The Talk Shows Thread

[All My Shadows]

In that thread about Julie Chen possibly replacing ATWT, we briefly talked about some of our favorite talk shows of the past and present, and that got me in the mood to watch some on YouTube, and I was glad to find a good bit.

I found an episode of Sally dealing with the whole ex-gay thing and then I found an episode of Ricki dealing with gays who aren't accepted by their families, and I think it's amazing the differences between the two hosts. Sally is COMPLETELY neutral and objective throughout. Almost everything she says is fact and can't be argued against. Ricki, on the other hand, doesn't waste any time paying lip service to foolishness and puts it right there on the table what she believes and what she thinks. Which I kinda think is awesome because I hate when talk shows and hosts of other shows feel that they have to not have an opinion in the name of being "fair." You can have your opinion, express it openly, and also be "fair" to those who have opposing viewpoints.

Anyway, here are the first parts of the two episodes:

Sally:

Ricki:

[Cheap21]

I was such a HUGE fan of the talk shows back in the 90s. My favorites included

Ricki Lake

Sally Jesse Raphael

Jerry Springer

The Richard Bey Show

Jenny Jones

Those 5 gave me my daily dose of fun trash. Nowadays, Maury is the only one that does it for me

[All My Shadows]

Those were all of ours too, except for Richard Bey, which I'm guessing was probably a little before my time. I'll have to search him up on YouTube.

I can't even tell you what time Jerry and Maury come on now because I haven't watched them in forever. And I refuse to waste any more of my time with The Steve Wilkos Show which is the ultimate in ego-inflating shitfests.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I miss Ricki and Jenny so much.

Those shows were like crack, you couldn't stop watching or help yourself from getting sucked in.

Oh, and Ricki's theme song kicked ass! Here's a clip of the audience, guests, and Ricki herself getting down as the theme music played over the end credits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1GDXF_n2Fg&feature=related

[SFK]

I cannot STAND Steve Wilkos' show, it's bad when I feel sorry for guests who've done awful things just because of the way Steve throws their chairs away and makes them stand while he dresses them down. Jerry Springer at its height was a family favorite, it came on at like 10/11pm, a late night treat.

Shoot, I remember when Jerry and Maury were all respectable and topical. Do you all remember Hydeia Broadbent? She was the little girl with AIDS who made the talkshow rounds in the '90s, what a brave little sweetheart, and bless her she's now a beautiful 25 year-old woman.

Man, I wish I could remember her name, but there was a very memorable little girl on Sally who was the stuff quirky indie flicks are made of. She wore glasses and was teased at school, she didn't have any friends and lived with her grandma. The grandmother tearfully recounted how she found the girl trying to hang herself on the bathroom doorknob with dental floss (don't you dare!). Her puppy had recently died and at the end of the show Sally gave her a Husky puppy and the girl just lit up ("I promise I will love him, I will put him on a pedestal!"). It was cute, and they had her back and threw her a party with "friends" (a bunch of precocious NY child actors ), they were all dancing on the set and whatnot.

[All My Shadows]

THANK GOD! I have searched high and low all over the Internet hoping to find someone, just ONE person, who feels the same way I do about Steve's show. I do NOT condone murder, rape, forced incest, abuse, etc, but I also do not condone shining an enormous spotlight (well..."enormous" is an overstatement because his ratings always suck) on the people who commit these crimes under the guise of "bringing them to justice" and "giving the victim(s) closure." It is ALL about Steve constantly going up against people who have absolutely no leg to stand on so that he looks good every freaking day. Very, very exploitative, and very pathetic. I used to love Steve on Springer, but any respect I had for him is now gooone.

