Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer | Plausible Deniability | 6

Summary

OnlyFantasy Podcast

Episode: Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer | Plausible Deniability | 6

Host: Leon Neyfakh
Date: April 23, 2026

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Overview

This episode of Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer dives deep into the inner workings, ethical quandaries, and behind-the-scenes culture of The Jerry Springer Show during its most infamous years. Host Leon Neyfakh weaves together personal accounts from guests, producers, and executives to explore how Springer became television’s most notorious spectacle of “trash TV” — and what that notoriety cost for the people on and off screen. The episode’s central theme is “plausible deniability”: how the line between real and fake was intentionally blurred, how producers justified their methods, and how power dynamics played out in a TV landscape increasingly driven by ratings and outrage.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Role of Fake Guests and Manufactured Stories

• Norm LeBeau's Journey: Guest to Producer

  • Originally a “fake” guest (as Reverend Bud Green), LeBeau insists he never said anything he didn’t believe:

    "I never went on Jerry Springer or any other talk show and said anything I didn't believe in. So the fact they would call me a fake guest was bullshit." — Norm LeBeau [04:31]

  • He describes the thrill and addictiveness of TV appearances:

    "Jerry, TV is like a drug and I need another fix. ... The six shows I did with Springer are like some of the six best days of my life." — Norm LeBeau [04:49]

  • LeBeau later becomes a producer/guest finder, leveraging his past as a guest to relate to new recruits.

• Story Engineering and Guest Recruitment

  • Senior producers like Richard Dominick would push for ever more outrageous, relationship-based storylines, including cheating spouses, incest, and shocking “reveals.”
  • LeBeau recruited from “strip clubs” and elsewhere, often encouraging or facilitating staged or exaggerated stories in exchange for screen time and small payouts:

    "I was the king of the strip clubs, basically, because when I was on the show as a full time producer, most of the guests I got were out of strip clubs." — Norm LeBeau [32:06]

• Degrees of Fakery

  • While some guests' stories were real, many were amplified or outright fabricated for entertainment value.

  • Tim Baxley recounts how he and a friend fabricated a relationship drama for a Springer episode:

    "They didn’t have a script, they didn’t give you dialogue... but they had an outline." — Tim Baxley [34:23]

  • Producers and contacts formed a recruitment chain—sometimes with apparent “plausible deniability” about what was real:

    "I didn't call these people up. I said, I need this and this. And they brought the people to me. So if they were fake, it was because they were bringing fake people." — Norm LeBeau [37:56]

Audience and Ratings: The Competitive Stakes

• Universal’s Influence and the Race to Beat Oprah

  • After Universal Studios acquired the show, executive Ned Nall challenged the producers: “What would we have to do to beat Oprah?” [13:34]
  • Richard Dominick and Jerry Springer responded by proposing even more outrageous content, pushing boundaries and traffic.

    "They said, but you gotta let us go for it. They were saying, let us go with some more outrageous people and let us torque it up." — Ned Nall [14:28]

• The Show’s Meteoric Rise

  • By early 1998, Springer achieved its impossible goal:

    "Jerry Springer, whose name has become synonymous with trash tv, is living proof that sleaze sells. He just beat Oprah for the first time ever." — David Docter [51:35]

  • Springer's ratings soared 183% in a year; even Oprah publicly acknowledged being beaten, while vowing to “take the high road.” [52:04–52:19]

The Guest Experience: Manipulation, Contractual Pressure, and Fallout

• Emotional Manipulation & Narrative Control

  • Former guest David Docter shares how producers promised he would see his daughter, pressured him to propose to his ex on camera, and used psychological tactics to get the explosive confrontation they wanted.

    "They gained my trust by being so sweet, so innocent, so nice. But as soon as I signed a contract, things changed." — David Docter [50:07]

  • Guests such as Docter were divided into camps, kept apart, and “amped up” to maximize drama.

• Exploitation and Aftermath

  • Many guests felt exposed, manipulated, or outright betrayed by how events played out on stage and on TV.
  • Others, like Docter, found a surprising sense of catharsis and even local “celebrity status” afterward:

    "I was instant celebrity status. ... Took my mind off of things a bit. ... It broke the depression. ... It changed everything." — David Docter [49:28]

• Broken Promises and Financial Shortchanging

  • Not all guests were compensated as agreed, with one pregnant homeless teen recalling she received half the promised payment after being lectured and ridiculed on stage.

    "We counted as fast as we could and we were given $100 each, which was, you know, half of what we had been promised..." — Unnamed Guest [48:28]

The Producer Perspective: Ethics, Shame, and Self-Justification

• Relentless Ratings Pressure

  • Producers describe Springer as a “pressure cooker” where the singular focus was to boost ratings, even if the job was considered “not respectable.”

    "It was all about ratings." — Melinda Chate Mele [30:05] "Although it sounds like you're wielding a lot of power, I felt very powerless. I was afraid to lose my job." — Melinda Chate Mele [50:33]

• Defending the Process

  • Producers maintained that, at heart, the show was about relationships, emotion, and catharsis, not exploitation:

    "A lot of people got to come on my shows, tell their story, go home feeling as if they had, a, been a television star, b gotten some of this stuff out of the way. ... It was a cathartic experience for a lot of people." — Melinda Chate Mele [53:03]

• Moral Reckoning

  • The premise and process were widely condemned for encouraging violence, humiliation, and the “laughing at the pain of other people's lives."

    "Laughing at the pain of other people's lives is probably not healthy. Encouraging people to fight and to attack one another verbally and physically to get ratings is not healthy.” — Norm LeBeau [54:24]

The Power Structure and Hierarchy

• Behind-the-Scenes Authority

  • Jerry Springer, despite being the host, wasn’t part of the show’s power hierarchy according to staff.

    "Jerry wasn't in the pecking order, just FYI. He just really wasn't. The iron fist was at the top. Richard [Dominick]." — Melinda Chate Mele [26:47]

• Producers as Emotional Conductors

  • Producers actively worked to stir up emotions before guests hit the stage:

    "I really try to jazz them up. Cause they're like, whoa, the producers like that. I better go out there and do what I need to do." — Norm LeBeau [41:12]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Fights Becoming Central to the Show

  "We began to believe that having the physical presence of, like, the bodyguard or the bouncer on stage added to the entertainment value of the show..."
  — Ned Nall [12:17]

• On Outrageous Storylines

  “He had a meeting one time, right? He says, I want some really wild stories. ... I want a guy to come out there and dumps his girlfriend for 80 year old. And so, like, two days later, I had him.”
  — Norm LeBeau [32:36]

• On Springer’s Final Thoughts

  "The vengeance may offer a momentary rush, but more likely it will just keep you mired in the pain and bad feelings of the breakup. No, it's time to move on."
  — Jerry Springer [24:59]

