Since I am still unemployed and have tons of spare time on my hands, I have the opportunity to indulge in the sweet intellectual glow of the Jerry Springer Show on a regular basis. I'm hardly a stranger to talk shows and their zany antics. I've seen Donahue revolutionize the industry, I've witnessed the rise of Oprah, and I even got the once in a lifetime opportunity to watch Geraldo be the first to get his hands on the first objects pulled from the Titanic (I missed the Al Capone's Vault special). All of these shows were the intellectual equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries, but at least some of them tackled real issues like Alien Conception or Satanic Lunchmeat or Racist Accountants. Well, at least they tackled DIFFERENT issues everyday.
Where other talk shows are a fast food combo, the Jerry Springer Show is roadkill (which may count as haute cuisine in, say, Tennessee, but were talking generalities here). I've had the dubious privilege of watching it for the last three weeks and I can suspect that my IQ has dropped about 10 points.
If you've never seen it, everything you've heard about it is maddenlingly true. It features stupid, emotionally unstable trailor trash, all with southern accents. They get in fights, the cry, they swear, they get naked, and otherwise make fools on themselves on TV in front of millions of people (at last count, Jerry Springer was the top-rated talk show). Now that would be all in good fun except for one problem.
It's always the same show. Every friggin' time, one person sits on the stage, tells about how they're cheating on their mate, they call the mate in, it is revealed, then they bring in the THIRD person, and the melee ensues. There are some variations, of course. Sometimes the person is cheating with a same-sex partner, sometimes the third person is cheating too, sometimes a couple of people enter the mix. Once I saw a chick reveal to her boyfriend that she was a guy, but that's the most creative I've ever seen.
Maybe it's proof that I'm smarter than your average southern inbred dreg, but it got boring after about two days. Where are the murderous four year olds? Where are the KKK Gospel singers? Where are the pregnant strippers defending their lifestyles as perfectly healthy and acceptable? Sigh.
Still, it's kinda like a train wreak. It's hard to turn off. Therein lies the magic of Jerry Springer. If forces your mind to clear and allows you to focus completely on one thing. Granted that one thing is the depths of human depravity, but it's better than nothing.