'Maury' Cancellation Blindsides Lifelong Fans

Andrew Roberts

06/02/2023 09:05 pm EDT

Maury Povich's time on daytime TV has come to an end, bringing with it the end of a cable boom that brought daytime shows like Maury to the popularity. And viewers and fans of the show are undoubtedly aware online, sharing their favorite moments and joking about the show's end.

In those early days of the internet, Maury became fodder for memes and showcased what daytime audiences had been watching for years. It also helped keep the show going a lot longer than it likely would've gotten. Jerry Springer ran on TV until 2018, with his Judge Jerry show beginning the following year before being canceled recently. Maury has lasted, vastly unchanged into an era when an on-demand choice is touted above all.

How did it manage? Is it the over-the-top reactions to the paternity test results, with hopeful mothers chasing their lost hopes to the back after receiving terrible news? What about the phobias that people agreed to confront on TV, leading to a grown woman running in fear from a pile of cotton balls.

It's all there, or it was until news broke on Saturday that the show was hanging it up. Soon some podcast or weird gas station video channel will take up the mantle of wild daytime talk segments.

Scroll down to take in how many viewers and fans are marking the end of the series. If you want to drag up a few memories, peruse a bit and it's bound to happen.

Still, Most Are Weepy

Most were in playful mourning over the end of Maury, though. It might not have been high art or the ushering in of a golden age for television, but it was an important chapter. "It was one of my dreams to be in the studio audience of the Maury show and now it's all gone, all my dreams vanished. Wtf man?!? I've had so many dreams dashed and this.... I can't anymore," one wrote. "I don't want to live in a world where we don't know who's the father or if someone failed the lie detector test," another added.

That Was Still On?

Of course, with all the praise and nostalgia, there were plenty of folks who were too cool for school. All of them miss the joy of never knowing if you're watching a new episode or old episode.

And The Phobias!

If this one seems downright cruel, you're not wrong. But these folks do sign a release and know what they're jumping into. At least you hope so, especially in this woman's case. And the case of the woman frightened of cotton balls. "I never imagined I'd be living in a world where Judge Judy and the Maury Show aren't on air anymore, those shows just felt immortal," another user added.

But Love Those Reaction Shots

It's certainly easy to feel bad for everybody involved in these episodes, but we are also well aware that these reactions are not reality. The people are real, but the cameras are running and folks know where the bread is buttered on the show. "the scenarios that they be havin is so crazy and messed up like 'the girlfriend cheated on her boyfriend with his dad, uncle and brother, she got pregnant but know they don't know who the father is' like wtf," a fan added, noting just how out there the show could get.

Think of The Camera Person

A lot of folks were thinking of the long-suffering camera people who worked on Maury. "Those camera people on Maury must be happy they been running for years," one user wrote.

You Are Not The Father?

A lot of people couldn't help making fun of what could be considered Maury's catchphrase. It lives right next to "No Whammy" and "Set It and Forget It" as phrases you can pinpoint immediately. "Uh oh! Better go sell all of my shares in the DNA Diagnostics Center. The bubble has officially burst," a user wrote noting the end of the show's testing.

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