• Judicial Condemnation

  "Are ratings more important than the dignity of human life? Shame on you."
  — Judge in Springer-related murder case [46:18]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:00–04:42] — Norm LeBeau’s early guest appearances: activism, theatricality, and arriving at Springer
• [05:37–06:29] — Transition from guest to staff: behind-the-scenes producer pressure
• [08:24–14:28] — Universal acquisition, Ned Nall’s leadership, and the challenge to “beat Oprah”
• [14:51–24:39] — The David Docter saga: from hopeful guest to manipulated TV drama
• [30:05–32:06] — Guest discovery: ratings fixation and producer grind
• [34:23–45:44] — Tim Baxley’s “Stripper Wars”: faking a relationship, hotel perks, pre-show rehearsals, and staged conflict
• [46:18–48:47] — The dark consequences: murder, legal threats, and guests left feeling betrayed or short-changed
• [49:28–50:07] — Finding catharsis vs. feeling exploited: varied guest outcomes
• [50:33–54:39] — Producers’ perspective: powerless power, pride, and growing controversy

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Conclusion

This episode of Final Thoughts digs beneath the surface spectacle of The Jerry Springer Show to reveal the manipulation, ambition, and compromised ethics that fueled its explosive rise. Through frank interviews and firsthand accounts, we learn how Springer’s blend of truth and theater both rewarded and wounded the people in front of the camera — and how a culture of plausible deniability let everyone, from producers to guests, to audience, look away from the real costs. The legacy, as this episode suggests, is complicated: a show that tapped into a deep vein of American fascination with spectacle, shame, and the desire — sometimes desperate — to be heard and seen.

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For listeners seeking an authentic window into the stranger corners of ‘90s TV, this episode exposes the messy, human, and deeply ambivalent world behind Springer’s gaudy stage.

Transcript

[Norm LeBeau]

I was on Sally, I was on Geraldo, I was on Joan Rivers, I was on Morton Downey Jr. The only two I never was on was Donahue and Oprah. They were the toughest ones to get on.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Norm LeBeau was a musician and marijuana activist living in Los angeles. In the 1980s, when talk shows first started taking over daytime TV, LeBeau made the rounds as his alter ego, the Reverend Bud Greene, leader of a church whose mission was worshiping God by smoking weed and fighting the fascist government. His shtick, when he could get away with it, was to light up a joint on camera.

[Norm LeBeau]

When we light up a joint, we say, I want to thank the Lord for giving me the holy herb, which shows me the need to overthrow right wing rich pigs like Reagan, Bush and Quail.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

With his long hair and his thick beard, LeBeau looked like he'd stepped out of a time machine from the Summer of Love. When Jerry Springer hit the airwaves in 1991, LeBeau got himself on in the first year. And soon after, in the wake of the LA riots, he successfully pitched himself as a returning guest.

[Norm LeBeau]

He said, hey, I looted during the riots. What do you think?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Was that true? Had you been in the riots?

[Norm LeBeau]

Yeah, well, I, you know, we took some rolling papers or something, basically, but I just, you know, that was one I maybe enamored a little bit.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

According to LeBeau, producer Richard Dominick enamored a little bit further. To justify bringing the reverend on the show a second time, he needed a new angle. So LeBeau was dubbed a modern day Robin Hood.

[Norm LeBeau]

I don't think I even knew about it until they got me there and they said, look, we got a Robin Hood outfit for you. And it was so funny because they had, like, tights for me to wear. And that's when I first met Richard. I'm like, dude, I'm not wearing any tights and stuff. So he came up with, like, a compromise.

[Jerry Springer]

Boy, you are in for it. Today we are going to meet a guy who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. He calls himself a modern day Robin Hood. Meet Reverend Bud Green. During the Los Angeles riots, Reverend Greene looted stores and destroyed property.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

LeBeau ended up looking a bit more like Zorro than Robin Hood. With a fedora, a cape, and a black mask covering his eyes and nose. He looks downright cartoonish as he and Springer sat next to each other on the sparsely decorated season one set.

[Jerry Springer]

What did you do during the riots?

[David Docter]

Well, we stole things from, like, electronic

[Norm LeBeau]

stores, hardware stores, things like that, things

[David Docter]

that we could sell and Then use the money to give to the poor.

[Jerry Springer]

The people. Some of the people you stole from were poor themselves.

[Norm LeBeau]

Not at all.

[David Docter]

If you own a store, you're definitely richer than most people. So if you have the.

[Norm LeBeau]

That's very true.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Though, to spice things up a bit, LeBeau says Richard Dominic added another element of flair.

[Norm LeBeau]

He comes up to me right before the show and he says, here's some money to throw to the crowd. And I go, dude, you must be reading my fucking mind, because I am broke. But I wanted to throw money to the crowd. It's like he had to be like 40$41 bills. As I recall, I kept like, half of them and threw the other half to the crowd. When I'm on the show, I said, here's some of the money we looted in la.

[David Docter]

In fact, I like to spread some

[Norm LeBeau]

of the money to the people who

[David Docter]

may need some money here in this.

[Jerry Springer]

Well, this is receiving stolen property, so don't take it.

[David Docter]

Who wants some?

[Norm LeBeau]

Go ahead and grab.

[David Docter]

From the Reverend Bud.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

For his finale, LeBeau tried to light up a joint on stage.

[Norm LeBeau]

Now, Jerry, when I came back on this show, I told you that I would not smoke any more marijuana because I gave you my word, right? You know what? I have to give my word to God. And God has said to worship the Lord.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

You will not do that.

[Jerry Springer]

You will not do that.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Don't do that.

[Norm LeBeau]

Jerry stops me and he says, put that out. So I sit there and I'm not gonna get. You know, I'm not gonna let that be the final thing. So he walks away finally, and he's taking questions from the audience. And I stood up and said, jerry, praise the Lord.

[David Docter]

Everybody steal from the rich.

[Norm LeBeau]

So I lit up the joint. I just walk off the show.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Norm LeBeau, or rather the Reverend Bud Greene, became a recurring guest on Springer. The theme of the show was different every time. One episode was about a family who did LSD together. Another included the Reverend as one of several weirdos ostensibly running for president. Thanks to his long list of credits, LeBeau has been called a fake guest, a ringer, essentially, whose job was to entertain by any means necessary rather than tell a true story. But LeBeau takes exception to the word fake.

[Norm LeBeau]

I never went on Jerry Springer or any other talk show and said anything I didn't believe in. So the fact they would call me a fake guest was bullshit. I was never fake. Never a fake guest at all.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

LeBeau recalls that at one point, he shot some promos for Springer, and on at least one take, they let him say whatever he wanted to the camera.

