The ruthless Svengali who turned a failing talk show into the most toxic brand on TV - and paved the way for today's wall-to-wall sex and violence on screen
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A man who married a horse, a woman who cut off her own legs and a white supremacist enter a TV studio. No, that’s not the start of a terrible joke, but a standard line-up for The Jerry Springer Show, one of the most controversial ‘talk’ shows in TV history.
![[One episode saw a ‘debate’ between members of the white supremacy group the Ku Klux Klan and the Jewish Defence League descend into a physical brawl]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/01/22/93657661-14242469-image-m-111_1735770119103.jpg)
Running for 27 series from 1991, the programme shocked U.S. audiences with its episodes featuring incest, dominatrices and fistfights – to name but a few of its many bizarre talking points. With its conveyor belt of dysfunctional guests discussing their outlandish problems in front of Jerry Springer himself and a live audience, the show quickly gained notoriety – and extreme popularity.
![[Producer Richard Dominick was brought in to turn around the failing show and proclaimed: ‘Let’s make it wild and sexy!' he tells the new Netflix documentary Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action.]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/01/22/93658387-14242469-Richard_Dominick_in_the_Netflix_documentary_Jerry_Springer_Fight-m-120_1735771286774.jpg)
At its peak in 1998, it had more than eight million viewers – briefly toppling Oprah Winfrey’s flagship programme to become the most watched talk show in America. It went on to spawn reality TV copycats across the globe, including the UK’s infamous Jeremy Kyle Show.
![[Eleanor Panitz (centre) accused her husband Ralf's (seated left) ex-wife Nancy of stalking them and encouraged the studio audience to call her ‘fat’ and ‘old’. Nancy was found murdered the day the episode aired.]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/01/22/93657659-14242469-image-m-114_1735770161704.jpg)
But, after almost 4,000 episodes, NBCUniversal halted production of The Jerry Springer Show in 2018 – though it lived on through re-runs and daily episode updates to its YouTube page. Now, that legacy faces fresh scrutiny, thanks to a new Netflix documentary which airs next week.
![[Guests were paraded for their bizarre behaviour, such as Sandra who told the show in 2006 that she had sawn off her own legs after deciding at the age of 14 that she wanted to ‘get rid of them’.]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/01/22/93657631-14242469-image-m-116_1735770189220.jpg)
Speaking out for the first time, producers say that vulnerable guests were manipulated and ‘Springered’, that the job left them ‘broken’, and compared the show to the notorious Stanford prison experiment of 1971, in which students at California’s Stanford University were made to act out being prisoners and warders in a study of power and authority which had to be stopped after a string of mental breakdowns and incidents of sadism.
![[The more lurid the tale, the bigger the ratings - cue Mark from Missouri, who claimed he had 'married' and had sex with his pony]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/01/22/93657669-14242469-image-m-118_1735770213978.jpg)
