Jerry Springer is in the midst of a college tour. Which is ironic because the whole purpose of going to college is to decrease your chances of ever appearing on Springer’s syndicated sleazefest.
On this brittle night, the P.T. Barnum of talk-show hosts is in Asplundh Concert Hall on the campus of West Chester University, addressing the student body.
The kids, who occasionally erupt into the familiar battle cry — “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” — are getting the full dog and pony show. Literally.
One of the episodes shown is “I Married a Horse,” during which a Shetland pony is led out onto the stage of Springer’s Chicago studio to kiss a decrepit man in visored sunglasses. The host’s on-air introduction: “Today we have a love story.”
Earlier in the day at his hotel in Philadelphia, Springer, 64, sardonically distanced himself from this particular spectacle. “The guy who slept with his horse? I came out against it. I said it was wrong,” he says with a smirk. “So let it never be said that I don’t have a moral compass.”
That’s Jerry’s shtick: He watches with amused astonishment his show’s pageant of transvestites and crackpots, but he never steps into the slime pit himself.
“One of the reasons I work [in this role] is that people see me as a regular guy in the midst of the chaos,” he says at the hotel. “My role is purely reactive.”
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That disingenuous blend of shock and mock has kept “The Jerry Springer Show” on the air for 16 seasons.
“If you aim a show at high school and college kids, you can be on forever because there’s always new kids coming along to watch,” he says. “If you aim a show at a 30-year-old, by the time they’re 33, they’re bored with the show. But you always get new kids.
“I really think that explains our longevity,” Springer says. “Because the show is mindless. It serves no purpose. But it stays on because of the giggle factor.”
Later in West Chester, the students are shown a prepackaged clip reel, narrated by Matt Lombardo, the sports editor of the campus newspaper, who has been drafted as moderator.
It traces the arc of Springer’s talk-show career, starting in 1991 when he was an earnest news anchor in Cincinnati trying to assume the mantle of Phil Donahue.
Another highlight is the 1997 episode “Klanfrontation,” when militant members of the Jewish Defense League were brought on to “debate” robed and hooded Ku Klux Klan members.
To no one’s surprise, a full-scale, chair-throwing riot broke out in the studio.
After the clips, there’s a brief Q&A session with the audience. Then Springer asks the crowd’s forbearance for “four minutes.”
He delivers an impassioned case for universal health care, advising the kids to hold all the presidential candidates accountable.
Then comes the part of the evening that everyone came for, as the kids line up to have their pictures taken with him by their friends with cell phones.