[Norm LeBeau]

I said, jerry, TB is like a drug and I need another fix. Which is true, because anytime you're on tv, it's like the six shows I did with Springer are like some of the six best days of my life.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Lebeau couldn't believe that some people got to hang out on the Jerry Springer set every day. To him, it looked like the staff of the show had it made from

[Norm LeBeau]

the outside looking in. It looked like a fun thing, you know, oh, this is cool, you know, And I always had a great time and they always were really happy to see me. But it wasn't like that working there. It wasn't that much of a fun atmosphere, you know, that I thought it was.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

That's right. After making his last appearance as a guest in 1996, Norm LeBeau started working for the Jerry Springer Show. First as a so called guest finder and eventually as a producer.

[Norm LeBeau]

Because I was a guest, I could relate to the people. That was the best thing I had going me. I didn't look down on them. I could relate to them. I could get them to do what I needed them to do, put it that way.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

LeBeau worked on Springer during a period when it was turning into a bona fide cultural phenomenon. And the cutthroat landscape of daytime TV meant there was a constant battle to book bigger, better, and more explosive guests. As the pressure to deliver ratings ratcheted up, the burden fell not only on LeBeau and his fellow producers, but also on the guests who provided the raw materials that made Springer the most shocking, voyeuristic show on television.

[Jerry Springer]

Heather is pregnant by her own half brother. And to make matters worse, she's dumping him for his other brother.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

I'm engaged to one guy and I'm

[Norm LeBeau]

pregnant by the transsexual.

[Jerry Springer]

This is even a better story.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Now, getting the best out of these guests. Or depending on how you look at it, the worst was an art form of its own, one that toed the line between fact and fiction, leaving guests caught in the middle. I'm leon nayfak from audible originals and prologue projects. This is final thoughts. Jerry springer. Chapter six Plausible Deniability. Sometime during the sixth season of the Jerry Springer Show, Springer called up the man who had just acquired the keys to his future. An executive at Universal Studios named Ned Nall. According to Nall, Springer seemed concerned about his job security.

[Ned Nall]

I remember him calling me from his house in Florida and saying, I'm looking at a beautiful view. I just want to keep it.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Universal had just purchased a slate of talk shows, including the Jerry Springer show. And part of Nahl's job was to oversee the show on the studio level. That meant marketing it and selling it to local television stations around the country. A tough job due to the crowded market for daytime talk. Nahl compared it to an overgrown garden where each talk show was a flower competing for resources.

[Ned Nall]

So they have to figure out a way to twist and rise to get their day in the sun. And I think that that's what all those shows were doing when there was a surfeit of them.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Springer was in ninth place for the November 1996 sweeps, outrated by Sally Jesse Raphael, Jenny Jones and even newcomer Rosie o'. Donnell. Ned Nall gathered with Springer and Richard Dominick to talk strategy. Nahl got the impression both of them came into the meeting not knowing what the future was going to hold, whether the show might be cut entirely, or if Universal wanted to fire the staff and take it in a totally new direction.

[Ned Nall]

I felt that Jerry and Richard were very nervous in that first meeting.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Eyes were on Dominic more than on Springer. In Nahl's experience, the host needed to carry a talk show when the cameras were on. But it lived and died by its behind the scenes talent.

[Ned Nall]

My feeling has always been it's the showrunner who makes the show, it's not the star. And you have to gauge when you hire the showrunner. Can this person take us to the promised land?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Since becoming the executive producer in 1994, Richard Dominic had instituted various changes that led to more and more outrageous episodes. He told nal the show had started leaning into relationship dramas because those got the best ratings.

[Ned Nall]

Families in disarray, families with secrets that were revealed on stage. I think Richard discerned a competitive edge by telling those stories. He could get eyeballs better than some

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

of those other shows. The salacious storylines Dominic wanted to lean into were nothing new in daytime tv. But at the time of this meeting with Ned Nall after the sale to Universal, Springer's competitors were under huge public pressure to tone things down. A tragic incident that followed one talk show taping has some people asking whether these programs are going too far. In 1995, a guest on the Jenny Jones show was murdered by another after confessing during a taping that he had a crush on him.

[Norm LeBeau]

Jonathan Schmitz thought his secret admirer was a woman.

[Tim Baxley]

Instead, it turned out to be a

[Norm LeBeau]

gay man, Scott Amadour.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Now Amador is dead and Schmitz is charged with murder. The incident created a chilling effect in the world of daytime TV as producers and Executives reassessed the risks of going all out. But that was not where the Jerry Springer show was headed. Richard Dominic wanted to keep pushing the show towards outrage and conflict. Cheating spouses, transgender reveals, incest. Dominic wanted more of all of it. And Ned Nall was on board.

[Ned Nall]

He had an uncanny sense on which shows would work best. And the important thing about these kinds of shows, we felt, was that whatever's going on in the audience's home life is far more tame than what they see of these other people. And they feel better about themselves having watched the show, that at least my life isn't that bad.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Unlike Springer's previous corporate overlords, Nahl was even willing to embrace the physical confrontations that sometimes flared up on stage. When Springer guests were discussing their interpersonal conflicts. Under the old regime, producers were told to edit out any physical violence that erupted. Springer himself echoed that sentiment when the first fight broke out on the show back in 1993. At the time, Springer denounced it, saying that violence wasn't what the show was about.

[Jerry Springer]

Please don't come into our home and punch each other out, okay? That's not going to be allowed. All right? It's not going to be allowed.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

But starting in 1997, Universal loosened the reins and allowed producers to leave. The fights in. Springer, despite being an anti war, bleeding heart liberal, went along with it. Universal simply asked for a few guardrails

[Ned Nall]

to make sure no one got hurt. We wanted to have a physical presence to deter anything that would get out of line. And then we began to believe that having the physical presence of, like the bodyguard or the bouncer on stage added to the entertainment value of the show, because the viewer would be eyeballing the muscular guy in the corner to see when he was going to get up and stop something.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Those muscular guys in the corner were mainly off duty Chicago cops that the show hired on as security guards. As fighting became a bigger part of the Springer experience, their frequent interventions made them a popular fixture on the show. Soon, Springer's head security guard, Steve Wilkos, was a local hero in Chicago. The fights became a hallmark of the Jerry Springer show and helped distinguish it from the rest of the talk show pack. Dominic was running with his new freedom and boosting ratings in the process. And as he and Springer got together with Universal for more meetings in that first year, Nahl issued a kind of challenge.

[Ned Nall]

There was a seminal day where we were setting stretch goals for their show, and I asked the question, what would we have to do to beat Oprah?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

This was a shocking thing to ask. In 1997, Oprah Winfrey was the undisputed talk show queen, with more than double the ratings of her closest rival. That year, her show launched a book club and any book selected instantly became a bestseller. Talk show host and media titan Oprah Winfrey is creating best selling authors by merely mentioning a title.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

Y' all are gonna have to buy it.

[Norm LeBeau]

Oprah has made herself the most powerful person in all of publishing.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

It was a type of cultural influence that no other talk show host had. So one did not simply beat Oprah. It was a question many talk show hosts might have balked at.

