At the same time, he was also appearing as a nighttime co-anchor on WLWT. In , Springer moved The Jerry Springer Show to Chicago; he flew back and forth between Cincy and Chicago every day so that he could continue hosting his nightly broadcast.
But in he resigned from Channel 5, after the ratings slid. Anchor Carol Marin, who had worked at the station for 19 years, refused to share airtime with Springer and quit the show. The heat ended up being too much for the station; in May , it dropped the Springer Show , though a Fox affiliate quickly snatched it up.
To cover costs, they had to air the show not once, but twice a day. So, I left my career as a cop to give this a shot. You make the decision to carry it. At the apex of his popularity, Springer played a talk show host named Jerry Farrelly in the box office and critical bomb Ringmaster.
The show did fine, but the consensus was that it was a little boring. 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 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 episodes.
There was laughter. There would be an occasional debate about the outcome. The reason I felt so drawn to Springer was that I recognized the guests from the rural Colorado communities I grew up in. I recognized the feuds over lovers and parentage. I could picture with distinct clarity the crusty shag carpeting of their double wides. I could practically smell the stale cigarette smoke on cheap upholstery and hear the thin slam of aluminum screen doors.
And from my place of remove in front of a grainy, low-definition, lates television screen, I could feel superior. I could laugh at the people who were still trapped. And if I felt anything for the guest and their plight, it was a weak, tongue-clucking pity. I reveled in the fact that I could now feel shocked and entertained by an exotic weirdness that had once been my reality. The feeling bled into my personal life too.
My friends and I, a cadre of hippy, intellectual elites would take ironic trips to the mall, in the small city down the road from our liberal college town. It was our own, personal, Jerry Springer show. They never did. My thoughts were dark and mean.
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