“The Jerry Springer Show” was a cultural phenomenon that was on the air for 27 seasons and 3,891 episodes, fueled by its outrageous, violent, sexually charged guests and storylines. The new Netflix two-part docuseries “Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action” chronicles the behind-the-scenes chaos that went into turning the daytime talk show from a flop into a ratings juggernaut.
Here are some of the wildest moments from the documentary, from dramatic guest stories to showbiz squabbles.
*The infamous episode “I Married a Horse” — in which a man brought his horse bride onto the show and featured a segment where the man and equine kissed — was immediately pulled after it first debuted in the New York City market. Yet yanking the hour stirred up controversy, and fueled even more interest in the show and the too-hot-for-TV episode.
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*Despite Oprah slamming “The Jerry Springer Show” in the press, the show eventually became the No. 1 daytime talk show, beating her seemingly unstoppable “Oprah Winfrey Show.”
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*Producers fired up the guests in the green room by coaching them on what to say and how to act, which could escalate to throwing chairs and screaming in the guests’ faces. A guest named Melanie said that the producer stirred her into such a frenzy that, “The whole time I was in the dressing room, I was just getting angrier and angrier by the second, and I am not an angry person. My heart was pounding. I felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. I was tired, crazy, ready to fuck it up. They weren’t treating you sensitively. They weren’t interested in what kind of impact it was going to have on you. It was all for the show.”
*One depressing part is that producers admitted that guests actually thought they would get helped on the show. “A lot of the guests were earnest,” producer Melinda Chait Mele said. “They literally did think they were coming on to solve a problem. You wouldn’t believe how many people said to me on the telephone, ‘I can’t wait to meet Jerry. I really hope he can help me with this.’ Jerry didn’t help anybody with any of it. He just stood there, and did his thing.”
*The majority of guests who appeared on the show were from a patch of the country the staff dubbed the “Springer Triangle,” which stretched from Tennessee to Ohio to Georgia.
*Despite his squeaky-clean personal image, in 1998, Springer was caught by a tabloid having a threesome with guests from the show, including a porn star. Images from the romp were released in print, yet the scandal fizzled out quickly, and instead of getting slammed for professional misconduct, his career continued unabated.
*Producers still deny that any guests or stories on “The Jerry Springer Show” were intentionally fake or scripted. “My personal directive from [executive producer] Richard [Dominick] and Jerry was my stories cannot be fake,” Mele said. “They must be real people, real stories, they can’t come on and pretend they’re fighting. ‘We don’t want to see fake punches. If someone’s actually going to get to that point, they need to really mean it.’ They were really serious about that.” Mele was later fired for moving forward on a storyline that was being faked by the participants.
*The biggest tragedy that was arguably caused by the show happened after the 2000 episode “Secret Mistress Confronted.” Nancy Campbell-Panitz confronted her ex-husband Ralf Panitz and his lover, Eleanor, in the episode. On the day the episode aired, Panitz killed Campbell-Panitz after watching it at a bar and getting increasingly angry. He was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2002. Jeffrey Campbell, Campbell-Panitz’s son, appears in the docuseries, saying his mother was ambushed by the exact nature of the episode.
*One last cruel detail revealed by “Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action”: If guests stormed off during their segment and didn’t want to return for the show’s final panel, producers would threaten to not fly them home. Given that many of the “Jerry Springer” guests were of a lower socioeconomic class, they came back because they were afraid of being stranded in Chicago.
“Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action” was directed by Luke Sewell and produced by Minnow Films. It was executive produced by Sophie Jones, Alicia Kerr, Sophie Leonard, and produced by Catherine Murnane.
