Talk show titan takes on Pitt tonight

Jerry Springer has lived through the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam era and countless… Jerry Springer has lived through the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam era and countless feuds of angry transvestite hookers who just came clean to their husbands that the baby isn’t his, it’s his brother’s. And tonight, he’ll survive the questions of Pitt’s best and brightest as he appears for a Q’A sponsored by Pitt Program Council. But, for better or worse, he won’t be bringing along any special guests.

Though he is best known for the TV show that boasts his name, there’s more to Jerry Springer than witty jabs and chanting crowds. In fact, Springer is only on the set two days a week – but don’t think he’s taking it easy.

“It depends what day it is, but I’m always doing something,” Springer said in a recent phone interview. “We film three shows on Mondays and two on Tuesdays. I also host ‘America’s Got Talent’ for NBC, so they’ve got me traveling around the country for auditions. I also do a show in England, so I fly to London every few weeks, and the rest of the time I do political stuff – mostly raising money and giving speeches.”

While he might only spend a fraction of his time filming, it is cleary “The Jerry Springer Show” has made Jerry Springer a household name. But before his name was chanted by studio audiences and decried by countless proponents of wholesome television, Springer was just a nice, Jewish boy studying to be a lawyer and enjoying what he calls “a perfect time” – the 1960s.

“We’d just elected a president who looked younger than us, who was saying we’d put a man on the moon by the end of the decade,” the Tulane University graduate, class of ’65, said. “And, oh, I remember fraternity life – I was in Tau Epsilon Phi. That was the path to social life, but it was a very innocent time. I loved it.”

And though Springer is a few years out of college now, he still feels as enthusiastically about the value of youth culture as he did when he was roaming Bourbon Street as an undergrad – the same enthusiasm that has carried him to speak at campuses for years.

“How can you not love being on a college campus? It’s the cutting edge of what’s going on in culture, what people are thinking, what’s coming up on the horizon. They’re the barometer of what’s going on in the world,” he said. “For someone my age, it keeps me young.”

Indeed, Springer’s age has given him time to dig in to several different career paths while, even now, breaking new ground.

After graduating and going to law school, Springer became a lawyer at a large firm in Cincinnati. In 1970, Springer ran for Congress and lost but became politically active for the rest of the decade, serving on the Cincinnati city council and eventually becoming mayor of the city in 1979. At the same time, Springer was involved with political radio broadcasting, hosting his own local show called “The Springer Memorandum.”

Though Springer did find some success at the local political level, the whole game just wasn’t for him.

“I never wanted to make my living in politics because then you’ve got to make too many compromises,” he said. “You’ve got to win the election just to put food on the table. In time, it can make you intellectually dishonest.”

By 1991, Springer’s career in the media landed him a gig hosting his own show, which was initially conceived to rival the then-popular Phil Donahue show. “The Jerry Springer Show,” however, began as a far cry from the chair-throwing, baby-mama yelling fiasco that it is today. In fact, the show initially took on social issues like gun control and homelessness. Ratings speak louder than words, though, and “The Jerry Springer Show” was barely whispering. Within a few years of its first episode, the show began featuring topics more centered on people than politics, more sex than social issues, to boost its ratings.

Needless to say, the plan worked, and “The Jerry Springer Show,” as it is known today, was born. Finally, middle America’s ladies looking for a way to tell their man that they’ve been a-cheatin’ and dudes unsure how to break the news of an affair with Pokey the horse had an outlet in which to do it: national television.

“We get thousands of calls a week from people that want to be on the show. If there’s going to be a surprise, the guests are given a list of 21 possible surprises and have to sign and agree to all of them before they’re allowed on the show,” Springer said. “Some of them are good ones, but I think enough people have seen our show that they know if they come on, they won’t hear what they want to hear.”

Even though Springer serves as the ring leader for the often ensuing mayhem, he says he is solely involved on the hosting level.

“I’m not even allowed to know what the show subjects are. When I go out there all I get is the names of the guests and where they’ll be sitting. That’s it,” he said. “That’s why, with each segment, my first question is ‘What’s going on?’ My job is just to make funny remarks and ask the questions a viewer at home might ask.”

With the show now well passed the 15-year mark, one would think the hour-long debauchery fest would have run its course. But according to Springer, there will always be an audience to watch the craziness go down.

“What makes our show successful is that it has a niche – young people. It’s easy for a show to have longevity if it’s aimed at young people because, well, there are always new young people. Each year you have new people who are old enough to watch – to laugh along, to be shocked,” Springer said. “It’s always been kind of a cult, anti-establishment show.”

And, according to Springer, the more shocking and unusual the show, the better.

“The show is under orders to be about outrageous people and behavior. We can’t decline a show because we think it’s crazy – the show is about craziness,” he said. “If we get a call for a warm and uplifting show, we won’t do it. We’d have to send them to another show.”

This is why Springer, who confesses that he never takes the job seriously, is certainly a success story – he separates the job from the lifestyle, leaving the craziness in the studio.

“Really, I’m painfully, boringly normal,” he said.

And, as he does at the end of every episode, Springer left these words of wisdom for the students at Pitt.

“These are the best four years of your life. Just enjoy it. Be smart, and whatever you’re doing, be the best that you can at that. Things happen that you can’t control, but if you’re really good at what you’re doing, someone will notice.”

Amen to that. And if what you’re really good at is shocking, explicit behavior, then today’s your lucky day. The person to notice you will be in the Union tonight.