[Ned Nall]

And instead of saying, oh, you can't beat Oprah. She's the queen, you know, she's above approach. They said we can. They said, but you gotta let us go for it. They were saying, let us go with some more outrageous people and let us torque it up.

[David Docter]

Hi, my name's David Docter, and back in 1998, I was on the Jerry Springer Show.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

David Docter appeared as a guest on Jerry Springer alongside his ex fiance Lisa. Less than a year earlier, Lisa had taken off with their daughter and Docter's now former best friend. Docter spent three months living out of his car before moving in with a couple of friends who let him stay on their couch.

[David Docter]

I was a mess. I was in a bad way. I was in a really bad way.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Doctor says his one source of motivation during this time was getting in touch with his four year old daughter. One day, the couple he was crashing with told him they'd gotten an unexpected phone call that offered him some hope.

[David Docter]

They're all excited and oh my God, Jerry Springer showed this call. They want you to go on America's favorite talk show and you know your daughter's gonna be up there and all this. And I had never seen the show before. Ever seen the show before. I didn't know what I was getting involved with. I thought, first thing I thought was like Sally Jesse Raphael or Oprah Winfrey and I was going to finally get some closure to seeing my daughter.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Doctor called the show back without hesitation. And once he was on the line with a producer, it didn't take much to get him on board.

[David Docter]

The first thing she told me is, yeah, your daughter's gonna be up here. We'll make sure you see your daughter. And I didn't hear anything else. It's like, let's go, you know, let's go. I don't care what the show's about or nothing. I just wanted to go to see my daughter, that's all.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Docter says that within a day of his phone call with the producer, he was on a flight to Chicago on the show's dime.

[David Docter]

I hadn't slept in two days. I didn't really care. I just. I got to the hotel room and kind, relaxed, and they tell you, you have carte blanche. You can order whatever you want, everything's free. But I never got a chance to eat any of it. Man, I was so depressed, so upset.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Doctor says he never slept that night. Just waited for limo to pick him up and take him to the studio. The next morning, when he arrived at the Jerry Springer show, he was brought into a green room to wait with some of the other guests who would be on the episode.

[David Docter]

They had these people that were there just standing next to us that would give us anything we wanted. One girl was pregnant and crying for McDonald's, and they had 15 McDonald's sandwiches up to her within 10 minutes. I mean, it was just amazing. We were treated like royalty when we went up there. They did whatever we asked just to make sure we went on the show.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

While they waited, the guests commiserated with one another.

[David Docter]

We were all going through it. Everybody was. And we all started talking, and I was actually taking the pickles off a burger for the girl that was pregnant. She was crying, there was pickles on her burger. Took the pickles off and said, it's gonna be okay. Yeah, we were all bonding, and we were all. I think we were all pretty much the victims, you know what I mean? So we were divided.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Docter says the show had separated that day's guests into two camps. Those who had been wronged and those who had wronged them. These two groups were kept apart until the show began. And while producers came in from time to time to make sure guests had everything they needed, Jerry Springer himself was not a presence at all. Except for a quick pop in to say hi.

[David Docter]

He comes through super quick waves to everybody on his way to makeup. That was it.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Docter was under the impression the only person he'd be confronting on the show was his ex fiance, the mother of his child. But when he was escorted to another room, he got a glimpse of the man she had cheated on him with, his ex best friend.

[David Docter]

They were like chutes made out of plywood that would, like cattle you down doorways where you couldn't bump into the other guests. And they brought him down the same aisle as me, and we ended up coming down the same aisle together. And that was it.

[Ned Nall]

What?

[David Docter]

And that's when I realized he was there. That's when I started seeing. Oh, man. I started saying all kinds of things to him I can't say on radio.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Several hours before the taping, Docter was whisked off to a smaller room that he was put in all by himself. The other room with all the guests and the unlimited food and the smoke breaks, that was kind of fun. This one had a different vibe. Docter remembers the producers coming in and handing him an extensive contract.

[David Docter]

It was like this thick, and I'm like, reading it and just. And I'm all nervous about going on the air. And I just signed it. And as soon as I signed it, their whole attitude changed. All of a sudden, it was like they owned me. It was really, really messed up.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Docter says the producers started talking him through how they wanted him to tell his story when he got on stage. The title of the episode was I'll Never Let yout Go. All the stories were about people who wanted their exes back. Docter wanted his daughter back, not his ex. But the producers encouraged him to say he was still in love with her. And they took it one step further.

[David Docter]

When they came back in with a dozen roses and a diamond ring, that's when I started getting super upset. I was like, nothing's making sense right now. And you guys want me to go out and propose to her? That's not gonna happen. This is not what anybody told me. So right there, right then and there, I knew I was being set up. And I started getting really upset and I told him I refused to go on stage

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

at that point. Docter says the producers pointed to the lengthy contract he had signed and told him that if he pulled out and the episode didn't air, he would be liable for the production costs.

[David Docter]

I said, sue me. I don't own anything. I have nothing. Sue me.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Doctor says they brought in other staffers to try and talk him down, but he held firm in refusing to go on. Then someone found a soft spot.

[David Docter]

She said, well, we gotta tell you something. She says, you're not the father of the child. And he says, he's gonna kick your ass all over the stage now. I was so upset, I wanted to kill the guy. I wanted to see him. Yeah. Now it didn't matter anymore. Now it was like, really, you know, really put me on stage. Yeah. All he had to say was. She said, you're not the father of the child. That's all it took. That's all it took. And that's what got me to go on stage and want to kill this guy.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Hey, welcome back.

[Jerry Springer]

Please meet Dave. He says the mother of his child left him five months ago and he's been suffering ever since. Oh, you also so sympathetic. Dave, what's going on?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

A young David Docter sat in one of the basic green chairs on stage and told Jerry Springer an abbreviated for TV version of his relationship with his ex.

[David Docter]

I was in love with her enough to be willing to spend the rest of my life with her, never even thinking about another woman. And so I gave her a child and we were gonna have a family and we were gonna get married.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Doctor looked polished, wearing a black button down shirt with his long dark hair pulled back in a braid and his beard neatly trimmed. Right away it was clear the audience was on his side.

[David Docter]

Then one day I found out she cheated on me. Sick thing is, I still love her because she's a mother of my child. Okay, finally people are taking sides with me. That was awesome. That was the first time in six months I'd actually felt better about anything. Everything changed, everything switched. And I went from being the bad guy to being the good guy.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

With Docter firmly established as the good guy, Springer then brought out his ex.

[Jerry Springer]

Here is Lisa.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

I should say here. Lisa passed away in 2012, so we weren't able to get her side of this story. But it's safe to say this was a messy, difficult situation for all involved, and it's hard to get a complete picture of what happened all these years later. The thing is, the Jerry Springer audience didn't hear the full nuanced version either. Dr. And Lisa were just one segment in an episode with two other stories. For the sake of time and entertainment value, the storytelling on the Jerry Springer show was often shallow and reduced its guests to stock characters. So David Docter got the good guy edit, while Lisa came off as the villain, even though it's clear from the episode that she had her own reasons for being upset.

