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The Gist
Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer’s Political Past and America’s Appetite for Spectacle
00:38:52
Leon Neyfakh joins the show to discuss Final Thoughts, his new podcast chronicling Jerry Springer’s transformation from charismatic progressive politician to ringmaster of daytime TV chaos. They explore how Springer’s earnest civic ambitions...
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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
Foreign It's Thursday, July 3, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca and here we are July 3rd, one day before the anniversary of our country. The founding of our country. Not really the founding. 1776, July 4th. More of a statement of intent. Always finds it weird that the fourth of July was the founding of the country, not country. A quite a while. Had to win a war then the articles of a confederation. I would. I would pay money for Trump to give a no one ever talks about and then say the articles of a confederation because they really don't. Was it shameful? Was it failure to launch the I'm going to write historical fiction, maybe even a musical about the Articles of Confederation. It will be poorly, poorly attended. Remember the 1619 project which started with the rhetorical hook? What if I told you 1619 should be considered the founding of the country? I. My answer is I dismiss it. It's not a good argument. And so I did. But there was a lot of consternation involved. So the founding of the country should probably be when there was a country, there was a constitution. 1787. I'm into that. How can you have a country that was founded before there were citizens? When were the first citizens? Had to happen after the Constitution. Then Washington State sworn in 1789. Before that Congress is seated. April 1789. Logically. And I also looked it up actually factually, historically 1788 there were elections for these senators. Actually not senators for these representatives. Direct election of the Senate didn't come till later. So it should be 1788. But it's not. It's 1776. And so we are one year before the sester centennial. This can be considered the. The precessor centennial. Maybe that would mean July 3rd of next year. Maybe it just means that July 4th of this year is the pre the anti sester centennial. I certainly hope so. You know, and I am here I am assuming that we're going to get to the sester centennial 250. You know, most things that gets to 249 do get 250. Have you ever seen the actuarial tables? They tell you when most people die, but then they also acknowledge, look, most people don't live to 103, but if you live to 102, you got a fair shot of living to 103. If you're an entity that lives to 249, I think you're going to make it to 250. It's not always true. Like the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Union of Lublin, founded in 1569, ended in 1795. That would be 226 years. So 225 years in. There are probably, you know, extremely excited to celebrate their Kwaski bicentennial. Yes, their Kwaski bicentennial didn't happen for the Polish Lithuanians, sadly. Hashtag sad Polish Lithuanians. And then there are, you know, the Baltimore News American. It lasted 213 years, 212 years in. They were like, we're doing great. We got the jumble. There is the city in Scotland of Inverary. It's a long way to Inverary and it was a long way to this in the top of the show. But it was raised to a Royal Burg in 1742, was abolished in 1975. So, you know, that's a good 233 year run in 232. I don't know what they were thinking. And then you have at Whiteha, the Aldebaran giant tortoise from the Alipur Zoo in India. Lived to be 255 years. Didn't look a day over 254, but was a year over 254, but then died. These are some thoughts, the thoughts that come to a man as he contemplates his nation's poorly defined sester centennial. On the show Today I give you a full show interview. It is with two giants of the field. One is Jerry Springer and the other is Leon Nayfak. Leon did a podcast about Jerry Springer. Leon's podcasts are always good. This is about his time in government. This first part is about his time in government. Plus there were some scandals. Please sit back and enjoy. Final thoughts, Jerry Springer and the host, Leon Mayfax. Temperatures are rising. I feel that familiar urge to refresh my closet. But I am not wasting money on clothes that I will only wear once for just one season. Quint changes that the clothes are timeless, lightweight, far more elevated than anything else at this price. It makes me feel that my wardrobe matches my high standards. Like what? Like 100% linen shorts. They also sell dresses, swimwear, 30 bucks Italian leather platform sandals. These are all nice clothes for ladies and much, much more. The best part, everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands. They work directly with top artisans and look nothing against middlemen. Maybe some of you listening to this are middlemen, middle women, just the people in the middle. And maybe in your industry you keep things flowing and God love you. But Quince does not love you. Quince Cut you out and they're passing the savings onto you. So you could use the fact that middlemen everywhere are under fire. Save some money on the things that you buy, the quality items that you buy, and bemoan the fact that as a middle individual you are getting middled out of the growing economy. That cuts out the middleman. That's what they do. I use Quince. Do I have a quint sweater that I love? I love it. And those European linen shorts I got them. And they breathe. Oh, do they breathe. Give your summer closet an upgrade with quince. Go to quince.com/the gist for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com the gist to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/the gist. When you think of Jerry Springer, you probably think about all the things he wanted you to think about with his show. You thought about DNA tests and Steve and Chance and Final Thoughts and people going crazy and chairs being thrown and pervs, yokels, hicks and weirdos. Well, that is not how Jerry Springer thought of himself. After listening to Leon Nayfax new series, Final Thoughts about Jerry Springer, an Audible original, I think we're calling it Podcasts now, I came to the conclusion that Springer wasn't a tortured soul at odds with his public Persona in a way that tore him apart. But Jerry saw the Jerry of TV and the real life Jerry as two different distinct entities. And getting to know that second non public Jerry entity, the political entity, was really interesting. Of course it was, because that's what Leon Nayfak does, a really interesting podcast. Welcome back to the Gist, Leon.
