Alex Carson
After 27 successful seasons, the last episode of The Jerry Springer Show aired on June 26, 2018. The popularity of the show that it immediately went into syndication.
In many ways, the show was predictable — the entry of Springer was a prelude to the format of the show. At the beginning of episodes, Jerry slides down a stripper pole and introduces audiences to a bizarre situation or topic. He interviews people who experienced a similar, ending the segment by inviting a second guest to argue with the first. The arguments invariably turned physical, with the show’s security often meddling in to restore calm on the sets.
If anything, the show was trash and vulgar. Jerry’s guests seemed like people from another planet. The show receives hatred from all corners and yet its bizarreness also kept piquing its audience’s curiosity. Compelling them to keep coming back for more. In this video, we tell you about some of the controversies associated with the show which make The Jerry Springer Show the most hated show in television history.
Facts Verse Presents Jerry Springer Might be the Most Hated Show Ever. Before you get to the gossip with us, make sure to like and subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon to stay updated about all our latest videos.
You may choose to hate Springer as much as you want, but he isn’t the brains behind the ‘trash TV’ genre. Phil Donahue and Morton Downey Jr. are harbingers of this genre.
Also, you may have gotten used to seeing Jerry Springer act as a referee between his weird guests, but dissolving fights wasn’t Jerry’s first job. In fact, he was a politician who served as the Mayor of Cincinnati in the late 1970s. Surprising, isn’t it?
Here’s another surprising fact: The Jerry Springer Show wasn’t supposed to be the show it eventually became. The creators of the show conceptualized it as a serious political-themed talk show. Before we start giving you our reasons to hate the show, we want to remind you to like and subscribe to our channel. Also, press the bell icon and you will get an update about all our latest videos.
Springer was smart and realized that the smarter people hated his show. Her, therefore, decided to move to a more serious form of journalism with another show. However, the protests and campaigns against The Jerry Springer Show increases to such an extent that Jerry’s other show cancels.
The show was so weird that even the federal government hated it. In 1998, Joe Lieberman and William Bennett, two senators complained against the show, which led to the National Association of Broadcasters convention visiting the sets of The Jerry Springer Show.
Springer himself hated the show. In an interview, he confessed to never watching his show as, like most people, he found it stupid and ridiculous. But then, why would you continue to do a job you find stupid?
He may have found the show ridiculous but he did play a key role in making the show so hateworthy.
In 2009, the show moved to Connecticut from Chicago. The people of Stanford were so disturbed by the news that they came to the streets in protest.
And Jerry Springer did not move to Connecticut because he liked the scenery or the people but because he wanted to save taxes and increase the profit margins on his show. Such a shrewd fellow, we tell you!
In 1982, Springer ran for Governor of Ohio. It was all going well until someone revealed a major scandal, accusing Springer of enjoying the company of a sex worker during his younger days. Springer accepts his mistake and apologizes but the scandal did the harm it was supposed to do — Springer lost the election.
Steve Wilkos, of The Steve Wilkos Show fame, was hired by The Jerry Springer Show team to help maintain decorum during a KKK-themed episode. Wilkos was a police officer in real life. He enjoyed the experience so much that he quit his job to become a full-time security guard at the show.
The Jerry Springer Show ran for a total of 27 seasons and did not win a single Emmy. Well, given the kind of show it was, that’s not very surprising. However, what’s surprising is Springer has won ten local Emmy awards and he owes these awards to his stint as a serious journalist.
Here’s why The Jerry Springer Show deserves all the hatred it got. The show had an act-quickly policy. When someone called to share their story, the makers of the show would immediately offer them a superb deal, asking them to film the very next day. This policy often left guests with no time to think about how their appearance on the show will affect them in the long run.
‘Tranny’ is a derogatory term use for transgenders, transvestites and transsexual people. The word was banned in 2017. Jerry Springer often used this slur on his show. Insensitive, right?
Here’s one more reason why the show was despicable. The producers of the show often made people lie just to get ratings. In 2003, three people who had appeared on the show and discussed their bizarre love story confessed to having lied for the chance to appear on TV.
In 2005, author, journalist and political pundit Bernard Goldberg released his book titled “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.” He gave Springer the 32nd spot on this list, all thanks to The Jerry Springer Show.
More importantly, The Jerry Springer Show deems the “Worst TV Show of All Time” by the Time Magazine. The magazine also called the show the ‘lowest-brow’ show on television. Well, when Time magazine declares something like that, you know for sure the show is trash.
Given the number of protests as well as the pressure from various religious groups, the show actually felt compelled to reduce physical violence on the sets. As a result, the later versions of the show contain far less violence compared to the show’s earlier episodes.
Many parents around the country saw the show for it was — a bad influence on their kids. Thus, in 2001, the Parents Television Council and the American Family Association decided to launch a massive boycott campaign against The Jerry Springer Show. The association succeeded in getting at least a few sponsors of the show to create distance from the show.
If the parents in America got the show’s sponsors to rethink their association with the show, the parents in the UK got The Jerry Springer Show bans from airing on school holidays. The parents worry that the show’s content would spoil their children and they were not wrong — from young ones to adults, The Jerry Springer Show was capable of spoiling everyone’s brains.
Springer not only got barbs from his audiences but also his co-workers. When Springer joined WMAQ, two of his coworkers — Carol Marin and Ron Magers — resigned from their job, simply because they couldn’t stand to work at the same place as Springer. Well, what do you expect when you feed trash to America every day?
In 2013, Springer as a host the 2013 Chicago/Midwest Emmy Awards. The members of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences voted on the decision and Springer won by a very smaller margin. However, as was often the case, one particular board member of the association resigned over the decision.
The show definitely featured some very weird guests. One of the guests on the show was Jasmin St. Clair, who came on the show to break the ‘world’s sex record.’ Jasmin confessed to having sex with 300 men within 10 hours to break the record of Annabel Chong, who had sex with 251 men in 10 hours.
The show features a man who claims that his infidelity should be pardoned because he can’t resist salty snacks and his mistress had tricked him into bed by offering him free fries. Seriously, who invites guests like that?
As if that wasn’t enough, Jerry once invited a couple on the show. The girlfriend asked her boyfriend to choose between her and his best friend. Well, that can be a tough decision, but not when your best friend is a chicken. Seriously, where did Jerry find these people? Oh yeah, he was paying most of them to appear on the show.
And of course, there was also a man who married his horse. He came to The Jerry Springer Show and told the show’s audience how much he enjoyed the relationship he had with his horse. Bizarre!
This episode was in fact so bizarre that many stations refused to air the show. They, instead, played really old episodes of The Jerry Springer Show.
In 2000, Springer featured three guests involved in a love triangle. The man was being chased by his ex-wife. It was all fine until the world discovered that a few hours after the show aired on television, the husband and his current partner mercilessly beat the ex to death. The husband is currently serving a life sentence.
In 2003, the producers of the show decided to convert the show into a musical. Of course, no lessons learn and the musical is as bizarre as the show. Not only did it include 8000 cuss words, but it also went ahead and made fun of God. Large protests holds against the musical.
The Jerry Springer Show was trashy and often ridiculous and bizarre. The show should have cancelled years ago. However, you may be surprised to know that the show, at one point, had higher ratings than The Oprah Winfrey Show. If the show was truly hated, what made it number one? Did you enjoy watching The Jerry Springer Show? Or, did you absolutely hate it like most of us? What was the weirdest episode in your opinion? Do let us know in the comments section.
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