Jerry Springer always dismissed what he saw as elitist criticism of his eponymous tabloid talk show, which delivered almost 4,000 unhinged episodes over 27 seasons and featured a litany of trashy guests — and even trashier on-stage brawls.
The show, which the late Springer would have insisted you regard as mostly just entertainment, paraded strippers, cheaters, and all sorts of other icky participants before an audience that lapped it up and especially hooted when women flashed everyone and hair-pulling fights inevitably broke out. How did a show like that become the kind of TV hit that, depending on who you talk to, was either a defining product of the 1990s or an avatar for America’s cultural decline? That’s what a Netflix documentary will try and get to the bottom of.
Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action is a two-part documentary coming to Netflix on Jan. 7, 2025, from Minnow Films — the same company behind Netflix’s Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and Scandal. Luke Sewell, who previously directed Trust No One: The Hunt For The Crypto King for Netflix, is the director, and the streaming giant says the title will include “first-hand testimony and revelations from show insiders,” as well as interviews with former guests and producers who can get at the “destruction” caused by the show.
Springer himself told Deadline in 2019: “The Jerry Springer Show never raised my blood pressure because it was obviously a circus.”
It certainly remains both a product of its time and still influential, in its way. Case in point: Comedian Tim Dillon returned to Netflix this month with a brand-new special, This is Your Country, styled in the format of a Jerry Springer-esque talk show. The bombastic Dillon guides conversations with guests on topics that range from cryptocurrency to immigration to OnlyFans. Definitely the kind of show that Jerry, who died in 2023, would approve of.