- [07:25]
Leon Nayfak
Thanks, Mike.
- [07:26]
Mike Pesca
Why Jerry, of all the. Of all the possible topics.
- [07:31]
Leon Nayfak
Well, you know, we. What's the expression? Made our bones. You make your bones.
- [07:39]
Mike Pesca
You do make bones. I mean, I don't know if that's the expression you're going for, but that is an expression.
- [07:43]
Leon Nayfak
Okay. We made our bones doing political history with Slow Burn and then Fiasco. And then we've strayed from that on a few projects, right? We did the Michael Jackson show. More recently, we did two seasons of a business show called Backfired. One was about the vaping industry, the other was about the history of adhd. And we have been meaning to sort of try to find a political show that could also be one of the other things we like to do. So not a straight politics series, but something that overlaps with some other world. And so Jerry Springer presented this incredible opportunity to both tell a story about American politics and recent history, which is very much our sweet spot, but sort of do it on a novel stage because so much of the Jerry Springer show takes place in the world of daytime television, the 1990s entertainment industry. And so it just. It was both a serious story, but it was also one that seemed like it would be a lot of fun to make.
- [08:55]
Mike Pesca
I think most people do know that Jerry Springer had a history in politics. Mayor of Cincinnati. Maybe an asterisk there, given how Cincinnati decides on who the mayor was, but.
- [09:04]
Leon Nayfak
What was the consent really asterisk because of that?
- [09:06]
Mike Pesca
You tell me. You tell me. I mean, was he elected by the majority of the people of Cincinnati?
- [09:13]
Leon Nayfak
No, no, you're right. You're right. He did become mayor. It's true. The system in Cincinnati does make mayor.
- [09:20]
Mike Pesca
It doesn't go to the eighth caller, but fine. What's the consensus about how talented a politician was he?
- [09:28]
Leon Nayfak
Those who remember him on the local stage in Cincinnati in the early 70s and who watched him over. Over the course of a decade, roughly a little longer. They described him to us in interviews that we did in Cincinnati. A lot of these guys are still around, still working in Democratic politics. We heard from more than one person that the only figure they could compare him to was Bill Clinton, that he had such an ability to connect with a crowd, to connect with an individual for whatever reason. The picture of young Jerry Springer politicking in my mind takes place in a bowling alley because apparently this was a thing in America. Early morning women's bowling leagues.
- [10:10]
Mike Pesca
Are you aware of this only from your show?
- [10:12]
Leon Nayfak
Okay, so there was a lot more. I wanted to include a lot more about this, but I was. I was.
- [10:17]
Mike Pesca
Oh, really? You know a lot about the institution of early. Go ahead.
- [10:20]
Leon Nayfak
I don't know enough. No, I was warned off of it. I said, we gotta, you know, we gotta really dive into this. And my team wisely advised me to move on. But, yeah, he would visit these bowling alleys in the morning when these moms were out playing out bowling, and. And he would just charm them. And they all thought of him as. And I'm basing this on the testimony of Jerry's friend, a guy who was there with him in the bowling alley and who drove him around. But they all treated him like he was their son, which came in handy when. Maybe you'll get to this. But Jerry's tenure as a local politician in Cincinnati was not without speed bumps, which people were willing to forgive him for in the end, because with A.
- [11:02]
Mike Pesca
Paper trail and checks written out to cross the streets.
