All language subtitles for Jerry.Springer.Fights.Camera.Action.S01E01.720p.NF-[y2flix.cc]

Cam, cam.

Okay, man. Here
we go, roll for speed.

Yeah, okay,
and ten, nine, eight…

- Standby six.
- …seven, six, five…

Our show was created
on the studio floor, in the moment.

Go, go, go!

Would you welcome
Mr. Jerry Springer, right over there!

You gotta grab your
audience, and you gotta hold 'em.

And that's what we tried to do.

Thank you!

Thank you very much.

Hey, welcome to the show.

Today's guests say their
relationships are so bizarre,

they have to keep them a secret.

Please meet Mark.

He's been together with
his wife for ten years.

But before we talk to Mark,

let's meet his wife.

Please welcome her to
the show, Mark's wife.

Oh my God.

I'm gonna vomit.

Jerry!
Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

Greatest love story ever told.

This guy married a horse.

Hey, hey!

Nothing like Jerry
Springer had ever been seen before.

We wanted to create
a new genre of talk show.

Like this!

Let's
turn it upside down.

It was the
inception of American shock culture.

Our show was chaos.

I hate you! I hate you!

It was genius.

The modern version of
the Roman Colosseum.

Producing that
show gives you a superpower…

No, no, no!

…to convince people to do shit
that they wouldn't normally do.

Get out there and fight for her!

People in the middle
of a big crisis in their life.

You're a meth-head
piece of ♪♪♪♪!

It was vulgar, it was
vile, it was exploitative.

Jerry liked the ladies,
but the guests are the guests.

You don't cross that line.

The producers
were playing with fire.

Yeah!

It was very dangerous.

Where would
you draw the line?

I would not.
There's no line to draw.

If I could kill someone on television,
I would execute 'em on television.

It's our worst nightmare.
Love triangle comes on the show,

and then they kill each other.

This is it.

After this, I'm never talking
about this fucking show ever again.

Jerry! Jerry!
Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

At the
beginning of 1992,

we got a tip as journalists

that this new guy was coming to
Chicago to launch a talk show.

Well, you've seen
them advertised

in newspaper inserts
and on television sets.

Nah, not television sets.

So there
was a press event

where this guy was
introduced to the media,

and that was where he outlined his
vision for the show at that time.

I want them to
say, after watching the show,

that they learned something about
life that they didn't know before,

and Jerry didn't get in the way
of the telling of that story.

But there was a problem. We
had no idea who this guy was.

We just knew his name
was Jerry Springer.

Councilman
Springer, what are you doing?

I'm trying to make
a living.

Apparently, he was the
former mayor of Cincinnati,

and had also been very
successful in television news

as a news anchor and
as a news commentator.

Good evening. America's
spirit is soaring tonight,

right along with the
space shuttle Discovery.

The company that
I did the news for said,

"Jerry, we're starting a talk
show, and you're gonna host it."

And that, I think, was the idea,
that I would do news at night…

Gonna see you again tomorrow.
Until then, take care of yourself.

- And each other. Good night.
- Good night.

…and then do the
talk show during the day.

So it started out serious.

If you just joined us,
this is our first show.

And, uh, we're putting together people
who haven't seen each other for 35 years.

My first impressions were,
"This is very unremarkable."

We have a nice
surprise for you today.

- Okay?
- What?

You are gonna meet your daughter, Sandy,
who you have not seen in 35 years.

Sandy?

There was nothing about
Jerry or the show that stuck out

among the literally
dozens of talk shows

that were flooding the
market at that time.

It was just one more show.

Till next time, take
care of yourself and each other.

The ratings for talk
shows always mattered,

and if anybody said that anything else
mattered more, they're lying to you.

Every morning, you would get what
was called an overnight sheet,

and it would have all
the talk shows listed

and what they would do.

You always wanted to get at least a
two, a two million people watching.

That was like the magic
number at that time.

Obviously, Oprah would get
like, you know, 12, 14.

That show was a beast, you know?

- Isn't this…
- Fabulous!

Fabulous! It's a fabulous hat.

