How The Jerry Springer Show splashed around in humanity’s worst excesses

The Jerry Springer Show didn’t so much jump the shark as arrive on television in mid-leap. On a daily basis, it served up a clumpy gruel of screaming and fistfights that first defined and then accelerated the concept of the Ugly American across the world. It was a low-rent, knock-down, barroom brawl of a show that splashed around in humanity’s very worst excesses. And people couldn’t get enough of it.

It is almost impossible now to grasp how huge The Jerry Springer Show was in its time. In a typical episode, Springer – a former mayor of Cincinnati who was born in Highgate tube station during a second world war German bombing raid – would play ringmaster to a tawdry parade of domestic disputes. In episodes with titles such as I’m Pregnant by a Transsexual! and Lesbolicious, Springer would introduce a guest, hear their complaints, bring on an aggressor and watch as they verbally and physically attacked each other.

Sometimes he would offer half-baked witticisms from the sidelines – “Betcha can’t say that 12 times in a row,” he shrugged during one episode after a woman described her daughter-in-law as “a bigmouth, bully, badass bitch” – and other times he’d step back while the audience chanted his name like they would a WWE wrestler. It seemed unstoppable.

But what did for The Jerry Springer Show was Springer himself. Erudite and politically conscious in person, he repeatedly distanced himself from the show that bore his name, telling Reuters in 2000: “I would never watch my show. I’m not interested in it.” The real nail in the coffin, though, came in 2005, when Springer came to the UK for a British spin-off entitled The Springer Show.

Running on ITV in place of Trisha Goddard, The Springer Show was warmer and more subdued than its American progenitor. There was a sense that Springer had gone out of his way to inject more of his own personality into it, in a bid to stop the runaway train he had created. The show did fine, but the consensus was that it was a little boring. So ITV replaced him with Jeremy Kyle.

And Jeremy Kyle killed Jerry Springer. Where Springer was wry and detached from the tawdriness of his show, Kyle seemed fully invested in it. He didn’t stand at the back and crack wise; he crouched down on his stage, dripping with judgment, and openly shouted at his guests. He really meant it. Suddenly the whole talkshow shtick lost its sense of self-awareness, and whatever grain of fun it once had was flushed down the toilet for ever.

Kyle was such a sensation that he eventually took his screaming villainy to the US, where his show ran for 300 episodes. Compared to this bare-knuckle confrontational style, Springer started to look even more like a clapped-out sideshow; miraculously, his show managed to lumber on until 2018 before finally sputtering out.

Springer now hosts a programme called Judge Jerry, where he finally gets to flex his legal qualifications. Kyle’s show was cancelled last year after the death of a former guest. You’d think we’d have learned lessons from this, but we probably haven’t. Take care of yourself, and each other.