- [11:06]
Leon Nayfak
But his charisma, to your question, his charisma, his personal magnetism was so great that he prevailed even over that.
- [11:11]
Mike Pesca
So at the time, I guess people in the 90s would reach for Bill Clinton if you're trying to compliment a politician of great personal charm. But Bobby Kennedy was the figure in Springer's own mind who he always aspired to. Right.
- [11:26]
Leon Nayfak
There's an episode that begins with Jerry Springer. I believe it's when he's running for Congress in Ohio. This was before he became a city councilman in Cincinnati. He. He ran and lost a congressional race. I think he was like 26 at the time or something like that. He just sounds exactly like rfk. He's clearly doing an RFK impression and it's quite jarring to hear that. And then kind of flip the channel to I had sex with my stepbrother and I'm not sorry.
- [11:55]
Mike Pesca
Right. And the DNA says the father is yours.
- [12:00]
Leon Nayfak
I did want to. Mike, I do apologize. The DNA thing, a common misconception. A common misconception that it was a stringer.
- [12:07]
Mike Pesca
The chair thing. And the chair thing is a thing.
- [12:10]
Leon Nayfak
Right? That's right. That's right. So if you're going to give him the asterisk for the Cincinnati thing, I will clarify. No DNA tests on Jerry Springer.
- [12:18]
Mike Pesca
He looked at Maury's DNA innovation and shook his fist and said, oh, why don't we think of that? You guys are slipping. I don't know.
- [12:25]
Leon Nayfak
It's a great question. I'm sure they did. I mean, clearly it worked. It seems like they get a lot of credit for it anyway, despite having not done it right.
- [12:34]
Mike Pesca
So you mentioned. Yeah, it's the Mandela effect. You mention all the women who were taken by him in these bowling leagues. They also would routinely say, and you quote a guy, you find a body man named Jon Snow, of all things.
- [12:48]
Leon Nayfak
That's the guy I was referring to before the friend. Yeah.
- [12:50]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. So Jon Snow, who in this case does know something, says that, you know, these women used to always come up to him and they were. They'd clamor around him and they were enamored by him. And they would always tell themselves, oh, he went to high school with my brother in law here in Cincinnati. No, he went to high school with my sister. He's of course. I mean, just listen to his accent. He's of course, from Queens. This tells me something about his personal.
- [13:13]
Leon Nayfak
Magnetism that he was able to prevail over his queen's accent.
- [13:16]
Mike Pesca
To that they actually thought he was a Cincinnatian.
- [13:21]
Leon Nayfak
That's right, yeah. No, it was like, not a major issue at all. I assumed that he would be tarred as a carpetbagger, but I think he kind of neutralized it without much effort. I got the impression, take me inside.
- [13:34]
Mike Pesca
The politics of Cincinnati at the time and what were Springer's politics and how did they map onto each other?
- [13:39]
Leon Nayfak
So Springer's sort of first foray into politics was around the issue of lowering the voting age. He had not fought in Vietnam, but he was, I think, offended by the idea, like a lot of people, that one could be sent to a war that you had no role in bringing about and you can't even vote to stop it if you wanted to. And so he was advocating for a change to the Ohio law, ultimately ended up testifying in Congress about a federal law, which of course became the 26th amendment. So he was like right out of the gate. He was pretty unapologetically progressive. He was anti war. He didn't sort of talk out of both sides of his mouth on that issue. He was entering a city which was quite conservative, like its political establishment was quite conservative. And the way he was described to us, he was a younger than them. He was a Democrat. He was sort of an energetic Kennedy style Democrat. And also he had a sort of feel for spectacle and media attention that they lacked. And so he sort of ran circles around this old guard and was seen as kind of a threat, I think, to Cincinnati as sort of a conservative town, at least in terms of City hall. And I think he was dangerous to that establishment because he could both speak to the countercultural hippies about the war, but he could also talk to blue collar workers, and they would believe him. They wouldn't feel like he was talking down to them or condescending to them or being inauthentic. And I think that was a pretty rare talent.
- [15:26]
Mike Pesca
So his sense of spectacle or his ability to get attention. In the early days when he was just a politician and aspiring to be a politician, maybe aspiring to higher office, did we see signs of the spectacle of veering into the circus ringmaster, or was it. Was it tawdry or was it more effective communication in a way that was cutting edge and exciting?