It's a gift. The truth is, I
could do this for 50 years,

and I would never be as good
as Oprah. That's the truth.

Brian's in a smoking section.
Doesn't he have the right to smoke?

We all knew we were never,
ever going to beat Oprah.

Like... Like, never, you know
what I mean? Just like, "Ah."

Mmm.

- A senior in high school?
- Yes.

- What's next?
- College.

It was respectable, but
it wasn't compelling.

It didn't drive the audience.

We sometimes had to send people out to
the street to get audience to come in

because, you know, it wasn't
exciting to them to watch that.

Wait, you know what? When you're
all talking, we can't hear.

- Yes?
- What I was…

When the ratings were
starting to tank,

individual stations started to move
the show out of its daytime slots

and bury it at one
o'clock in the morning.

We were very aware that if we
didn't get those numbers up,

that we would
probably be canceled.

Clearly, something else was needed
if Jerry was gonna find a path to success.

Basically,
something had to happen.

I thought
the show was terrible.

It... It was just boring.

You had a terrible
host, a terrible show.

The audience is 90.

So when I took over the show
and became executive producer,

the vision that I had, that I
wanted everybody to fall into,

was "Let's take a talk show
and let's turn it upside down."

Let's make it wild.

Let's make it sexy.

Please welcome Richard
Dominick. Richard.

Because that's
what I was known for.

Richard Dominick was always,
first and foremost, a showman.

That's what he
was trained to do.

- You write the headlines.
- Yes.

And you can swear to me, unequivocally,
that everything in here is true.

Absolutely true.

When I was working for the tabloids,
my job was crazy headlines.

And what I noticed is that once
that became the front page,

the sales were going up.

How do you know it's
possessed by the devil?

Can you see that, Richard?

"Satan lives."

I mean, nobody
was Bigfoot's love slave,

but people bought it.

A hundred percent true?

Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

That's because life is hard.

You know, "Oh my God, I got to
get up." "Oh, my back hurts."

"Oh, I can't pay this bill."

"Oh! Elvis is in a UFO.
I want to read that."

It takes you away
from your world…

into another world.

And that's what I
wanted to do with Springer.

Why have
you kept this toaster?

Well, Richard,
when all is said and done,

it makes good toast.

All I had to
do was convince Jerry

to go with the flow
and do what I wanted.

Theresa's been…
Theresa is selfish…

But his dream was not the
show. His dream was politics.

It's just election time,
so the rhetoric flows,

but not the commitment, and
certainly not the money.

I mean, he was an
Emmy Award-winning news guy

with dreams of
Congress or Senate.

And I remember thinking…

"Ah,
it's gonna be tough."

But then me and Jerry took
a walk down Michigan Avenue

and… kind of bullshitting
about, and I gave him my theory.

We're on at two
o'clock in the morning.

Let's do a two o'clock
in the morning show.

Let's have some fun.

Jerry felt, "That's
kind of risky."

So I said to him, "You're a funny
guy. You're a laid-back guy."

That's what I thought.

"So let's bring it out
instead of trying to hide it."

He eventually saw that
this had potential.

And yeah, he... he...
he went along with me.

"Okay, let's give it a
shot and see what happens."

All right, please welcome the host
of our show, Mr. Jerry Springer!

That was the
beginning of Richard saying,

"Do not bring anything to me

unless it is gonna be
interesting with the sound off."

I wanted somebody
going through the channels,

hitting our show,

saying, "Holy shit,
what the hell is that?"

Oh my God.

Hi, Jerry.

Well, it just doesn't
matter what I ask, you know.

That's what it was about. It was
about getting people to stop.

Hey, Jerry.

Bob…

where did you get those shoes?

Do you like 'em?

It started out to be a very
funny, sexy kind of show.

Basically, anything I could get away
with at two o'clock in the morning.

I would, but I'm on a diet.

You might see some tits, you might
see, you know, somebody doing a rap.

It's like a party.

Everyone, applaud!

Come on, make some noise!

I told the stage
manager, "When he comes out,

I want everybody on their feet,

and I want them to chant,
'Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!'"

They'd be like, "Really?"

"Yeah, that's what I want

because people at home, they're
gonna think he's famous."

