The History Of That Jerry Springer [Bleeping] Bleep Sound
Jerry Springer and the history of that [bleeping] bleep sound.
Since Jerry Springer’s death on April 27, 2023, writers have been working through the cultural significance of his eponymous daytime talk show.
For 27 years, Springer’s circus of sensationalism was a remarkably durable and bankable commodity. Helping to normalize outrageousness in culture, it taught content creators that shamelessness is a lucrative industry.
It’s been framed as a harbinger of “‘anything goes’ reality television” or “trash TV” and decried for setting a “new standard for tawdriness” and for providing audiences with the “guilty pleasure” of “chair-throwing.”
But as a media historian interested in the ways that sound structures our experience of TV shows and films, when I think of “The Jerry Springer Show,” I t...