- [15:51]
Leon Nayfak
Yeah, no, I wouldn't say it was tawdry. No, he was, you know, a good example is there was a beloved building, like a Cincinnati landmark that was, I believe, was. Forgive me, forgive me, anyone who's listening from Cincinnati. But I believe it was the train station was under threat of being torn down. And Jerry advocated against it. And as part of that wrote and recorded a folk song that got, you know, that got him a bunch of press. And it was sort of like an unexpected way to drive attention to the issue they build true. Back in 33 when the railroad man was king Depression bound folks came to town forever wandering There was depots by the dozen in the cities large and small But God knows the Union Terminal Was the grandest of them all Save the Union Terminal from the wrecking wall and chain Life without them railroad blues Would never be the same Another time he spent the night in the local jail so that he could speak the next day about the conditions in it that he felt were in need of upgrades.
- [17:07]
Mike Pesca
And they have a bucket there that's.
- [17:08]
Leon Nayfak
To go to the bathroom and.
- [17:12]
Mike Pesca
They have straw mattresses.
- [17:14]
Leon Nayfak
There was a big campaign that he led the way on to take the private bus company in town that everyone was unhappy with and have the city buy it and take it public. And that effort was successful. And I think the day the first bus was to touch off from the starting line, he commandeered it and drove it around the town. It's kind of dumb and not tawdry, certainly, but just like kind of goofy. The thing people always say about him is that he didn't take himself too seriously. He was so self deprecating. I think that was true about him for the rest of his life. He was so self deprecating, but at the same time clearly liked attention and was good at marshaling it.
- [18:00]
Mike Pesca
So we alluded to checks and prostitutes. Is this the incident that ushered him out of politics?
- [18:06]
Leon Nayfak
No, the first time. Another common misconception that Jerry lost his position in politics because of this sex scandal, which I'll describe in a second, and turned to trash tv. But in fact, it was not so simple. In fact, it's a better story. He was indeed exposed as having visited a brothel in Kentucky just a few minutes away from Cincinnati, and paid for the services of a prostitute with a personal check that he signed. And this came out in the newspaper in the Cincinnati Enquirer? Sort of. It came out first. It came out as a blind item on the front page of the Cincinnati Inquirer that a local politicians.
- [18:49]
Mike Pesca
You got really into the Cincinnati Inquirer and the Cincinnati Post, the press, the. Just the, the. The press machinations of the time. I learned a lot about what was going on in the press and the. In the Post and the Inquirer back then.
- [19:03]
Leon Nayfak
Yeah, no, I love that storyline. I mean, so the inquirer was sort of associated with the old guard, kind of conservative establishment in the city. And they ran this weird item on the. On the front page by a columnist saying, like a local Cincinnati politician, maybe. They said, democrat, I'm not going to tell you who got in trouble for so and so. And that obviously set off a feeding frenzy of everyone trying to figure out who it was. We talked to the reporter from the Cincinnati Post, Carol Sanger, who ended up breaking the story the following day, that it was Jerry Springer. And the behind the scenes of it all, which Carol ended up writing about, like later, was that basically this rumor about Jerry had made its way to the desk of a local prosecutor, Simon Leese. And Si Lease. And I can tell the story without much equivocation because I got it directly from him. He's about, I think, 90 years old now. And we called him up and he told us the story with total candor.
- [20:08]
Mike Pesca
He loved being a prosecutor.
- [20:09]
Leon Nayfak
He loved being a prosecutor. He was like a tough law and order, old school kind of biblical guy. He hated Jerry Springer's politics. As he told me, he said, look, that guy was a radical. I didn't like where he was taking the city. And this, you know, I got this rumor, one of my DAs in my office, ADAs in my office told me about this and I said, you know, let's use to get him out of office. And so he went to the head of the Democratic Party and basically threatened to expose Springer if he didn't resign. And Springer did. He resigned. According to Caro, he was packing his boxes. He and his wife were packing their boxes to leave town under threat of this, I don't know if you call it extortion attempt. And then the story, of course, came out and everyone found out it was Jerry. And he kind of took the position. The posture he assumed was one of regret, of course, but also transparency. He didn't hide from it, and I think people ultimately appreciated that. He didn't try to talk around it, engaged in activities which, at least to me are questionable.
- [21:14]
Mike Pesca
These actions have weighed heavily on my conscience. And early last week I contacted the FBI and voluntarily answered all inquiries of what I had done and of what I had knowledge. I am continuing to cooperate in that investigation in any way that I can.
