressly, Michael Dudikoff, and others as the wild guests on the show.

In between his talk show and his time as mayor, Springer was an anchor for NBC in Cincinnati for a decade. “And that was a kind of rational transition and then how the show happened was pure luck,” Springer said. “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.”

It is safe to say that Springer’s show was a bit different than Donahue’s at the time, but not by much. Springer offered something that mixed the volatile nature of Morton Downey Jr. and the respect of your everyday news anchor. Springer landed at the perfect time and lasted from 1991 until its cancellation in 2018. Not a bad run for the catalyst of television brain rot.