The Springer Effect

(Note: I worte this in 2003 after watching an unhealthy amount of this show, or it might have been a hacked pay per view...I can't remember. Anyway, these are my unedited thoughts during and after the show)

What is the deal with the Jerry Springer show? While I have never been a fan or follower of the show, why is it that we as humans have to sit and watch the endless parade of human debris that appears on the show? I mean, what is the attraction? Why is it that I am flipping through the channels and when I happen to hit the Springer show, I must watch, even for a minute, just to see if a fight will break out? The show is like a train wreck, you can’t help but take a little time to focus on it and observe. I recently watched the “Too Hot For Television Parts 1 & 2’, which is a total waste of time, and recorded the following thoughts:

*Always throw the first punch. This is key. Don’t let the person that is coming on stage get it in first. You gotta go after them or else they are going to show you up. Hair pulling, bitch slapping, mud slinging, and that is just the men on the show! And if you are male and go to be on the show, hike up your skirt and learn how to throw a good punch. Just a thought. And just a word on showing up. If I got a call from the good folks at the Springer show asking me if I would be a guest on the show, there is NO WAY ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH that I would subject myself to that. If some woman I have been dating is banging another guy, she can tell me in private and not on a talk show. That tramp! When I find her, I’ll… um…. ahem… where was I?

*People admit to the other person that they were actually the other gender before the operation. One of the ultimate Ace Ventura / Crying Game moments. Fight ensues, and remember kids, be sure that you throw the first punch!

*Mullets. Tall ones, short ones, male ones, female ones, and the ever-popular KKK mullet with sunglasses combo. Ahhh yes, how we have grown up! If you are male and don’t have a mullet, they have wigs in the back that you have to wear to increase the redneck factor. First Punch! And if I was an adult beverage drinker, I would have started drinking waaaay before the thing even came on.

*Cheaters, liars, cross dressers, sluts, strippers, FAT strippers, bigots, fascists, pimps, hoes, tattooed freaks, homos, knocked up chicks, fat chicks, knocked up fat chicks, and the Klan all have a home on Jerry’s show. Or is it a home away from home? Ugh, my head is spinning. Hold me.

*The Klan. Nothing better for love, campfires, and singing Cum Ba Ya than having blacks and Klan members in the SAME ROOM on the SAME STAGE! What are the production people thinking? “Uh, well, I guess we’ll need more bodyguards tonight, huh?” I will now light myself on fire. Repeat after me: Throw the first punch! (And as a side note: if you haven’t seen the opening to Austin Powers 2, it is frightening how real it looks).

*More Mullets. I’m very surprised that Jerry hasn’t actually had a best mullet contest on the show. That would be the one show I would watch in its entirety.

I guess for the record, we watch because we want to think that we are the normal people and the people on the Springer show are people that we could never be. And as long as those people are setting the standard, I guess I can live with that.