- [21:35]
Leon Nayfak
And ultimately, after, I think it was about a year in the wilderness, maybe less even, he ran again for city council. The Democrats wouldn't take him. Interestingly, we didn't get into this, but the Democrats didn't. Or maybe we did. The Democrats didn't want him because they thought he was still radioactive. So he ran as an independent, won his seat back, got by far, I think way more votes than he'd gotten before the scandal and ultimately became mayor. So, yeah, that was tawdry. It's tawdry. But also the fact that he paid for it with a personal check, I think cut the sting a little bit, if that's the right expression. It made him look like an oaf rather than a perv. And so those women at the bowling alley were like, yo.
- [22:20]
Mike Pesca
But definitely a weirdo. Either way, what was Carol's reaction to all of this, as far as you could tell?
- [22:25]
Leon Nayfak
I think she in particular felt like it was someone with great promise having squandered it. She thought that. And I think everyone around him, actually, I can't speak to this definitively, but I think a lot of people assumed he was done after this scandal and people saw it as a bit of a tragedy. I think that he had been bounced out of a promising future. And I think they were, they were. I don't know, I'd be speculating, but I think, yeah, I think there's probably some, there's some. There was some anger to it, which I at him for making this decision, for making the stupid decision. But I also think I'm mentioning that only because I think there's an echo in how people feel felt about the prostitution scandal with how a lot of these folks ended up feeling about his television show. I think people, people in Cincinnati want to pretend the show never happened because they want to remember Jerry as the statesman, the guy that they all rallied around. And I think the show is sort of hard for them to accommodate.
- [23:27]
Mike Pesca
We'll be back in a minute with more of Leon Nayfak talking about his Jerry Springer podcast. We return now to talk about Jerry Springer as the crowd takes the call of Jerry. As I speak with Leon Nathan.
- [23:53]
Leon Nayfak
Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome the eighth wonder of the world, Jerry Springer.
- [24:02]
Mike Pesca
Was there an interregnum period where it was he was trying to have his cake and eat it too? Or sometimes it was serious and then sometimes it did the toe touch of the circus. Or was there one day or from one season to the next? We went from the public minded civics affairs to it's, I'm having an affair with my dog.
- [24:25]
Leon Nayfak
Right. Unfortunately, it's not, it's not like a clean fault line of, you know, dividing before and after. It was, you know, a lot of people credit Jerry. A producer who worked under Jerry named Richard Dominic, who was eventually who had come from the world of tabloids and who had a taste for vulgarity and humor. He was someone who loved writing funny articles in the. I forget the name which tablet he worked for, but there's some great clips of him on Letterman. But it's not intended as a goof, is it?
- [24:58]
Mike Pesca
Oh, no, they're true stories.
- [25:03]
Leon Nayfak
And you take it seriously.
- [25:04]
Mike Pesca
Oh, sure.
- [25:05]
Leon Nayfak
And you not only do you write that, you write the headlines, you also do some reporting, as we mentioned.
- [25:09]
Mike Pesca
Okay, well, let's just go through some.
- [25:11]
Leon Nayfak
Of these newspapers and you tell me.
- [25:12]
Mike Pesca
About them and we'll see what we.
- [25:15]
Leon Nayfak
Can learn from these. All right, this first one right here is an article about John Wayne.
- [25:22]
Mike Pesca
Doctors are stunned as baby speaks and reveals.
- [25:25]
Leon Nayfak
I'm John Wayne. Right there, that's it. Yeah, there it is. A three month old baby. There's the baby. Shock the world by revealing in a loud. Let me see the rest of it. Clear voice, I'm John Wayne. All right, now this is not true.
- [25:46]
Mike Pesca
Oh, yes it is.
- [25:47]
Leon Nayfak
This is true.
- [25:49]
Mike Pesca
In fact, I've met the baby.
- [25:50]
Leon Nayfak
I went met the baby.
- [25:51]
Mike Pesca
Where was the child born? The child was born in England, outside of Manchester.
- [25:56]
Leon Nayfak
You traveled to Manchester? Yes, visited with the baby.
- [25:59]
Mike Pesca
3 months old.
- [25:59]
Leon Nayfak
The baby speaks?
- [26:00]
Mike Pesca
Yes. When I, when I saw the baby, it was about three and a half months.