Jerry! Jerry!
Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

That was kind of, I think, the beginning,
maybe, of the metamorphosis of the show,

was the fact that we kinda made him a
little more fly, you know what I mean?

The one thing about Jerry is he
had a tremendous sense of humor,

and he had a tremendous
sense of timing.

Come on out.

And you could see the
passion he brought to the audience.

Any thoughts about which woman is
here to confront you from your past?

It could be anybody. I dunno.

Anybody?

Hey.

Hey, Mike, huh?

Suddenly,
he loosened up.

And... And... And that's what
made it work. He made it work.

Dominique, tell me about
that one-night stand.

I have to tell you because
I'm not gonna lie anymore.

I used to be a man at one time.

The bosses weren't crazy
about Richard's ideas.

They were kind of
embarrassed and very angry.

They'd be like, "Stop doing
that. Don't do that kind of show."

"Otherwise, we're
gonna cancel you."

Oh, they'd call every day, and
they'd scream and yell at me.

"You've turned the show
into cocktail table talk!"

Whatever the fuck that means.

So I had to be the tough guy.

I had to lay down the law.

I had to call them and say, "This
is what the audience at home wants."

I mean, they
weren't happy about it,

but then the numbers would
come in, it'd be like, "Okay."

"Do you want us to, like, help the
little kid over here and get a 1.9,

or have the pimp and the
prostitute on and get a 3.7?"

You... You got to choose.

Now they're like, "Oh my God,
people are watching this."

So now they would put it
back on in the daytime,

and then it would
repeat at night.

That's called a double run.
You got double ratings.

And that's when we knew, this
is what we could do every day.

It's not just that the
show was great and entertaining,

it was that people loved Jerry.

And that formula saved the show.

Jerry!

It was exciting.

We're having a good time,
we're doing great shows,

we're growing an audience.

This is terrific.

Oh! Swish!

But now it's saved. Let's
see how far we can go.

Today, in an exclusive interview,
we're going to talk to Earl Zea,

a man who cut off his own penis.

It looks
like chaos on TV,

but the producers had to really
organize that whole thing.

My desk was very
similar to this.

My... My desk has a
story all its own.

I had come from
the tabloid world.

So obviously, Richard was looking
for people who thought that way.

From the minute I was hired
on it, it was crazy intense.

I mean, where are you? I need
you to move really quick.

This is
Studio B in Chicago.

Now, for the first time, we
take you behind the scenes

to find out how we make
The Jerry Springer Show.

Three. Go three. Two. Let's go!

Richard was scary. He's
probably still scary.

You know, he... he sat behind
his desk smoking a big cigar.

Take the camera off of me
and go shoot in the hallway.

If anybody's got a problem,
tell them to come see me.

Whereas Jerry,
everybody likes him.

You meet him and it's like… He's
like the dad you want to have.

You know, he's calm and he's
nice and he's self-deprecating.

And to be able to combine this
kind of highbrow personality

with these everyday
lowbrow problems,

it was genius.

It really was.

It worked.

Melinda speaking.

Don't have a story, you don't have a show.
Don't have guests, you don't have a show.

The stories were everything,
so you had to have stories.

But to do it all by yourself
is almost impossible.

I mean, it's a lot.

So I needed help right away.

Okay, bye.

And that's when I
interviewed Toby.

I didn't know what I wanted
when I interviewed on the Jerry job.

I'd just graduated college late,

and I'd been bartending
for like four years.

He was a very, very bubbly
guy and, um, really eager.

Super eager.

"Can you start
right away, please?"

"All this sounds great."

You know, "I have no talk show experience.
Is that a problem for you guys?"

- And she was like…
- "No."

"You were a bartender, so
you're kind of perfect,

because you can talk to anyone."

Springer. Yup.

No, put 'em through.

The guests were advertised for during
the shows at that time especially,

and, um, people would
call in to the number.

Right.

And they would all be
written down on these big sheets.

"Are you in a strange
and unusual relationship

and want to tell people?"

"Are you cheating on your spouse
and you want to surprise them?"

Yeah.