[Norm LeBeau]

You are a lying. Am I?

[Melinda Chate Mele]

Yes, you are.

[David Docter]

Why don't you fill me in? For the first time in my life, why don't you tell me the proof?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

All right.

[David Docter]

Yeah. It was all about confronting her about why she left me and why she did it the way she did. Basically, just all of a sudden we're finally talking out the fight we should have talked out before she ever left.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

The talking was definitely more like yelling. Doctor was amped up and clearly having a hard time calming down.

[David Docter]

You realize I've lost 25 pounds and it's been six months daughter, that's. Why would you do that to me, Lisa? You know What? You're lying.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

I love you, sir.

[David Docter]

Lisa.

[Jerry Springer]

But it doesn't look like you two want to be back together again.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Things did not de escalate when Springer introduced the other man to the stage.

[Jerry Springer]

Let's meet Sean.

[David Docter]

I remember jumping out of my chair and having three guys throw me back into it because I was so pissed off I was trying to get at him. You ever call me and laugh in my face about taking my daughter from me? Bitch, you're gonna die. There was no looking back once the show started getting me upset. I don't think there's any way anybody could calm me down. They said the right things to piss me off.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

There's a part in the episode, I think, where the other guy who refers to our child. Our daughter.

[David Docter]

Our daughter.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[David Docter]

I'll never forget that. Taking care of our daughter. You bet. Oh, my God, Lisa. Oh, my God I ever fell in love with a piece of, like, you.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Go to hell.

[David Docter]

That's why I fought until I couldn't fight anymore. That was probably the worst thing he could have said to me.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Security escorted Docter offstage while Springer proceeded to wrap up the show. In his final thought, Springer urged his viewers not to get stuck in the past by trying to get even with their exes.

[Jerry Springer]

The vengeance may offer a momentary rush, but more likely it will just keep you mired in the pain and bad feelings of the breakup. No, it's time to move on. If it didn't work out, there was a reason. If someone truly doesn't want to be with you, the truth is you really don't want to be with them. Till next time, take care of yourself and each other.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

If Springer's final thoughts had started out as mini sermons, they now looked more like a corrective to everything the audience had just seen. A kind of retroactive disclaimer. I told Universal exec Ned Nall that I found it kind of ironic he saw it differently.

[Ned Nall]

Jerry, who's the person I invite into my living room every day, he's telling me, in spite of what I've seen, to be kind. And I think many people took that to heart. Whether you find it ironic or not, I think people did take it to heart.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

David Docter didn't hear Springer's words of wisdom the day of his taping because he'd already been taken off stage to calm down. Through it all, Docter says he barely saw Springer when he wasn't on camera.

[David Docter]

I think he just came in, he kind of emceed what was going on. And then when the crap went down. Jerry went the other direction. He didn't get all up in it. I don't think he liked it. I don't think he did. But it was. It's Hollywood, man. They were making so much money. So, you know, I don't blame him for looking the other way.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Can you tell me about the kind of hierarchy behind the scenes? Like, who is in charge? What was Richard's position relative to Jerry? Like, what was the pecking order?

[Melinda Chate Mele]

Oh, the pecking order. Jerry wasn't in the pecking order, just FYI. He just really wasn't. The iron fist was at the top. Richard.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Melinda Chate Melee joined the staff of the Jerry Springer show as a producer in the fall of 1997, a time when there was fierce competition to produce shows that would boost ratings.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

It was a pressure cooker. We're producing six shows a week. Each producer was responsible for one show a week.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Chate Mele had previously been a tabloid reporter at the National Enquirer, which came in handy with her sense of what audiences wanted.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

There's the tabloid mind. So, you know, someone who can think that way. And, you know, as much as that might sound trashy or not nice in a lot of journalistic ways, really it's just an ability to kind of get right to the heart of what people want to hear.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

What people wanted to hear were stories about the dysfunction and conflict in other people's lives. I'll Never Let yout Go. David Docter's episode delivered that in spades. And while Cheap Mele doesn't remember whether she personally worked on that episode, her name is in the credits. And it was the kind of episode she often produced. She called them relationship based shows.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

There was Marriage Confessions and why Did We Marry? You're Gay. I also did a show called My Daughter Is a Teen Prostitute.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Chait Mele says that while many people associate Jerry Springer with freak shows, a man who cut off his own penis, conjoined twins. Ultimately, no matter how wild the person might look, underneath it all, there needed to be a relatable story.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

I needed to feel something for their story, to put them on and to be able to make a story of it. You can't just take somebody whose entire face is pierced and turn that into a Jerry Springer show. That's not what it was. It was based on people's relationships. These were real emotions for them. Just like if you have a fight with your lover, your sister, or you find out someone's cheating on you, an extreme, tumultuous situation in your Life. And so that's what I think I specialized in. I was able to find people and pull their stories together and help make them somebody that the audience wanted to hear from.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

To cheat Mele, the typical Jerry Springer guest was someone who wouldn't normally be on national tv.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

I would describe a perfect Jerry Springer guest more as a small time America person. Someone who comes from a small town that doesn't have big buildings, you know, doesn't have a major airport nearby, where maybe it is more rural and the neighbors are a little further apart, but not because they're stupid or trashy necessarily. It's more of an experiential thing and a cultural thing.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Most of the stories Cheap Melee got on the air came from the messages people would leave after calling the 1-800-number advertised on the show. Chate Mele and her team had to dig through a pile of prank calls and drunken gibberish to find the intriguing conflict filled stories that would bring ratings.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

Ratings were super duper important. It was definitely something that was talked about in meetings with Richard. We're trying to beat Oprah. We need to get the ratings up. We need more ratings, ratings, ratings. It was all about ratings.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Universal Studios executive Ned Nall saw payoff from letting Richard Dominic's producers book the types of shows that would graduate. The results, which Nahl received in regular briefings about the show's success were undeniable.

[Ned Nall]

I remember getting calls in the early morning, pre dawn hours from our ratings guy who would call me and he would say, wake up, Ned, Jerry's on fire. Those were the words. When I came to consciousness, I said, what do you mean he's on fire?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Everything was coming together. The show was clearly tapping into something that Americans were craving. By mid December of 1997, a Variety headline declared Springer's a zinger and reported that the show had hit record numbers for six weeks in a row.

[Ned Nall]

And they said, his ratings, they're on fire. Look at the overnights. And so I would peruse the ratings and see, wow, we have great traction. So this was working. This go for it thing was working. And I told my management, we're going to keep it like this until we beat Oprah.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

It was around this time that Norm LeBeau, the weed worshipper who appeared on Jerry Springer as the Reverend Bud Green, made his transition from recurring guest to guest finder. Someone who actually worked for the show. LeBeau says that if he could recruit the kinds of guests that producers were looking for, he'd get paid roughly $500 an episode.