- [26:03]
Leon Nayfak
And what did the baby say? The baby had spoken.
- [26:07]
Mike Pesca
John Wayne's voice. Baby asked if I saw True Grit.
- [26:27]
Leon Nayfak
Now you're kidding about this, aren't you? No, no, no. The baby said, I'm John Wayne.
- [26:32]
Mike Pesca
Did you see True Grit?
- [26:34]
Leon Nayfak
A three month old baby?
- [26:36]
Mike Pesca
Yes. Did you see True Grit? Did you think I deserved the Oscar? Was the exact thing the baby said.
- [26:42]
Leon Nayfak
Anyway, he took that sensibility, that kind of tabloid sensibility and booked segments, you know, in service of it, and those segments did well and eventually he was promoted to executive producer. And it's, you know, generally believed that like with his. It was under his influence that the show became increasingly centered on conflict and kind of absurd revelations and secrets and betrayals. But Jerry was along for the ride. I think this is a big debate about Jerry. How much of the blame does he deserve for the show or was it just the people around him? But my feeling is that his name is in the title. And so there's a limit to how much distance he could put between himself and it.
- [27:25]
Mike Pesca
But also he did, in his public explanation of this, wasn't that. Well, he would say, I'm a guy named Jerry Springer. And there was a show called the Jerry Springer show, but it's like thinking about a bus driver and a Christian. I mean, you could be a Christian and a bus driver. It doesn't mean that your bus driving has any impact on your Christianity or what you are in your personal life. But. And this is. This is my favorite episode when he gets called in front of the Chicago City Council. He had a different line of reasoning, which was more like, it's lighthearted. You're taking it too seriously. And I do think he turned it around on the. The snobs of the. Or the overly serious people who were coming off as too prosecutorial for what was essentially a source of entertainment.
- [28:14]
Leon Nayfak
Yeah, he would take different tax depending on who he was talking to and who was attacking him. Sometimes he would say, you're taking it too seriously. This is just a fun, stupid show. You know, he used a phrase, it's just chewing gum, which I love. I guess that's a saying, but he's just chewing gum. Don't. The quote I like was like, the world will survive it, and the world would have survived without it, and it'll survive with it. And then other times, he would actually offer, like, an affirmative defense of it, and he would talk about how the snobs who would criticize it, you know, think it's disgusting to have poor, ordinary Americans, you know, who live in trailer parks, talking about their private lives and talking about sex and, you know, personal, you know, domestic strife. But when Princess Diana does it, when someone. When the rich and famous do it, we treat it as news. We treat it as something that we should all be paying attention to, and they're allowed to do it.
- [29:14]
Mike Pesca
Why?
- [29:15]
Leon Nayfak
Why shouldn't my people be allowed to do it? Why should. Why should my people not be allowed to go on tv? And I think, you know, you can detect, like, a bit of his popular. The populism that I think he also wanted to embody.
- [29:27]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, he was a genuine populist, so he wasn't lying when he said that. But he was also clearly searching for ways to either launder or legitimize what he was doing, which indicates that he did not think, even though he was getting paid a tremendous amount of money, he felt he had to do that. Sometimes he was called in front of a council, but in general, he was driven to talk about the show in ways that made the show seem different or grander or put it in a different context than the show clearly was. And that is. What do you think was going on there psychologically? Because there's one interpretation. He never took his eye off politics. So maybe you could say, oh, he always wanted to have the ability to use that as a legitimate launching point. But do you think something else was going on psychologically that he couldn't just say, yeah, it's circus. I'm the circus master. Leave me alone.
- [30:17]
Leon Nayfak
But he did say that sometimes, you know. And so, like, I do think it depends on where he was in his life, like, what mood he was in when you caught him with a question. I think one thing that he never reckoned with, at least not that I ever saw, was that, yes, like, he, as the host, is not being mean to his guests, he is being very respectful of them as he asks these questions from the audience, you know, he sort of usually stands among the audience members with his microphone and he kind of puts the ball in play with a couple of basic questions and then all hell breaks loose. And he kind of plays the, like, befuddled, exasperated uncle who is trying to get everyone to be reasonable and, like, be honest about their feelings and find some path forward. And, you know, the final thoughts are sort of like the apotheosis of that where he's, like, pretending like this was all in service of some moral lesson, don't let this happen to you kind of thing. What gives the lie to that, I think, or description of the show is that, like, the audience that he's standing in the middle of the whole time is cheering for these people to embarrass themselves, to beat each other up. They're chanting Jerry's name sort of as a. As a war cry to be like, we want you to fight each other, right?
