For the better part of three decades, The Jerry Springer Show took the talkshow format into increasingly outlandish areas. Springer, who has died aged 79 of pancreatic cancer, presided over what amounted to a three-ring circus, as guests revealed a steady stream of betrayal in relationships they seemed to model on tawdry pulp novels and porn films.
This led to a cycle of what the writer David Sedaris described as “championship wrestling in street clothes … Curse, fight, disentangle. Curse, fight, disentangle … repeated with tedious precision”. Meanwhile, the studio audience would be pumping fists in the air, chanting “Jer-ee! Jer-ee!” while, just outside the fray, stood Springer, at once bemused by the antics and aghast at the way his guests treated each other.