[Norm LeBeau]

That's what got me going, because that was like, big money, especially to me. I was basically living in poverty and stuff. So I was like, man, this is where the money is.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

While Melinda Chape Mele says she got most of her stories from people who called the 1, 800 number, LeBeau had a different method.

[Norm LeBeau]

I was the king of the strip clubs, basically because when I was on the show as a full time producer, most of the guests I got were out of strip clubs.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Once he became a staff producer on the show, LeBeau could take the guesswork out of what type of story might please the executive producer. He could now go straight to the source.

[Norm LeBeau]

Richard would tell you what he wanted, right? And then I would call my contacts to see if they could get it.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

According to LeBeau, Richard Dominic would often give the staff ideas for plot lines that might make for a good episode.

[Norm LeBeau]

He had a meeting one time, right? He says, I want some really wild stories. I want a guy to come out there and dumps his girlfriend for 80 year old. And so, like, two days later, I had him. He's like, what? Even Richard was like, no, I was just throwing these out there. I said, no, I got them already, dude.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Dominic denies ever ordering up stories in this manner. The way he put it to us was, I was running a TV show, not a delicatessen. In any event, the way LeBeau often found guests for specific episodes was by calling his strip club contacts and asking them if they knew anyone who fit the bill. I asked LeBeau what exactly he was looking for. I guess my question is like, are you trying to find real people who have these real problems that you're trying to get on stage?

[Norm LeBeau]

I wasn't. Like I said, I was just trying to find what they wanted for the story. So, you know, basically I wouldn't say real or not. I would be this. I need to find this and this and this. I would take it at face value to a degree.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

And so at that point, as you're finding guests for the show, like, what percentage of the stories on the show would you say were real at that point, as opposed to staged?

[Norm LeBeau]

Yeah, well, that's in the book. So I would say that I can't really say.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

The book LeBeau is referring to here is a tell all he's written about his time working on Springer. He's currently trying to shop it around to publishers, and he cited it every time I tried to pin him down on whether he or anyone else on the show ever knowingly booked fake guests.

[Norm LeBeau]

I've never copped to it, dude. This has been. The scandal happened in 1998. I've never once admitted the shows were fake.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

So we reached out to someone else.

[Tim Baxley]

I don't think before I went on the show I realized how much was fake.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Tim Baxley appeared on the Jerry Springer show in early 1998 in an episode titled Stripper Wars.

[Tim Baxley]

They didn't have a script, they didn't give you dialogue, they didn't tell you what they wanted you to say.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

They had like an outline in the episode. Baxley's story was that his fiance Lee had brought him on the show to confront him about how much time he was spending in strip clubs. She wanted to give him an ultimatum.

[Tim Baxley]

Give up strip clubs or the wedding is off.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Baxley was in his late 20s at the time, working as a tattoo artist in Atlanta. He said he would go to strip clubs, sometimes six nights a week. The reality was that it wasn't actually a problem for Baxley that he spent so much time in strip clubs. That's because he didn't actually have a fiance. Lee was just a good friend of his and she didn't really care about the strip club thing.

[Tim Baxley]

We were like best friends. We had traveled on vacation together, had been across the country. Lee used to go with us to strip clubs. It wasn't her favorite thing in the world, but she'd totally tag along with all the tattoo boys.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Baxley had been recruited to go on Jerry Springer through a friend who had previously been on it. It wasn't uncommon for producers to stay in touch with guests and use them as resources for finding other people to come on the show. Through his friend, Baxley says he was first invited to go on an episode about adult babies.

[Tim Baxley]

I think they were trying to fill that one first and I was just like, eh, you know, like, no, I am not gonna go on national television in a diaper. That's never gonna happen. There's no amount of money that's gonna make that happen.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

But when Baxley heard the producers were looking for someone who was addicted to strip clubs, that was a perfect fit. After convincing Lee to play his fed up fiance, the two friends found themselves on a flight to Chicago.

[Tim Baxley]

They flew us out first class. First and only time I've ever flown first class in my life. Picked us up and drove us around in limos and town cars and stuff.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Baxley and Lee were put up in a beautiful hotel overlooking Navy Pier and they were given vouchers called Jerry Bucks to spend during their three day stay.

[Tim Baxley]

Now the cool thing about Jerry Bucks, you could spend them on anything in the hotel, including tipping. So, I mean, $500 is a crazy amount of to have for three days, meals and stuff. So, like, when I say I was eating prime rib for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I mean, I was literally eating prime rib for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, just for funsies, you know?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Baxley and his faux fiance spent their time at the hotel trying to get into character. They knew that when they got to the studio, they would need to seem 100% real.

[Tim Baxley]

We had had friends that got caught faking on the Montel Williams show, and they had to fly themselves home. We didn't want to have a repeat of that. So we did our homework. We were very careful.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Publicly, at least. The Jerry Springer show did not tolerate fake guests. In 1995, four comedians faked an appearance on the show and then went public about it. Springer had a harsh reaction, saying in a statement that it was a blatant abuse of the trust and faith of the television viewer. The show sued the comedians for damages, resulting in an out of court settlement. All I have is my honesty, Springer said at the time. For the record, we asked every producer we talked to for this series about whether the show was real or fake. And while some of them said they zhuzhed up a story here and there for entertainment value, all of them denied ever knowingly booking a fake guest. Tim Baxley, however, told us he was certain that the producer he worked with was aware that he and Lee were faking it.

[Norm LeBeau]

That was my guess, right, Tim?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Yeah, Tim, exactly. Oh, that was yours? That was your guest?

[Norm LeBeau]

Yeah, yeah, that was my guess. But again, I didn't get him directly. I never met Tim until he got there. So the person that recruited him was the person that was my contact. They got me, the people. I didn't call these people up. I said, I need this and this. And they brought the people to me. So if they were fake, it was because they were bringing fake people. I wasn't getting the fake people. They were bringing them to me.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Norm LeBeau, aka the Reverend Bud Green, visited Baxley and his friend in their hotel room. According to Baxley, LeBeau wanted to talk to them about their roles and rehearse the story with them.

[Tim Baxley]

I remember thinking, like, oh, so this is what Hollywood producers are like, huh? Cause he just had this sort of sketchy, just like, he would just do anything for money kind of vibe, you know? And I was never, like, abusive or unkind or anything. You know, I was just like, I'm never gonna buy a car from this guy.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

The night before the taping, LeBeau introduced Baxley and Lee to a third person who would appear in their segment, a stripper named Meiko, who supposedly danced at the club Baxley was a regular at. Miko was actually a stripper, and the Springer show apparently did fly her in from Atlanta, but Baxley says he had never met her. According to Baxley, LeBeau went over some choreography with the three guests, running through how the confrontation would go down on stage. But he had some ground rules for Baxley when it came to physical conflict. For what it's worth, LeBeau denies this.