Whatever it was,
this was their chance…

- No.
- …to tell their story.

Okay, talk soon.

It was very high pressure.

I love producing The
Jerry Springer Show.

Um, I think you gotta kind
of be a nutbag to do it.

The mailbox is full and cannot
accept any messages at this time.

Richard was a very hard
taskmaster on his employees.

Wonderful to deal with as
a reporter on the outside,

but as I would come to learn,

the employees were
under tremendous strain

to deliver and to
produce the goods,

specifically for only
Richard's approval.

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

I mean, I don't believe
Jerry understood

or really much cared about the
long-term direction of the show.

I think he was just
along for the ride.

You know, I got bills to pay, all right?

Everything
flowed through Richard.

He was the Svengali who
controlled the show,

and controlled the producers,

and who whispered
in Jerry's ear,

and who made everything happen.

He
wouldn't ever talk.

He'd sit behind his fucking desk
with a cigar like a mob boss,

and just sort of nod his head, and
he'd go, "Good story, go get it."

You know, "You'd better be ready,"
or something, you know, frightening.

I mean, his philosophy
when I got there was,

"What are we doing to
scare the competition?"

You guys ready
to go? Ready to roll?

Todd, you ready to roll
out there? Richard, ready?

Okay, let's do it.

- You are? Okay, man.
- It's showtime.

Roll for speed.

I knew that we had to keep
changing the show to make it work.

If you stayed sexy for too long,

it would then be boring.

Always give the
audience something new.

Something shocking.

- Standby, six.
- Eight, seven, six…

- Standby, live in five, four, three…
- Standby Steve's entrance.

Now, America's
hero, Mr. Jerry Springer!

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Welcome to the show.

Today, we're meeting brand-new members of
the racist hate group the Ku Klux Klan,

to see if we can convince them to
give up the KKK before it's too late.

I don't think anybody knew how
crazy that show was gonna be.

Like, it was a whup-ass.

Here is Mike McQueeney.

White power!

White power!

Conflict on talk
shows was usually internal.

A mother and a son, a husband and a
wife. You know, that kind of thing.

But what Richard did, and
ultimately what the show did,

was that he expanded that.

So it would be, like,
Klan members conflicting,

and, you know, Black activists
versus white activists.

He moved... He moved the line.

- What country you come from, Black boy?
- Okay.

- Hey, hey, hey. Hey!
- What country you come from?

You don't even know!

You were a slave,
and so were Jews.

Jews were slaves
4,000 years ago.

- All right!
- And they're still slaves.

Okay, we're all laughing at you
because we know you're stupid, but…

I'm not sure Jerry knew what
he was getting himself involved with

when Richard
suggested that show.

I mean, Jerry was the son
of Holocaust survivors.

He understood the real
danger of bigotry and hatred.

And to put it out for public
consumption, he should have known better.

Well, my next guest says he's fighting
mad over the things our guests today

have been saying, and he's
going to set them straight.

That's what he wants to do.

He's a controversial civil
rights leader as well.

He's the founder of the JDL,
the Jewish Defense League,

a very controversial
organization.

Here is Irv Rubin and his
bodyguards, Al and Joseph.

Richard didn't
want that viewer at home

to even turn the channel at all.

Like, every single segment,
something had to happen.

He just let
the emotion play out.

Like, he could see their anger was
getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

So the second they went on
stage, like, that was it.

Fucking game over.

All of a sudden, it was chaos.

Just crazy.

It was like an atom
bomb going off.

- That's it! Get out of here!
- Enough!

I mean, it was horrible.

It was vile.

It was brilliant.

And it rated through the roof.

- There's no discussion with them!
- Hey, hey, hey, hey.

And that
gave me an idea.

If you're producing a show
that you want to be insane

and unlike anything that's
ever been on TV before,

there's your goal,
that's what you want.

Jerry! Jerry!

And at that point, Richard
was like, "Game on."

"Let's go have some fun."

"Action."

It became a talk show where
there was very little talking.

It was about the
yelling, the fighting.

Fuck you, bitch!

Fights would break out all the time
and, like, people lived for that part.

