The Rise of Trashy Daytime TV | 56
History of the 90s
Kathy Kenzora
4.7 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2021
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the 1990s the most violent thing on television wasn’t wrestling, or NHL hockey it was The Jerry Springer Show. The daytime talk show regularly devolved into wild physical fights between guests that were excitedly cheered on by riled up audience members
During the 90s more than two dozen similar daytime talk shows, that ranged from provocative to downright trashy, ruled the airwaves.
Big names you probably remember like Jenny Jones, Geraldo Rivera and Maury Povich and others you may have forgotten about like Ricki Lake & Montel Williams were adored by millions of fans until a shocking tragedy turned the industry on its head.
On this episode of History of the 90s host Kathy Kenzora looks back at the era of trashy daytime talk shows.
Contact:
Twitter: @1990shistory
Facebook: @1990shistory
Instagram: @that90spodcast
Email: 90s@curiouscast.ca
Guests:
James Nadler; Graduate Program Director, Masters of Arts in Media Production at Ryerson University
Laura Grindstaff; Professor of Sociology at UC Davis & author of The Money Shot: Trash, Class and the Making of TV Talk Shows
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's Kathy. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to History of the 90s |
| 0:04.7 | early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. |
| 0:11.7 | On March 9, 1995, a 24-year-old man knocked on the front door of a white vinyl-sided trailer |
| 0:19.1 | in a small town, 45 minutes from Detroit, Michigan. |
| 0:23.7 | Jonathan Schmitz had come to the mobile home to question another young man about an unsigned |
| 0:29.3 | sexually suggestive note he found taped to the front door of his apartment earlier that morning. |
| 0:35.4 | When Scott Amador admitted to leaving the note, Schmitz calmly walked to his car and grabbed |
| 0:41.0 | a 12-gauge shotgun. |
| 0:43.3 | After a brief struggle, he forced his way into the trailer, firing two shots into the chest |
| 0:48.5 | of Amador. |
| 0:50.1 | Just three days earlier, the two men had appeared together on the taping of the Jenny Jones show. |
| 0:57.1 | The tragedy was a wake-up call for dozens of daytime talk shows that were trying to outdo each other with provocative and shocking content, |
| 1:06.1 | often pitting regular people against each other for the entertainment of millions of television viewers. |
| 1:13.1 | I'm Kathy Kinsora, and this is History of the 90s, a podcast about a decade that changed the |
| 1:19.1 | world. On this episode, The Rise of Trashy Daytime Talk Shows. |
| 1:29.0 | In the 1990s, the most violent thing on television wasn't wrestling or NHL hockey. |
| 1:36.1 | It wasn't even Mike Tyson biting off Evander Holyfield's ear in a fight. |
| 1:40.8 | It was the Jerry Springer show. |
| 1:42.9 | The daytime talk show regularly devolved into wild |
| 1:47.0 | physical fights between guests that were excitedly cheered on by riled up audience members. And it |
| 1:53.7 | wasn't the only one. During the 90s, there were more than two dozen similar daytime talk |
| 1:58.5 | shows that ranged from provocative to downright trashy. |
... |
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