[Tim Baxley]

Bud made no uncertain terms. He was like, the girls can beat the tar out of you. Do not put your hands on the girls. Do not even fight back. Bud was like, a lot of the security have no clue what's going on. So if they see you put your hands on one of those girls, they're going to tool you up.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

What did he mean that the security guards don't know what's going on?

[Tim Baxley]

There's plausible deniability. I think some people maybe suspect it's fake. Some people may know it's fake. Some people may not know it's fake, fake at all. So there. Yeah, there were absolutely people that would beat the tar out of me that didn't know it was fake, and I didn't want to risk that.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

On the day of the taping, Baxley was put in a green room with guests from other episodes they were taping that day. With hours to kill before he hit the stage, Baxley made conversation with the other guests waiting for their talk show debuts.

[Tim Baxley]

There was a family that was a real show, and bless their hearts, they were, I mean, as trashy as you can imagine. It was crazy, you know, it was just like their real story was like something we were making up, you know, And I couldn't help but feel for the guy. It was just like, what was it

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

like meeting someone with a real story when you were there with a. With a fake one?

[Tim Baxley]

It was almost embarrassing for me. I didn't. I didn't make a big thing like, hey, we're here doing this. This fake show, or whatever. I didn't volunteer a lot of information unless I felt safe and comfortable, you know?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Eventually, Baxley got another visit from producer Norm LeBeau. While LeBeau didn't have a specific memory of prepping Baxley backstage, he said he was often tasked with amping people up in the green room. Male guests in particular. LeBeau had his methods for doing this, which I'll just let him describe in his own words.

[Norm LeBeau]

I said, remember, I'm one of the few non gay male producers in this business, buddy. So when you get out there, don't make me look like a fucking pussy. I, like, hit the wall or something. I really try to jazz them up. Cause they're like, whoa, the producers like that. I better go out there and do what I need to do.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

And then, in true 90s fashion, LeBeau would hit him with a line from Married With Children.

[Norm LeBeau]

In the words of Al Bundy, that would be like my final word to them before they walked out on the stage.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

After hours of waiting, it was finally time for Tim Baxley and his fiance Lee to tape Stripper Wars. Thank you.

[Jerry Springer]

Hey, welcome to the show. My guests today say they're all at war because of strippers. I'd like you to meet Lee. She says she's fed up with her fiance's obsession with nude dancers, and if he doesn't stop going to the strip club, she's calling off the wedding. Lee, what's going on?

[Melinda Chate Mele]

Well, to say the least, I'm upset. I mean, you know, I'm. I'm in love. I'm in love with Tim.

[Jerry Springer]

How long you been going together?

[Melinda Chate Mele]

We've been together for six years. We got engaged last Christmas.

[David Docter]

And what happened?

[Melinda Chate Mele]

He spends all of our extra money, and I don't know what extra time is, but any time that he has is spent on these sluts.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

If you were watching the episode, you would see Baxley's face in the corner of the screen, watching the feed from backstage as Lee shared her side of the story. Baxley rolled his eyes theatrically.

[Tim Baxley]

If you see where they've got my face in the little box at the bottom, and I've got that, like, pissy look on my face, that's because Bud's in my ear, just, oh, she's doing this. And na na na, na, na, na,

[Norm LeBeau]

na, na, na, na, na, na na.

[Tim Baxley]

You know, and he's just, like, getting me all. Just ready to go out there.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Before it was Baxley's turn to take the stage, Springer brought out Mikko, the stripper from Atlanta, who ostensibly danced at the club Baxley liked to go to. You weren't such a badass.

[David Docter]

Man wouldn't be coming to see me. What?

[Melinda Chate Mele]

You weren't such a fat ass.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Your man wouldn't be coming to Saint.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

Yeah, well, my ass isn't for.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Even before Baxley was brought out on stage, the women were fighting.

[Tim Baxley]

Nobody told us to fight, but nobody told us not to fight.

[Norm LeBeau]

His was the one where the girlfriend grabs the stripper. We're setting that up to the point where we know something's going to happen. We don't tell the girl to grab the stripper, but two and two equals four.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Security guards quickly broke up the fight, and the two women returned to their seats, but they continued to antagonize each other. Then Baxley came out and jumped headfirst into the fray.

[Tim Baxley]

I was just being this misogynist jackass. That was just what I was doing. That was the character. This is some stupid.

[David Docter]

Jerry.

[Tim Baxley]

I mean, we've been arguing about this for two years.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

Because I react, because I'm reacting, I'm overreacting.

[Tim Baxley]

No, you're choosing to overreact.

[David Docter]

Yes, you are overreacting.

[Tim Baxley]

This is no big deal. The more that the guys cheered me and the more the girls booed me, the more it just egged me on, you know, Like, I just wanted to keep. Keep doing it, you know, I went mad with power.

[David Docter]

She's not gonna tell me what I'm gonna do before we're married or after we're married. I'm a man. I'm gonna do what I gotta do.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

If you were a real man, you'd be at home.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

At one point, in an obviously pre planned bit, Baxley called for lights and music, and Mikko strutted out onto a catwalk wearing a thong bikini and towering heels. Mikko started taunting Lee while doing a sexy striptease. When she took off her top and started giving Baxley a lap dance, Lee just about lost it.

[Tim Baxley]

My lap dance only lasted like 10 seconds, you know, and then she pounces on her and yanks her off of me.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

The fight didn't get very far. The team of security guards immediately grabbed the two women and pulled them apart. Then Lee attacked Baxley.

[Tim Baxley]

My choice is to be with her, but I'm not gonna stop hanging with my friends and having a good time.

[David Docter]

That's exactly what I thought. You, Jerry, you better get this crazy bitch up off me.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

I'm done. I'm done.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

And with that, Lee stormed off stage. For years after the episode aired, Baxley says strangers would stop him in the street and yell at him. But Baxley didn't care. He knew his story was fake. These people weren't mad at him. They were mad at his character.

[Tim Baxley]

I really was surprised at just how many people recognized me. I was surprised at how many people were, like, mad at me. Years later over this show that we had faked, it was just like, how could you be so awful to her? Yeah. Not mad because I Faked a show mad because I was a bad boyfriend. I was completely shocked by that. I was like, oh my God, like, she's not my girlfriend. And I wasn't mean.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Baxley's relatively fun experience on Springer was by no means universal. Roughly two years after Stripper Wars, Springer was faced with a kind of crisis no talk show had dealt with since the Jenny Jones murder. One of the guests on a Springer episode called Secret Mistresses Confronted was found dead hours after the episode aired. The victim's ex husband, who had also appeared in the episode, was later found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. At the sentencing, the judge said that both the victim and the perpetrator had been manipulated by the producers of Jerry Springer and asked, are ratings more important than the dignity of human life? Shame on you. The victim's son then filed a lawsuit against the show that was ultimately dropped. Obviously that wasn't the norm either. But we did talk to several former guests who felt betrayed and exploited by the show. One woman was a small time actor and model looking for acting jobs. She felt like the producers made promises about advancing her career they couldn't keep, then made her look like a fool on national tv.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

It kind of assassinates your character when you're on there, you know, and you're like villainized a little bit. And for a lot of people it was just a promise of, oh, we're gonna get you more things to do, we're gonna get you more exposure, you know, you're gonna have be able to maybe you can be an extra in a movie. I mean, it was just a lot of different things.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

And that, of course, did not pan out.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

No.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

One guest we talked to who went on Springer in 1996 when she was 17 said she was pregnant and homeless when a recruiter for the show approached her.