- [31:31]
Mike Pesca
He put the microphone, he'd say, you have a question. And then the audience members would just horribly insult the guest.
- [31:37]
Leon Nayfak
Horribly. Yeah, like so, so, so meaningless rounds of applause. Hey, this question's for Devin. Hey, man, when are you gonna stop picking up women at the zoo? You got a giraffe and two rhinos here.
- [31:45]
Mike Pesca
What's up? My comment is for Pillsbury dope boy in the red. Maybe you need to give her a try. She can help you slim out a little bit.
- [31:56]
Leon Nayfak
I just wanna know, do any of you women have any self respect at all? Seriously, all those men shouldn't even be with.
- [32:05]
Mike Pesca
I have a question for the two.
- [32:06]
Leon Nayfak
Ladies in the pool.
- [32:07]
Mike Pesca
Is that what sperm whales look like? This goes out to my man in the pool swimming with. Just because women didn't mean you had to get two of them. Yeah. This is for Chisel Face. What God chiseled your face? Loki the Trickster. I got a comment for the Walmart Version of K. Michelle in the black dress over there. You forgetting knee pads at home, sweetie?
- [32:33]
Leon Nayfak
My question was for Felicia.
- [32:35]
Mike Pesca
Felicia, I could kind of tell you want to wear the pants in the relationship.
- [32:39]
Leon Nayfak
My question was, you think they were going to fit?
- [32:43]
Mike Pesca
It does remind me, and I want to make the leaper analogy to another reality show. Reminds me of the wrestling announcer, mean Gene Okerlund, who is supposedly not part of the chaos, but he's a character, and without him, the whole chaos wouldn't operate exactly as it did.
- [33:00]
Leon Nayfak
Yeah, and so, like, Jerry knew that that was what his show was. That, like, the spirit in which people were watching it was primarily to ridicule these people and to feel superior to them. So, like, he's a smart guy. He knew, I think, that there was a limit to what he could do laundering it wise. And I think that's why he fluctuated. Sometimes he thought he could pull off making the affirmative case for, oh, this is about representation. And there are queer theory papers about how this was the first time that anyone in middle America saw a trans person on tv. And even though they called her a tranny and ridiculed her and pulled her wig off, it was still a net benefit that this was to some extent normalized by having people like this on tv. So I think the case for Jerry Springer, for the Jerry Springer Show, I should say, as a vector for progress, is strained.
- [33:54]
Mike Pesca
So at the time, it was really widely decried, and not just by the Daughters of the American Revolution type bluenoses. It was really widely decried as the worst thing on television, slash, in our society. And maybe there were some people like John Waters, who found the campy or not so bad. But this was a consensus opinion in a way that I think today, in retrospect, nothing, nothing has that amount of opprobrium. Right. I mean, Real Housewives, many episodes is much worse. And you'll not even get a fraction of the criticism of that show that Jerry Springer got. Why do you think that was?
- [34:39]
Leon Nayfak
Well, for one thing, it was genuinely shocking. Like, and I. And I kind of assumed that I'm, you know, seasoned consumer of vulgar and profane obscene content. And I'm sure 20 years, you know, 20, 30 years on, this is going to seem quaint. And it doesn't. Like, a lot of it is genuinely shocking to the senses, if not to, like, the moral core.
- [35:02]
Mike Pesca
What shocked you? Name. Name an episode or a moment that shocked you.
- [35:06]
Leon Nayfak
You're putting me on the spot here, but I guess I don't want to be lame and reference the Sort of consensus pick of the most outrageous the Jerry Springer show ever got. But it has that reputation for a reason. I married a horse. We spend quite a bit of time on it in the series.
- [35:25]
Mike Pesca
So you actually had a ceremony where you married this horse?
- [35:28]
Leon Nayfak
Yes.
- [35:29]
Mike Pesca
You live with this horse.
- [35:31]
Leon Nayfak
Yes.
- [35:32]
Mike Pesca
And you are having intimate relations with this horse.
- [35:37]
Leon Nayfak
Yeah, that's true.
- [35:41]
Mike Pesca
This is. This is pretty sick, isn't it?
