Nine episodes. Five and one-half hours. More than 50 people interviewed for Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer, the documentary podcast arriving on the Audible subscription service Thursday, May 1.
Including me.
Full disclosure: I was interviewed for four hours (over two sessions) last year by host and producer Leon Neyfakh from Prologue Projects. He was interested in my perspective on Springer from my 50 years observing his Cincinnati political career and covering his television work from WLWT-TV news commentator and anchor to national daytime talk show.
I’ve only heard the three-minute teaser on the Audible website, but Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer appears to be the most comprehensive documentary about Springer’s five decades in public life. By contrast, Netflix’s two-part Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, which premiered in January, focused on his daytime talk show (1991-2018).
In the Audible promo for Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer, Neyfakh says:
“Back in the 1990s, The Jerry Springer Show’s reputation as the trashiest, ugliest, most depraved show in the history of TV was uncontested . . . All these years later, I assumed I’d find it quaint, but it was honestly way more shocking than I remembered.
“The mild-mannered, self-deprecating host was a man of profound contradictions. Long before he was a TV star, Jerry Springer was a Democratic politician in Ohio, widely seen as a future senator or even governor. How did that Jerry Springer, the idealist, become a global symbol for the downfall of civilization?”
Here’s a description of the nine episodes from Neyfakh:
- Overview: A look back at the Jerry Springer show (1991-2018) framed around Springer’s testimony in the Chicago City Council hearing about his TV show violence in 1999.
- 1970-73: His unsuccessful 1970 political campaign for Congress and his election to Cincinnati City Council in 1971 and 1973.
- 1974-81: His resignation as vice mayor in 1974 after admitting he wrote a check to a sex worker; his re-election to Council 1975 and 1977; and Council naming him mayor.
- 1980s: Springer’s unsuccessful run for Ohio governor in 1982, and his decision to leave politics to become a WLWT-TV commentator and news anchor.
- 1991: The premiere of the Jerry Springer daytime show on WLWT-TV as a serious Phil Donahue show clone and “how it evolved or devolved” after moving to Chicago in 1992, Neyfakh says.
- 1990s: Episodes six and seven are devoted to the rise of the Jerry Springer show in the 1990s, and beating Oprah Winfrey in the daytime ratings 1998, and the violence controversy.
- 2000s: The final two episodes look back at Springer’s ambitions to run for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat in 2004, and for Ohio governor in 2018, which he abandoned because he couldn’t overcome his “trash TV” identity.
The documentary uses a lot of audio from the Springer TV show as well as old interviews and some of his WLWT-TV commentaries, Neyfakh says. Prologue Projects was unable to find any recording of his WEBN-FM Mayor’s Memorandum broadcasts, he says. Springer died April 2023 of pancreatic cancer in his suburban Chicago home. He was 79.
I’m told I appear in three episodes talking about Springer as a WLWT-TV news commentator and anchor; the launch of his talk show on Channel 5; and my lengthy conversation with him in Chicago about wanting to be seen as a serious liberal political voice in 1996, two years before he beat Oprah in the daytime talk ratings.
Among those interviewed are Tim Burke, longtime Hamilton County Democratic Party leader; Tish Hevel and Brad Kuhlman, former WLWT-TV news producers; Craig Kopp, former news director at WEBN-FM (where Springer started his commentaries as the Mayor’s Memorandum); Guy Guckenberger, former Cincinnati Council member; Simon Leis Jr., the retired Hamilton County prosecutor, judge and sheriff; and Springer's sister, Evelyn Strauch.
Several Jerry Springer producers seen in the Netflix series also appear in Final Thoughts, including executive producer Richard Dominick, who boasted to Netflix how he pushed Springer “to make it wild… and sexy” with adult themes and topics.
Notably Jene Galvin, longtime friend and cohost of Springer’s radio show and podcast, his widow Mickey Springer, and former WLWT-TV co-anchor Norma Rashid did not grant interviews.
Neyfakh comes to Final Thoughts with impressive credentials. He created and hosted Slate’s Slow Burn narrative podcasts about the Watergate scandal and President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 2017-2018. Then he created the Fiasco podcast series which has examined the Iran-Contra affair, the 1970s Boston busing crisis, the AIDS epidemic, and the 2012 Benghazi attack. He also did the Think Twice: Michael Jackson podcast series about the life and legacy of the pop star.
Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer is only available on the Audible subscription service.
