Jerry Springer Has Died, But His Impact On Television Will Live On Forever

Jerry Springer has died at the age of 79.

For fans of the polarizing pop culture icon, there are only two fitting ways to mark that sad occasion: They could either pick up a chair and hurl it across the room in frustration, as happened so often on his long-running tabloid talk show, or they could truly honor the man by simply turning on a television.

They latter option seems particularly apt as there’s a good chance that whatever flashes on the screen is something that owes some cultural debt to the late genre-changing, boundary-pushing daytime TV personality.

Because while Springer may be gone, his impact on the television landscape will live on forever.

The lawyer-turned-politician-turned-newsman was no stranger to reinventing himself when he launched his eponymous syndicated show in 1991, however, with Jerry Springer, he reinvented what viewers could expect to see on the small screen. The likes of Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera and Oprah Winfrey had already popularized the sensational category of tabloid talk shows, but Springer ushered in the era of trash TV, where it was no longer enough to just craft an episode around an outrageous theme or a couple of over-the-top guests.

He reset the bar for onscreen behavior—lowering it to include violent outbursts, screaming confrontations and a long list of completely unbelievable topics.

They included:

• “Woman In Labor Confronts Mistress”
• “I’m Pregnant by My Brother”
• “Adult Babies”
• “I Married a Horse”
• “Attack of the KKK Dad”
• “She’s Rubber, I’m Real”
• “I’m Proud To Be a Homewrecker”
• “Super Beatdowns”
• “I’ll Stop Being Gay for You”
• “You’ll Never Be My Cousin Again”
• “Ultimate Baby Mama Mayhem”
• “Big Booty Mistakes”

That’s just a small sampling of episodes Springer offered up over the show’s 27 seasons of his controversial and wildly popular series. Its unprecedented rawness and shock factor was why the show sparked widespread criticism, calls for boycotts and a number of think pieces about how ringleader Springer was leading American viewers down the television gutter.

Of course, there’s an argument to be had that he didn’t lead Americans anywhere they weren’t already headed. That, instead, Springer held a mirror up to a side of society that was already flourishing and just waiting for its moment in the spotlight.

Whatever the truth is, the success of Jerry Springer revealed the public’s appetite for overblown, unscripted and no-holds-barred TV. That was seen in both in the uptick in such programming from his trash TV peers, like Jenny Jones and Maury Povich, and in a booming genre that took off in the wake of those broadcasts—reality TV.

Just last year, Davide Yontef, of the Behind the Velvet Rope podcast, asked the former Judge Jerry star if he considered himself “the granddaddy of reality TV,” and while it would have been a justified title, Springer said no—and then went on to offer a tongue-in-cheek mea culpa that felt more like a yes.

“I just apologize,” he said. “I’m so sorry. What have I done? I’ve ruined the culture. I just hope hell isn’t that hot, because I burn real easy. I’m very light-complected, and that kind of worries me.”

It was a typical Springer response. Even on his show, he would watch the circus play out around him and stand by with one hand on his cheek, as if to deadpan, “Oh no, what have I done?”

Ultimately, Springer told Yontef that, rather than be the architect of reality TV, he was “just a schlub who got lucky” as he helped pave the way for the Real Housewives and The Kardashians of the world. He set the tone for what he called the candid “democratization of our whole culture” on television.

And regardless of what anyone thinks of tabloid or reality TV, none of it is going away, and as lasting legacies go, that’s an impressive one.