They loved it. The audience loved
it. They loved the fight.

It was as primal as the
Christians and the lions,

and the crowd roaring for blood.

And that was what Richard
wanted to tap into.

That's television.
That's television.

Richard Dominick
was a diabolical genius.

He was right.

There was a direct relationship
between violence and ratings

because that's what
people will tune in for.

My best
friend's grandfather

was in his eighties, and
he watched all the time.

He says, "It just makes me
laugh and laugh and laugh."

"I just love that show."

Fuck!

Once that happened,
I never tried to do anything

that didn't fall into some
kind of a confrontation

or unusual to look at.

I know that
if we have two people

in an absolutely
confrontational situation,

that the probability is
they're gonna go at each other.

And you
want 'em to, don't you?

- I want the...
- Truth?

I want the show to demonstrate
outrageousness, yes.

We
want our TVs clean!

We're beginning,
today, a "Fox" hunt.

Tonight, it's not the guest,
but the Jerry Springer program

that's taking the lumps.

A variety show and
a weekly magazine

compare the fights on the
rough-and-tumble talk show

to pro wrestling.

Across America, the show
became a lightning rod for criticism.

Where was our culture going?
Where was our society going?

Hearing of the fight
against The Jerry Springer Show,

St. Sabina's Father Michael
Pfleger and dozens of protesters

demanded Springer's removal,

saying the violent talk show is
pure trash, bad for everyone.

Violence is what the show
is most known for right now.

This kind of trash television has
to go and will not be tolerated.

I got tired of hearing the priest tell
me that I'm working all for the devil

and that we were showing the
wrong side of human nature.

Like, and it went against God.

Seriously? Like, come on.

In a free society, the media should
reflect all elements of that society,

not just the mainstream.

On our show, for example,
we have Klansmen on.

We have neo-Nazis on.

They killed my family.
I hate these people.

I hate what they stand for.

But in America, what is it?

"I may hate what you say, but I'll fight
to the death your right to say it?"

We really believe that.

The beauty of Jerry
Springer, the person,

and one of the reasons why
that show was so successful

was because he didn't judge.

He didn't say, "I don't
want to do this show."

"I don't want to do that show. I
don't want to have this person on."

He didn't want to
censor anybody.

I would hope that you
would feel some sense of responsibility

for the kids that are
influenced by violence

that is acted out,
uh, on your show.

If I thought for one second

that my show would be
hurtful to society,

I wouldn't do it.

It's a television show.

It's a television show.

We will all survive it.

Thank you for having me.

We felt like we
were the pariah of television.

Everybody around us, you know, were
like, "You're just producing trash."

Even my family hated it.

I mean, my father did not
like The Springer Show

or what it represented.

Mr. Sulu, what happened
to the Russian dressing?

The dispenser's jammed, Captain.
It will take days to repair.

We don't have days!

My dad is the production designer
for Saturday Night Live since 1975.

And I've been in awe of him.

It's Saturday Night
Live, for fuck's sakes.

- You heard my order, Mr. Sulu.
- Aye, aye, sir.

He was, you know, sitting
on top of the mountain,

and I'm, like, getting scraps on the
bottom of the... of the food chain.

One Christmas, my dad said,

"What you do isn't television.
What I do is television."

I can still picture his face,

and it was like a...
it was of disgust.

I didn't talk to my
father for… four years.

So Richard became my dad.

And it was... You
know, it was hard.

I'm very angry at this moment.

You owe her an apology, and
I want you to give her one.

- Right this second.
- Oh, okay.

- If you're gonna roll your eyes...
- I'm not rolling my eyes.

I'm not rolling my eyes.

I said to Toby, you know,

"I'm depending on you
to get this job done,

to give me those
shows that I need."

I never told him what they were,

but I knew that he
understood what I meant,

that I wanted the crazy stuff.

After that, my life
became revolving around the show.

You know, just trying to
keep the balls in the air

and make this the
best show ever.

I mean, you had to deliver.

Hi, this is Mary with
The Jerry Springer Show.

I was wondering if you
had a crazy story for us.

I mean, if you think about it,
we had to do 200 shows a year.

