By the time Jerry Springer died at his Evanston home in April of 2023, his spectacularly notorious reign as the king of trash TV had been over for more than 15 years, though “The Jerry Springer Show” lasted all the way until 2018.
Until his final years, Springer continued to have a presence in the media with stints on “America’s Got Talent,” radio gigs and the “Judge Jerry” courtroom show that ran from 2019-2022. But when we talk about Jerry Springer, we’re talking about the program that TV Guide once pronounced the worst TV show of all time, “ahead” of such offerings as “Hogan’s Heroes,” “The Brady Bunch Variety Hour,” “XFL Football League” and “My Mother the Car.”
Now comes the gripping, provocative and at times disturbing two-part Netflix documentary series, “Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action,” and I get the feeling Jerry would have loved that title.
Director Luke Sewell (“Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King”) wisely avoids unnecessary flourishes or gimmicks, and allows the interviews with former producers and “Springer” guests, behind-the-scenes footage and archival clips to tell the story of how the former mayor of Cincinnati and onetime straightforward newsman blithely sold out his legacy to become the ringmaster for arguably the most nauseating parade of exploitation and trash in the history of television.
There was no need for “Fights, Camera, Action” to come down with a heavy judgmental hammer on the show; the record speaks for itself.
Before the semi-real reality of shows such as “Big Brother,” before the syndication success of “Cheaters,” before we were given the opportunity to keep up with the Kardashians, before any of those Real Housewives started throwing wine in each other’s faces, before the era of performative TikTok videos and suburban moms with OnlyFans accounts, there was “The Jerry Springer Show,” with episodes titled “Wives Battle Mistresses!”, “I’m Pregnant by Your Man,” “My Sister Stole My Husband,” “Why Did You Cheat?” and let’s not forget the infamous “Klanfrontation” show.
“Fights, Camera, Action” takes us quickly through the stages of Springer’s career as a politician and anchorman in Cincinnati, and chronicles how his syndicated talk show served up forgettable and bland standard fare and was in danger of being canceled in the 1990s — and how that all changed when Richard Dominick was brought on as executive producer.
Dominick was so famous for his creative work with the Weekly World News (with stories such as, “My Wild Affair with Bigfoot” and “My Toaster is Possessed by the Devil”) that he was a frequent guest on “Late Night with David Letterman” — and he brought that same shameless and wickedly brilliant sense of showmanship to Chicago when he joined “The Jerry Springer Show.”
Dominick recounts how he took a walk with Springer down Michigan Avenue and made his pitch: “Let’s take a talk show and turn it upside down.” At the time, the show had been relegated to the middle of the night in many markets, and Dominick’s goal was to get people to stop clicking around and stop on “Springer.” (One stroke of genius was to have staffers work the studio audience into a frenzy, chanting, “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” Viewers at home would think: This guy must be famous.)
Former producers, including Melinda Chait Mele, Annette Grundy and Toby Yoshimura, share behind-the-scenes anecdotes and details of the enormous pressures faced in putting on increasingly outrageous shows, as ratings soared and “The Jerry Springer Show” was moved to daytime, and Springer signed a lucrative, long-term contract. We see backstage footage of producers and bookers coaching guests, working them into a frenzy, urging them to get out there and let it all hang out. It’s not that the shows were scripted, but they were undoubtedly shaped.
Were these guests adults who freely went on the show, often reaching out to the producers with their stories? Absolutely. Were they unsophisticated, uneducated and easily manipulated? Both things can be true. A former guest recalls how the show flew her into O’Hare, sent a limo to take her to the hotel, and supplied her “with so many free drink tickets.” The producers “weren’t interested in what kind of impact [the experience] would have on you. It was all for the show.”
The second half of the documentary series features an interview with the son of Nancy Campbell-Panitz, who was murdered by Ralf Panitz hours after they and another woman were featured in a taped episode about love triangles. The “Springer Show” didn’t cause that murder, but this segment brings home the point that once you were a guest on the show and they were done with you, they were done with you. A former producer speaks incredulously of how some guests sincerely hoped Jerry would help them with their problems: “Jerry didn’t help anybody with any of it. He just stood there and did his thing.”
Jerry Springer became a huge TV star. At the peak of his success, he achieved the unthinkable and briefly topped Oprah in the ratings. The Chicago City Council called him on the carpet for hearings, and the Rev. Michael Pfleger staged protests outside NBC Tower in Chicago. Through it all, the affable and charismatic Springer would downplay the program’s negative cultural influence, invariably shrugging it off and saying, “It’s just television,” or making jokes at his own expense, as if that made everything OK.
The legendary Chicago media critic Robert Feder, who provides invaluable context throughout the documentary, notes, “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,” but later notes, “The pact that Jerry made with Richard Dominick was a bargain that really caused him to sell his soul, and I believe that he knew every day of his life that what he was doing was really beneath him and beneath his dignity.”
Making it even more tragic, and terribly, terribly sad — and yes, great material for a documentary series. As one former producer points out, if “The Jerry Springer Show” hadn’t taken such an outrageous turn, Netflix wouldn’t be doing a documentary about it, a documentary that quite likely will attract a major audience. We still can’t look away.