Jerry Springer was back in the news lately, having finally taken his obligatory turn in a big ol’ bug costume on Fox’s The Masked Singer. (This, after a three-season run on his syndicated legal show Judge Jerry, which wrapped up its last episodes earlier this year.) Springer—a lawyer and former politician who slouched into reality TV stardom after serving as a local news anchor for several years—has always adopted a thoughtful, often-ambivalent tack while talking about his most famous product, The Jerry Springer Show. Now, in a recent episode of David Yontef’s Behind The Velvet Rope podcast, he’s offered a joking apology for the series, saying, “I’ve ruined the culture.”
Springer is obviously being tongue-in-cheek with the apology, noting that he hopes “hell isn’t too hot” when he gets there. (He cracked similar jokes with us in an interview 14 years ago, and also with plenty of other outlets across the decades.) In the conversation with Yontef, though—which also includes excerpts from an older interview timed to Judge Jerry—Springer does have a few interesting things to say about why his series took off, and how it pre-dated the modern era of social media.
“It’s just the democratization of the whole culture,” he notes at one point, pointing out that the idea of “the audience becomes entertainment,” which was pivotal to his show, now underpins huge swathes of both social media and reality TV. “I don’t think you can be a grown-up in today’s world and be shocked by anything anymore,” he adds, with the addendum that people regularly post online things that would have been shocking on The Jerry Springer Show 20 years earlier. Springer’s point, essentially, is that his show worked because it allowed guests to make themselves, if not famous, then at least publicly entertaining, through over-exposure of their various flaws or issues; now Twitter and Instagram allow everyone that, uh, “privilege” without having to get on a plane to Chicago with three of their least-favorite relatives.
Again, Springer doesn’t really seem to be doing much hand-wringing about the moral implications of this ruination of modern culture. (He’d probably argue that living the rest of his life having his name chanted at him every single time he goes to the airport is probably punishment enough.) Meanwhile, if you’d like further insight into what The Jerry Springer Show was actually like from the ground floor, we can’t help but direct you to a favorite piece of ours: Our former A.V. Club colleague Katie Rife’s break down of the two hellish-sounding months she spent P.A.-ing on the show.