Anything, cheating, prostitutes,
transsexuals, some kind of Springer drama.

That would mean each producer was
doing, you know, 30, 40 shows a year.

Really? Well, that's
a love triangle.

And, you know,
everybody can't do that.

You'd be living in the office, you
know, six days a week, days and nights,

like 10, 12, 14
hours a day, easily.

And that sort of pressure
cooker was really difficult,

you know, because
there were some…

There were some stories
which probably went too far.

Okay, help me out here.

You honestly think it's okay

that a brother and a
sister sleep together?

Yeah.

Let's meet your brother
who made you pregnant.

David.

Many of the people on
the show had real problems.

But the way to get help
for serious problems

is not to go on a
national television show

in front of an audience where
you're being jeered and ridiculed.

You made her pregnant.
You didn't mail it in.

Yeah.

- You slept with her, right?
- Yes, I did.

A lot of the
guests were earnest.

They literally did think they
were coming on to solve a problem.

You wouldn't believe how many
people said to me on the telephone,

"I can't wait to meet Jerry. I really
hope he can help me with this."

Jerry didn't help anybody with any of it.
He just stood there and did his thing.

- You say you still love her?
- Yes.

You tell her how sorry you are
that you ever, ever slept with her.

She is your sister,
for God's sake.

These guests got it all out
in this really extreme environment

where there's a lot of
people looking at you

and judging you.

I mean, very, very tough.

Especially considering
these were real people,

you know, just coming into town

from whatever small-town
America they live in.

There's this
triangle you can draw

from, like, Tennessee to Ohio to
Georgia, like the Bermuda Triangle.

It was called the Springer Triangle,
where it's like 75% of all the guests

in the history of the show came
from that region of the country.

You know, these are
small-town folk, right?

And you're trying to sell it to them
of like, "You've got this great story."

"We want to give people an
opportunity to see that."

"If you do it on the show,

you get to sort of settle
it once and for all."

But in order for them to
deliver, they have to like you.

Okay, cool.

So you treat them like they're,

you know, kings.

You send them a limo to pick them
up to drive them to the airport.

They land at Chicago O'Hare
and get into a limousine.

Like, their mind is blown.

A lot of the guests, they've
never been to a big city.

You know, they've never
seen stuffed pizza.

You know, we arrived
in Chicago, and I swear to God,

from the second they picked
us up from the airport,

they did everything in their power
to get us as crazy as possible.

They gave us so
many drink tickets.

They were like, "Go
hog wild, have fun."

And so we got wasted.

And then we got to the hotel.
We kind of kept the party going.

We probably stayed up till four in
the morning, maybe slept for an hour.

They woke our asses out of bed
at like 5:00 a.m. and were like,

"Okay, it's time to go down."
And we were like, "What?"

I remember being in the
elevator on the way down,

and somebody else from one of
the other shows was just, like,

"Yeah, I was up all
night doing speed!"

I probably got to the green room

at like six o'clock in
the morning or something.

All right, um, so, again…

The producers were
there from the get-go,

just kind of, like, coaching us
on what to say and how to act.

What have you done
for me? Nothing!

I've done everything! I
take your kids to the...

Oh, that's bull! You
lying little bitch!

The guests
get their energy level

from you as the producer.

It's called being Springered,
right? You're being produced.

I hate you!

You can hate me all you want,
but I'm screwing your man!

I don't care! You can have him.

No, don't give up on
him. You're doing great.

Don't give up on him,
because, you know why?

You are the victim here. Tell
me what you've done for him.

Does she know how you love him?

- Yes!
- Okay.

You know how much I love him!

They had to be the kind of guest
that when they got on stage,

they knew how to
tell their story,

maybe even ready to
fight if necessary.

But, you know, sometimes guests
get on the stage and they don't do

what they're supposed to do, and
that's when your job as a producer

is to make sure that they did.

You're not giving me anything
here, honey. You're living this life.

I don't know what it's
like to live your life.

You've got to make me understand
what it's like to live your life.

I would throw the door
open to the dressing room

and, like, pick up a chair and
throw it across the green room,

you know, and start
screaming, like…

- Do you care about your sister's feelings?
- No, I don't.

