Not many talk-show hosts get a movie playing themselves doing their own talk show. Not many talk-show hosts inspire operas. Not many talk-show hosts wind up doing a talk-show after a major political scandal involving paying a hooker with a signed check and then *still* winding up as mayor of a major US city for a stint.
Jerry Springer was probably not a good man, but in 2011, I did meet him in the sportsbook at the Planet Hollywood hotel in Las Vegas where he was very nice to me and posed for drunken blurry pictures that have since been lost to bad asset management on the interwebs. He was there hosting the Vegas nightly show of America's Got Talent. He smoked a giant cigar and looked bored.
Like many talk-shows, Springer started off trying to do reasonable interviews that went in-depth on important issues, but when cancellation seemed imminent, he and his producers transformed his show into the chair-hurling, fist-tossing, hair-pulling bonanza it was. Which made Springer rich, ultimately ran for roughly 25 years and spun off a few other shows, including a behind-the-scenes that made no one look good. But when your set is designed to look like a sewer with a stripper pole, I guess no one cares?