And yay, Jerry was a family favorite here, too. Every day, no matter what, at 4pm, three generations would sit around the living room and watch the folks on Springer. VH1 even made a special retrospective called "When Jerry Springer Ruled the World" that was all about how huge the show was in the late 90s. He's buried in some early morning or late night timeslot now, but that's just as well. The show is a poor, poor caricature of what it used to be. Too sensationalistic. I started to get a little bored with it by the time the beads came, but once the hooked up a stripper pole on the set, that was it. The best episodes were the ones were the set was made up like a library with bookshelves and potted plants and such. I always wondered what those books were LOL

[SFK]

So with you on the Wilkos rant. It's very funny to me how I reach for the remote the moment Jerry comes on, my how times have changed, I used to eagerly look forward to it every night... the classic years like the two black "girls" telling their boyfriends they were men, the years before people started making up [!@#$%^&*] just so they could be on the show.

One very memorable (for me) episode that I WISH I could forget was about people who take sexual pleasure in throwing up on people/being thrown up on. It was seriously the LOWEST of the low, so disgusting. The camera would cut away as the guy would regurge, but they showed the aftermath. And he must have eaten something extra Slimer from Ghostbusters green before the show in order for it to show up bright and shocking for the camera, it was truly vile.

[All My Shadows]

Blech. I remember that one from years and years ago. The guy was fat and had long, flowing hair, and he just stood there and puked all over the girl. My dad was never as into it as me, my mom, and my brother were but he tolerated it most of the time. That episode was the first time he ever had a "Why do yall watch that disgusting sh!t?" reaction.

Another gross one, but it was kinda funny, was this one who had a weird fetish for raw meat. She'd go to grocery stores, buy pork chops and steaks and such, bust them open, get down to her bra and undies, and lay on the floor, massaging herself with the pork chops. Bizarre.

One of my favorites, though, was this fat man who was married, told his wife he was having an affair with another man. They did a Springer Cam of the fat man going to see his boyfriend at the construction site he was working at, and the boyfriend looks all rough and fugly, then he comes out on stage looking like Fabio with a silk shirt and lovely hair. The fat guy kept calling him his "Latin lover," which had Jerry cracking up.

[Cheap21]

Richard Bey was the sh-t! Jerry Springr got his inspiration from him. Jerry was very serious in the beginning and Richard was crazy and over the top. I loved his sound effects, games, humor and wild guests. Look at old clips and you can see the similarities to Richard Bey back then to the show Jerry morphed into. Look at this clips. Funny stuff.

[bellcurve]

UGH, I love Dr. Oz, but can someone at Sony/Harpo please give this guy a better theme song and set?! I swear, it's just reminiscent of some cheapass infomercial, especially with the way Dr. Oz runs out and Hi-5's everyone.

That said, I hope he takes Talk Show Informative away from Tyra.

[SFK]

I like Dr. Oz, but his show makes me too damn paranoid. And if it's not about illnesses, he had to go and do one about creepy crawlies in your house on Friday. I've got towels and [!@#$%^&*] under my doors so snakes and mice can't get in.

[bellcurve]

I saw that show Friday too. LMFAO.

I find him strangely attractive for some odd reason. LOL.

[All My Shadows]

They've sexed Oz up a bit as the season's gone on, I think. Or at least it seems that way to me. I was a "Eh...I don't think so?" in the beginning but now I'm more of a "Yeah, I'd hit that," so good for him.

I was very upset when they put him in THE DOCTORS's time slot here, but then I realized how whiny and rude those DOCTORS can be to their guests. There was an episode Ricki talking about home birthing, and Dr. Lisa was an epic bitch to her the WHOLE time. And then there's the whole Jenny McCartney autism/vaccination thing. I don't even care about who was right or wrong in that. Travis was about to friggin cry because his little feelings were hurt! Pathetic people, those docs are.

[bellcurve]

Oh God, I saw a clip of that on YouTube and that really pissed me off. Too bad The Doctors and Oz are neck-to-neck in the ratings.

[SFK]

Wait, who is Travis? One of The Doctors? I watched that for the first time the other day, it was about "icky" problems no one likes to talk about. I agree, collectively they were a wash of smug, uninteresting, uninterested, standoffish, superior, myshitdon'tstinkishness. Perhaps they deserve one more try from me as a viewer, but the two older guys on the panel definitely seemed better suited as guest doctors on The View rather than full-fledged hosts. The younger guy and the lady are better hosts, yet I don't think I could stomach them 5x/wk.