Netflix's Jerry Springer documentary relives chaos of TV 'circus': 'No line to draw'

How do you become the worst TV show of all time?

“Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action,” a two-part Netflix documentary (now streaming) reveals how the syndicated daytime "Jerry Springer Show" became such a captivating hit during its 28-season run (1991–2018) that it dethroned the top-rated “The Oprah Winfrey Show” for 26 consecutive weeks. “Springer” relied on outlandish antics like inciting guest fights, nudity and sensational show themes, including “I Married a Horse,” “I’m Pregnant by My Brother” and “Stripper Wars!”Springer, who died in 2023 from pancreatic cancer, appears in the documentary through old footage. But former producers detail the daytime discord.

“There’s no line to draw,” says executive producer Richard Dominick, a former reporter for British tabloid “The Sun,” says in the documentary. “If I could kill someone on television, if I could execute them on television, I would execute them on television.”

How Jerry Springer and his controversial talk show changed TV (for the worse)

The rise of Jerry Springer’s ‘circus’

Springer’s series has innocuous origins. The premiere episode reunited family members who'd been separated for decades, but the gentle version failed to find an audience. Dominick was brought in as an executive producer to spice things up. “Let’s take a talk show and let’s turn it upside down,” he remembered thinking. “Let’s make it wild.” He wanted segments that would draw viewers even with the sound off, stopping them in their tracks as they channel surfed.

He says he looked for “basically anything I could get away with at 2:00 in the morning,” as the show aired in late night in some cities. Once he learned fights equaled ratings, he says, “I never tried to do anything that didn’t fall into some kind of a confrontation or (that was) unusual to look at.”

Springer was fully on board with the makeover. “I want the show to demonstrate outrageousness,” he once told a reporter, as shown in the documentary. The former Cincinnati mayor also said he never categorized his series as a talk show. “I do a circus,” he said. “There’s just no lions.”

Producers prioritized ratings over people: ‘We’re not trying to help nobody’

Once producers realized ratings hinged on guests’ behavior, they staged rehearsals to coax extreme performances.

“We’re not trying to help nobody,” producer Annette Grundy admits. “We’re not trying to save anybody. You are here to tell your story in such a way that’s going to be entertaining and just hit those numbers.”

Toby Yoshimura, another “Jerry” producer, says in the documentary that he would go so far as to chuck a chair across the green room while yelling at guests.

“You had to reach into their brain and tap on the thing that would make them laugh, cry, scream or fight,” Yoshimura says. “You rev them up to tornado level, and then you send them out on stage.”

Some guests lost teeth in the brawls, he adds. “Some people lost literally chunks of scalp.”

The infamous ‘I Married a Horse’ episode

Yoshimura says that early one morning, he received a call from a man named Mark Matthews. Matthews thought Springer's audience might understand his infatuation.

Yoshimura says Matthews told him he left his wife and two daughters to be in a romantic relationship with a Shetland pony. Yoshimura suspected this might be ratings gold, and booked Mark for the show.

In the 1998 episode, Matthews and his horse casually French kissed on the stage and he audience’s shock was evident. Though Dominick deemed the episode “the perfect show,” it proved too controversial after airing in New York and was pulled from other markets.

A show guest is killed by her ex-husband

Nancy Campbell-Panitz appeared on an episode of “Jerry” taped in May 2000, expecting to reconcile with her former husband, Ralf Panitz. Unbeknownst to Campbell-Panitz, her ex had secretly remarried and planned to publicly end his relationship with Campbell-Panitz on the episode, entitled “Secret Mistresses Confronted!”

Campbell-Panitz’s son, Jeffrey Campbell, says his mother and Panitz later reconciled, only to split again. In July 2000, a court awarded Campbell-Panitz ownership of the home she and Panitz shared and issued her a restraining order against him.

Lisa Kleinberg, an attorney for Campbell-Panitz, says in the docuseries that Panitz went to a bar following the ruling, and saw himself on the TV screen in the "Springer" episode. After watching and drinking, Kleinberg says, Panitz told someone at the bar he would kill Campbell-Panitz. Later that evening, she was strangled and beaten to death.

Jeffrey Campbell thought Springer and producers should bear a sense of responsibility, but Springer felt the “very, very sad event” had “nothing to do with the show.” Panitz was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

“Jerry” remained on the air until its cancellation in 2018.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jerry Springer Netflix documentary Fights, Camera, Action: Bombshells