- [35:46]
Leon Nayfak
But it's what it sounds like. It's about a guy who said he was in a consensual relationship with a pony, a Shetland pony. And it's like, sounds funny. And you kind of. They use the word married critically and not like something else that they could have said. Because as he describes in great detail and quite vivid detail in this segment, he had sex with the horse. Like he was raping this horse. And he describes, like, you know, kisses the horse on television with tongue, like, many, many, many times. And it. It's just. It's.
- [36:21]
Mike Pesca
Did you. In your series in 2025, did you have to say, we can't air this on.
- [36:25]
Leon Nayfak
No, we helped that. It's audio, but you can hear the kissing very vividly. The other thing I'll say is you watch it maybe with a little bit of insight all these years later, because you realize, and I don't want to slander anyone here, I'm not making a generalization about everyone who was on the show, but clearly a lot of these people were dealing with all kinds of really serious problems. I mean, drug addiction, desperate circumstances that led them to be sex workers and that reluctantly. I mean, we know more sort of about how people, I think, get and end up having problems like the kind that Jerry Springer spotlighted. And they don't really talk about drugs in the show. They almost never let that be part of the plot, interestingly. But, like, I don't know, there's just like a darkness to it. And if you let your imagination kind of like, fill in the blanks of, like, what these people. What these people's lives were probably like back home, it's just hard to not be astonished that, like, the way that's being presented is, like, for a laugh and for, like, an unkind laugh, I should say, because the audience in the studio, like, they are not laughing with these people for most of the time. They're laughing at them.
- [37:42]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. I think back then, the valence of the criticism was, you're dragging our society towards a place that we don't want and you're corrupting the youth. Something like that. Now, I think it would be more shocking based on cruelty. There's a cruelness to it. And that wasn't the main thrust of the critique back in the 90s.
- [38:06]
Leon Nayfak
I would agree with that. Yeah. I mean, the fighting, I suppose, is like a stand in for, you know, it's gross to watch people tear each other apart. But, yeah, like, I think, I think Jerry was right that there was a tinge to some of the criticism of, like, ugh, like, we don't want to look at these people. Like, these people should not be on tv. Like, there was some of that, I think.
- [38:27]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [38:28]
Leon Nayfak
But at least watching it now, I think the thing that jumped out at us was, yeah, like, Jerry standing by and letting this cruelty unfold and getting to sort of like wash his hands of it by reading off a kind of canned final thought about how we should all treat each other with respect.
- [38:51]
Mike Pesca
And what is the big unanswered question for Jerry?
- [38:54]
Leon Nayfak
Why didn't you quit the show? Is when I would ask him, like, did you have opportunities to walk away and you chose not to. Like, how did you decide that? Were you aware of the trade offs you were accepting when you took this detour that turned into the rest of your life? I think I would ask him, did you feel guilty for your show because again, he fluctuated so much between being kind of neutral on it and being dismissive of it. But what's the truth? Did you go to your grave thinking that you had done something that made the world more violent, an uglier place? Do you think you, you know, do you. Do you wish you. Do you wish it hadn't happened? I guess that's one question I would want to ask him.
- [39:39]
Mike Pesca
Leon Nayfak is the impresario behind the Fiasco series. Check that out wherever you check out podcasts and his latest for Audible Originals, which I'm telling you, they are now admitting our podcast. They have a little bar that says podcast and you could find it right there. That is Final Thoughts. It's all about Jerry Springer. Leon, thank you so much.
- [40:00]
Leon Nayfak
Thanks, Mike. Great to talk to you.
- [40:07]
Mike Pesca
And that's it for today's show. I want you to be good to yourself and each other on the July 4th holiday when we will be taking off. Who are we? We are the consortium of Corywara Ashley Khan, Astrid Green, Michelle Pesca, Leo Baume and Kathleen Sykes. Together united in a state of, if not America, then just listing podcasting and celebrating all that is our country. And thanks for listening.
- [40:41]
Leon Nayfak
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret.
- [40:44]
Mike Pesca
It doesn't have to be.
- [40:45]
Leon Nayfak
Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host.
- [40:49]
Mike Pesca
You seek it out and download it.
- [40:51]
Leon Nayfak
You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to libsynads. Com. That's L, I B S Y N Ads.
- [41:19]
Mike Pesca
Com.
- [41:20]
Leon Nayfak
Today.