<p>I’m stuck at home today and to drown out the sound of construction in the apartment down the hall I have turned on the TV–and I have to admit I am horribly fascinated by the Maury show. Is this for real? Can these people be for real?Can their lives be for real? And, if so, why are they humiliating themselves on national TV?</p>
<p>Or am I just living in a middle-class bubble?</p>
<p>Where have you been boysx3? These type of talk shows had been on TV since the 90’s. :)</p>
<p>Not sure if they’re real or the guests are just just paid “actors”.</p>
<p>LOL! You are in a bubble. These people exist. LOL!</p>
<p>And, yes, they do use sometimes use actors or wanna-be reality stars and often the same wacko guest turns up with another crazy problem on another daytime show. It’s an endless loop of dysfunction. But, real life examples are running around out there, too.</p>
<p>My home health clients love that stuff. Sometimes I wish the DNA tests would show that the mother wasn’t the real mother, so the kid could be rescued. I mean, it’s VERY easy to know who your baby.s daddy is if you don’t sleep with more than one guy during the same menstrual cycle! I guess that’s the pastor part of me coming out…</p>
<p>When S1 was in fourth grade, he heard on the news that some relatively low percentage of fourth graders in New York City schools could read at a fourth-grade level. He was very surprised since, he said, everyone in his class could read at the fourth-grade level.</p>
<p>Then one day we watched the Jerry Springer show together. I asked him if he had a better understanding of the NYC statistic. Wide-eyed, he nodded slowly.</p>
<p>Those people are scary. </p>
<p>They’re paid actors. </p>
<p>^ Not always, I had a relative that was on Jenny Jones many years ago. It was a show about hen pecked husbands. I still cringe to this day when I think about it. X_X </p>
<p>A friend of mine from high school is about to do her second run on the Jerry Springer Show. The first time she and her husband made up some story about how he was sleeping with her sister. They did it for a free trip and attention. Not sure what their story is this time, but she announced on Facebook that they were going to be on the show again… They have two kids. </p>
<p>The Jerry Springer show is to TV talk shows what pro wrestling is to sports.</p>
<p>When I was in community college I spent many hours in the middle of the day in the cafeteria watching court tv. That was what was always on at all hours of the day, sometimes I was there for 3-4 hours between classes. My favorite became Judge Alex, but Judge Judy was always entertaining. You really have to wonder… at times I think the people are just unbelievable, but some people really are just that trashy so who knows.</p>
<p>The joys of daytime television!</p>
<p>A friend sent me a link today, apparently the NY Times website is going to have original content, based on transcripts of real court cases. The one he sent me dealt with a deposition for a lawsuit about public offices offering copying services for people wanting copies of public documents and charging a reasonable fee or something…anyway, the sample I saw, was unreal ,with this employee being asked if they had photocopy machines, and the guy saying “I want to answer, but what do you mean by a photocopy machine?”. This went on for like 7 minutes, with the lawyer asking the question getting angrier and angrier…might be more upscale from Jerry Springer and such, but just as stupid. Actually, Jerry Springer is a pretty bright guy, I met him years ago because a friend of mine was doing something for the syndication group that covers him, and despite the crap on his show, he himself is pretty witty and personable. I remember someone interviewing him, and they asked him for closing words, and he said “may your children never be on our show”.</p>
<p>Jerry Springer was mayor of Cincinnati.</p>
<p>And apparently paid a hooker for services rendered with a check. I was playing 20q with my D yesterday and thankfully she did not know who Jerry Springer was </p>
<p>The dumbing down of America continues.</p>
<p>I don’t know how anyone watches any “reality” shows. Why do we want to see “real” people behaving badly? As hyperJulie points out, it’s all manufactured anyway. </p>
<p>Wow, you actually know someone who goes on Jerry Springer! I am kind of amazed by that. Interesting comment about home health care patients enjoying these shows. My dad enjoyed Jerry Springer at the end of his life. I found that change in him very strange. </p>
<p>These shows have been around for decades. Clearly, they have an audience. And, maybe it’s just my area but I will probably run into some people like this later today. They are sadly very real.</p>
<p>A lot of it is staged or hyped up, but sadly people that are on these shows exist. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper or read things like the Darwin awards to see how low people can go, and having read and heard comments by people on particular events, it makes me wonder just how large a group of people we are talking about. The older I get, the more I start thinking HL Mencken was right, and that saddens me, I used to have faith in the idea that most people had common sense or some idea of things or of their general reasonableness, I don’t feel that any more.</p>
<p>I used to like the Phil Donahue show.</p>
<p>I have watched exactly one Maury Show. This was a typical “who’s the Daddy” episode except for one key fact: the mother had apparently slept with two brothers and needed to know which one had fathered her child. The brothers were IDENTICAL TWINS. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of biology could predict the result of that “mystery” from the get go.</p>
<p>A friend of mine worked for a casting company who regularly supplied people to these shows. I guess they have a mix. If no real people stories are currently available, they make them up.</p>