You're goddamn right you don't.

You gotta wake 'em up.

"Want me to brush your nasty teeth? You
want me to wipe your ass? You stink."

- Okay, go.
- You're a terrible, awful human being.

- You're a genetic disaster…
- You had to reach into their brain.

And tap on the thing that would make
them laugh, cry, scream, or fight.

Get out there and fight for her!

You're a meth-head
piece of ♪♪♪♪!

You're starting a shit fight.

You rev them up to, you
know, tornado level,

and then you send
them out onstage.

The whole time I
was in the dressing room,

I was just getting angrier
and angrier by the second.

And I am not an angry person.

Welcome back. My guests today
say they're ready to come clean

about their sex affairs.

Please meet Darren.

He says he and his girlfriend
have discussed marriage,

but before he can follow through on
that, he has a confession he has to make.

Please meet Melanie.

My heart was pounding.

Like, I felt like it was about
to burst out of my chest.

I was tired, crazy,

ready to fuck it up.

Either way, I've been
sleeping with somebody else.

They weren't
treating you sensitively.

They weren't interested in what kind
of impact it was gonna have on you.

It was all for the show.

Let's meet this
other person. Come on out.

If you didn't hit those
ratings, your show was gone.

That's what counted the most.

So we're not trying to
help nobody.

We're not trying
to save anybody.

You are here to tell your story

in such a way that's gonna be
entertaining and just hit those numbers.

That was it.

By the late '90s,

the formula that Richard Dominick
had created was so effective,

that Springer had
closed the gap to Oprah.

And at that point, she did
speak out against them.

Jerry Springer is in a
class all by himself,

if you want to
call that a class.

I think he just is...

He's out, he's gone,
that whole show.

It's appalling?

I think it's appalling. I
can't believe what I'm seeing.

Oprah would say, you know,
"How could Jerry put those guests on?"

Jerry didn't put
those guests on.

I put those guests on.

You know, you're
yelling at the wrong guy.

I ca... I watched the other day,
and this guy pulled his pants down,

and there he is,
he opens himself...

I can't believe what I'm
seeing when I watch that show.

But you led the way with
the sort of confessional TV

and people baring their soul.

Confessing and baring
your soul is one thing.

Baring your penis is another.

The way that Oprah behaved
compared to the way Jerry behaved?

Like, Jerry was class act.

She does a real talk show.
I don't do a talk show.

I do a circus. You know,
there's just no lions.

It's a…

You know, he gave her the right of
way, and she... she punched back.

It was so inappropriate.

She says that your show
is bad for television.

Yeah, well, I... you know, I'm
sorry. I'm doing the best I can.

Oprah pissed me off,
especially because…

Jerry was so nice.

Jerry was the nicest... the
nicest man in the world.

He... He was a great man

and a gentle man,

and I... I felt like she
needed to be taught a lesson.

And that's when we went after her, and
that's when I could taste the blood.

That
battle with Oprah

was kind of this pressure cooker

of, like, "Now the knob
has to go to 11," right?

But we weren't a huge
production machine.

We were this little band
of... of crazy people

that were just trying
to survive the week.

I mean, sometimes you'd
be trying to book a story

all the way up to the day before
your show and have nothing.

That's when it's better to just
sleep in the office and keep calling.

And if you were lucky,
something would happen.

Springer show.

It had to be like three,
four o'clock in the morning

when I get a call from this guy.

He says, "Hi, my name's Mark."

And I go, "Hey, Mark."

And he's like, "I've been meaning
to call the show for a long time."

Okay, cool.

"Because you guys are the only people
that really would understand me."

"I left my wife and
my two daughters

for a Shetland pony."

Really?

Huh.

And I'm like, "This
is a fucking dream."

So the difference between
bestiality and you is what?

The animal loves you back.

He said that he and Pixel
looked at each other

and they had an
immediate connection.

Okay, that's weird.

I was petrified to pitch it.

How am I gonna pivot from
a straight-up love triangle

to a dude's... is sleeping
with a Shetland pony?

