A new Netflix documentary takes a deep dive into the primordial ooze to show how grainy "The Jerry Springer Show" highlights (or rather, lowlights) echo into the present day.
Jerry Springer achieved fame and fortune in the 1990s by presiding over what became as much a three-ring circus as a daytime TV show, at one point surpassing reigning queen Oprah Winfrey in some ratings. While Oprah remains a cultural icon who needs no last name, I'd argue Springer casts a longer albeit tawdrier shadow over the current state of media, public discourse and even politics.
The sort of feud that emerged between Springer's show and Winfrey's is among the most fascinating aspects of "Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action," a two-part Netflix documentary that takes a deep dive into the primordial ooze that made "The Jerry Springer Show" a ratings sensation, with enthusiastic audiences chanting "Jerry! Jerry!" each time the titular host sauntered onstage.
In what has become an attention-driven media environment, those grainy "Jerry Springer Show" highlights (or rather, lowlights) also echo into the present day. Members of Congress are picking fights to generate the viral moments that will earn them appearances on Fox News. Reality TV casts are tossing wine and fighting during reunion specials (think "The Real Housewives" franchise).
Making its debut in 1991, years before "Survivor" or "Big Brother" reached U.S. shores, "The Jerry Springer Show" anticipated a culture that would package outlandish, boorish and violent behavior as "reality" entertainment. Over three decades later, America's president-elect has built a massive fanbase -- and earned a ton of free media -- by playing into a cartoonish and often antagonistic persona.
As "Fights, Camera, Action" reminds us, Springer's not-so-secret sauce was modern-day gladiatorial combat. His favorite themes included infidelity of every stripe, incestuous relationships and oddities like the man who "married" his Shetland pony. In interviews for the documentary, producers acknowledge encouraging guests to be as confrontational as possible, prodding that regularly resulting in wild brawls in front of a gleefully cheering (or jeering) audience.
When "The Jerry Springer Show" climbed atop the syndicated TV standings, Winfrey slammed the show as "appalling," an appraisal with which few among the media intelligentsia, then or now, would argue. As the Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck wrote when Springer died in 2023 (an event that yielded more laments than the usual appreciations): "The show's topics were a veritable smorgasbord of incest, pedophilia, adultery, hate groups, perversion, and humanity's worst instincts in general. Violence and nudity were common occurrences."
The year before he died, Springer apologized for what his show had unleashed, saying on a podcast that he had "ruined the culture," then joking, "I just hope Hell isn't that hot, because I burn real easy."
Granted, like most TV talent, Springer took too much credit -- or in this case, blame -- for how his show debased the public square. The documentary suggests the win-at-all-costs mentality of executive producer Richard Dominick was also a massive motivator. Dominick once told an interviewer that there was "no line" he wouldn't cross. "If I could kill someone on television, I would execute them on television," he said at the time, according to the documentary.
But while there weren't executions, the genre of reality TV popularized and perfected by Springer was marred by death. The documentary chronicles the murder of Nancy Campbell-Panitz, who was killed by her ex-husband following their appearance on the show in 2000. Another high-profile slaying was tied to "The Jenny Jones Show," one of many Springer-lite series that would populate the daytime TV landscape. In 1995, Jonathan Schmitz killed his acquaintance Scott Amedure days after the latter revealed his "secret crush" on Schmitz during the program. (Schmitz told police he had shot his friend after being embarrassed on TV; he was eventually paroled in 2017.)
Springer may have genuinely harbored regrets after his incredibly lucrative, 27-season TV run. But Dominick's indifference to questions of collateral damage feel more representative of the show's ethos. Nor should we overlook the audience's complicity. The show's lofty ratings -- capped by its Oprah milestone -- sent a message: Forget our better angels, appealing to our basest instincts was an equally acceptable winning formula.
Today, Jerry Springer is gone. But the remnants of "Jerry Springer" endure in our media and political ecosystems -- the reverberations of a hit, at least symbolically, we can still feel to this day.