[Unnamed Homeless Teen Guest]

So the recruiter offered $200. And it seemed like it was, you know, a low risk situation. And I felt like I needed money. You know, I would have someone listen to my story and I had quite a story to tell.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

But she didn't get to tell her full story. Instead, she says that Springer turned the audience against her before she even got on stage. And she never got to explain why she couldn't just get a job. After feeling led astray and lectured to. She says she and the other guests were given envelopes full of $1 bills and sent on their way.

[Unnamed Homeless Teen Guest]

We counted as fast as we could and we were given $100 each, which was, you know, half of what we had been promised. And you Know, by the time we counted through that money, Jerry Springer had left the building. And, you know, our recruiter came and was not even apologetic. He's like, well, that's what they felt it was worth. And this is the amount of money you're getting.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

And let's go.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Norm LeBeau told us that he was the recruiter who brought the homeless teen on the show. He said he couldn't remember how much he had promised her or what he paid her in the end, but that her recollection about being shortchanged was probably true. Ironically, David Docter ended up being happy with his appearance on Springer, even though his experience on stage was pretty traumatic. He had been made out to be the good guy in his episode, and that made a huge difference.

[David Docter]

I was instant celebrity status. I couldn't go anywhere without. I saw your episode. So, yeah, that was cool. Took my mind off of things a bit. And then people actually being nice to me about what happened, not being mad at me. That's where I turned everything around. It broke the depression. It made me get off my, my, my tuchus and get back to life. It really did. It changed everything. I was working within a month. I had another car within two months, you know, and this is six months of depression, and all of a sudden, I'm back on track.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

What doctor still doesn't feel good about is how he was treated by the show's producers.

[David Docter]

They earned my trust, and then they used it on me. That's what I think. They gained my trust by being so sweet, so innocent, so nice. But as soon as I signed a contract, things changed. So it's no, nothing nice to say about them.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Producers Norm LeBeau and Melinda Chate Mele say they were just doing their job, and it was a really hard job.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

The thing about being a producer at the Jerry Springer show is, you know, although it sounds like you're wielding a lot of power, I felt very powerless. I was afraid to lose my job. I did not want to lose my job. I'd worked really hard to get to a point where I was producing television. This was very, very important and exciting to me. So even though it was, you know, not a show that was considered respectable, I still was very proud of my job, and I wanted to keep it.

[Norm LeBeau]

You never were good enough. Even if you had a great show, there was always a flaw. But again, you don't see that when you're just a guest. You don't realize all that. You don't find that out until you actually work there.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

But chait melee and LeBeau's hard work paid off. By the time Baxley and Doctors episodes aired in early 1998, the Jerry Springer show was a juggernaut. In fact, the ratings for the week Doctors episode came out put Springer in first place. For the first time ever, they had achieved their impossible goal.

[David Docter]

Jerry Springer, whose name has become synonymous with trash tv, is living proof that sleaze sells. He just beat Oprah for the first time ever.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

In just one year, Springer's ratings have

[David Docter]

gone up a staggering 183%.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Universal Studios executive Ned Nall again, we beat Oprah Winfrey.

[Ned Nall]

And they said it couldn't be done, and we did.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

No show had beaten Oprah in the ratings in over a decade.

[Ned Nall]

And I remember hearing that Oprah was very upset about that.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

Winfrey addressed Springer's rise publicly, saying she would be taking a higher road.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

The Oprah Winfrey show, we've been number one for the past 12 years. We're being beaten by Jerry Springer.

[Norm LeBeau]

Come on.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

Yes, we are, but I refuse to get involved in that whole competition. Jerry Springer's promised to fight a day on his show, and that's fine for him. That's not what I choose to do. I can't do that.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

For the Springer crew, being on top meant pressure to stay on top, to find more guests with even more outrageous stories to fuel the ratings fire. The incredible thing was they kept finding them. And increasingly you had to wonder, why were so many people willing to go on Springer and either make stuff up or expose themselves to ridicule and violence while revealing their deepest, darkest secrets? It's a question I've heard a lot and one I put to producer Melinda Chate Mele.

[Melinda Chate Mele]

I think that almost every person in the whole world has a story in their lifetime that is Jerry Springer worthy. But that doesn't mean you're going on. The Jerry Springer show with was just so new to just the average person to be able to go on television. And you're the topic, you're the star. You're not commenting on something else. You're not an eyewitness to something. You're the story. And that was huge. It was huge. A lot of people got to come on my shows, tell their story, go home feeling as if they had, a, been a television star, b gotten some of this stuff out of the way. You know, it was a cathartic experience for a lot of people. They went through this, you know, really intense experience, and then it was over. And that is catharsis. A lot of people wanted to come on the Jerry Springer show, and a lot of people wanted to watch it. So what do I have to be ashamed of?

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

If Cheate Mele sounds a little defensive here, it's because back in 1998, there were a lot of people who thought she and Norm LeBeau and Jerry Springer himself all had quite a bit to be ashamed of.

[Norm LeBeau]

Laughing at the pain of other people's lives is probably not healthy. Encouraging people to fight and to attack one another verbally and physically to get ratings is not healthy.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

As critics turned up the heat, Springer was ready to fight back. Why buckle to these religious freaks?

[Tim Baxley]

I'm not gonna buckle. I'm not gonna tone down the show.

[David Docter]

You're just.

[Narrator (Leon Nayfak)]

No, that's absurd. That's next on Final Thoughts. Final Thoughts. Jerry Springer is presented by Audible Originals and Prologue Projects. The show was hosted by me, Leon Nayfak. Our senior producer was Sam Lee. Our editor was Diane Hodson. Our producers were Kathryn Sullivan and Arlene Arevalo, with additional production by Dustin De Soto and Madeline Kaplan. Sound designed by Andrew Parsons. Our archival researcher was Laura Coxson, with additional archival production by Frances Carr. Our fact checker was Maggie Duffy, with additional fact checking by Madeline Kaplan. Our theme song was composed by Billy Libby. Audio mix by Erica Wong. Andrew Parsons was the executive producer at Prologue project. Heather Juan Tesorero was the executive producer at audible originals. Copyright 2025 by Prologue Projects Sound Recording Copyright 2025 by Audible Originals.