Toby came in and said…

"I have a man who married his horse
and wants to come on the show."

My first reaction is, "Well,
will the horse be there?"

I don't know. Like, I guess
you put it in a truck.

I'm in. I mean, to
me, it was exciting.

And I'm like, "Okay."
"That was easy."

- Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
- Thank you!

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

There was this
weird buzz in the studio

where, like, nobody
could talk about it.

Like, we were all
sworn to silence,

um, because we had to
make it a surprise.

Well, you know, there's been all this
controversy about all the fights.

Well, today, we
have a love story.

Please meet Mark.

He's been together with
his wife for ten years

and married for the last five.

Please welcome her to
the show. Mark's wife.

Oh my God!

You watch the cutaways to the audience,
and they were just like this, like…

Oh my God!

It was so shocking.
Like, nobody could speak.

So you actually had a ceremony
where you married this horse?

- Yes.
- You... You live with this horse?

Yes.

And you are having intimate
relations with this horse?

Mmm. Yeah.

It's true.

This is... This
is pretty sick, isn't it?

Okay, all right.

To have a guy on
who had married a horse,

who was kissing
a horse on stage,

this was the most
vile and grotesque

freak show that's ever
been on television.

It was the perfect show.

I mean, it was everything
I ever wanted it to be.

Yes!

Ah!

It was like, "Whoa."

You know, this is
pretty incredible.

Jerry! Jerry!

It was like the best show ever.

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

And then, like, two
weeks later, the show goes out.

And, like, the
shit hits the fan.

First place it aired that
day was New York City,

and it was stopped from airing…
anywhere else that day.

The fact
that it got banned,

that it hit basically every
huge newspaper in the country

that, um, The Jerry Springer
Show had done this show,

even if it didn't air, people
were so curious about it.

You know, disgusted, but drawn.

It's the train wreck that you
can't rip your eyes off of.

Jerry Springer is one of the
greatest entertainers in the world.

He's one of our idols.

Whether it's news, soap
operas, prime-time television,

whatever picture we get of life,

we don't get anything
that is raw and real.

Jerry Springer.

He's been doing this talk
show for seven years.

But it's only now that
his ratings and popularity

are soaring through the roof.

This gladiatorial formula
has appealed to enough base instincts

to catapult the show to the
top of the daytime ratings.

Springer's the first
talk show host ever to knock

Oprah Winfrey off her throne
as the queen of daytime talk.

Oh, my God.

- Are you fucking kidding me?
- We did it!

That was an incredible
watershed moment.

I was just like, "Yes!"

I... I mean, it's...
Think about it.

Nobody ever beat Oprah.

It was almost like a
vindication, you know?

Like, yeah, you used to always
look down at us and talk about us

and make fun of us, and we're
trashy, but now look what happened!

The trash wins
the day! You know?

The net result
was Jerry emerged from it

more powerful and more
popular than ever.

It really did just
kind of mushroom cloud, right?

Like a huge explosion. There
was always a Jerry interview.

- Please welcome everybody, Jerry Springer!
- Jerry Springer!

Jerry Springer!

He became a cultural icon.

He became a phenomenon.

Now, America's hero,
Mr. Jerry Springer!

There was no question,

Jerry and Richard were
on top of the world.

I mean, the riches that it gave them
and the fame were very compelling.

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

But what did they have to
do in order to achieve it?

I mean, the degree to which
Jerry sold himself out

and the degree to which he
was complicit with Richard

in exploiting the people
who came on the show

is something that had
serious consequences.

Just like any other
manipulative situation,

you need to instinctually
pull out of them

those points of tension
that create a soap opera.

Okay, here she is. Nan.

If you come on this show, you're
gonna do what we expect you to do.

You're gonna kick so-and-so's
ass. You'd better do it out there.

This was basically
Stanford Prison Experiment

in that you were playing
with people's psyche

until you get a result.

Here he is. Ralf.

That's where
it all gets really dark.

A lover's
triangle turns deadly,

and the man in the middle
is now a murder suspect.

All
three people involved

had been on The Jerry
Springer Show that day.

Till next time, take care
of yourself and each other.