Jerry, Interrupted

By Karl Klockars in Arts & Entertainment on May 19, 2009 7:20PM

Chicago's media collective are cheering, mourning and shrugging about the final Jerry Springer Show, filmed here in Chicago yesterday. Many a joke has been made at the expense of white trash guests, flying chairs and lesbian Nazis and the men who love them. For the most part, the sneering humor is deserved, but has Jerry been a mole on the ass of our culture? Or has he been a Chicago-centric net positive?

For some reason, the Tribune has chosen internet columnist Steve Johnson to bid a hearty "adieu" to Jerry, and since we haven't done a SteveWatch post in a while, allow us to take a bit of issue with some of Steve's points. (And where is Rosenthal on all this? Where's Lazare?) Has Springer been a non-event for the extent of his career here?

[H]e can't muster up more than generalities about the city, and we, truth be told, rarely remembered his Chicago connections. He was never top-of-the-tongue for lists of local celebrities; he maintained principal residence in Florida; and the show rarely came to mind when you thought of national-stage things made here.
Maybe we thought of him after an out-of-town visitor learned that tickets for "Oprah" were an impossibility. Maybe we remembered Springer when we saw a stretch limo pull up outside NBC Tower and unpack people who probably hadn't sat that far from their driver since prom night.

Admittedly, the last decade of the Springer show has pretty much limped along on autopilot. Jerry has remained content to be the center of society's storm, playing the observer and pretending that he didn't stare into the abyss on a daily basis. A virtual sideshow for nearly its entire run on TV, the show went full-on circus a few years ago, then went back to its trash roots. Maybe that makes it easy to forget the white-hot stratospheric jump the show made in the mid-90s.

Easy to forget the Springer opera, the Springer-based feature release "Ringmaster." All the Springer pay-per-views and the DVD releases. The spinoffs. I don't see any of those from Oprah - just the occasional car or chicken giveaway and goofy pseudoscience. Who's more influential? Not Springer, for sure - but to try to sweep Springer's presence over the last couple decades or so is to do a disservice to Springer and his legion of producers, set staff and security guards.

For better or worse, he was Chicago's. The NBC building might not be front-and-center in the city, but millions have passed through those doors to watch the insanity and prove there's still a place for freaks in this world. Between the show, the radio program, and all the other distractions, he was still around enough for us eventually to have the luxury of seeing Springer as part of the patchwork of the city as opposed to hyper-celebrity. If he hasn't been visible enough, that's always been his MO - watch the crazies, not the host. So long, Jerry, and take care. Good luck getting the dregs of society to hop a plane to Connecticut rather than the big city they've grown accustomed to visiting.

We give the move two seasons, tops. And now, a hastily assembled list of our favorite YouTubed Jerry moments.

Springer as Politician: