No one expected the unimaginatively titled "Jerry Springer: Too Hot for TV!" to be a tasteful affair, but this tacky and exploitative video reaches new levels of poor taste.
Not only does this compilation contain some of the stupidest, most vile and, I dare say, ugliest people ever captured on film, but it does not even know how to succeed on its own lowest common denominator terms.
A big problem with this video is that it misses the spirit of Jerry Springer's talk show. Gleefully idiotic, his trash-fest works (in small doses at least) due to the very surreal nature of the programming. It is difficult to watch his show without being at least vaguely amused by the guests' unfailing idiocy.
The extremes of foolish behavior, documented by the sleazy Springer, are so stunningly unnatural that they seem to lose their reality.
Unfortunately, it is a lot easier to laugh at the unreal conversations broadcast on his show than it is find any amusement in the material on this tape. This mercifully brief cassette contains scene after scene of families, lovers and neighbors throwing punches and swearing at each other. What is so funny about that?
Viewing this tape, it is obvious why this material was left on the editing room floor. The fights shown here make the problems being discussed on the show seem brutally unfunny by grounding them in reality. Note to Springer: Guests screeching "Hands off my man!" is often mildly amusing. Bloody noses are not.
Just as bad as the fighting clips are the sexually oriented moments on the cassette. In one excerpt from a show, an overweight woman smears whipped cream on her grotesquely oversized breasts and invites a man to lick it off. "I'm a sundae," she says proudly. I almost lost my lunch watching this.
The unfunniness of the situations is heightened by the behavior of Jerry's studio audience, who are a pathetic mob if there ever was one. These hooting and hollering sub-humans cheer on these vicious fights with the fervor equal only to a posse of hormonally deranged 12-year-old girls at a Hanson concert.
There was not one moment in the video in which I did not wish a fiery death to each and every one of the mean-spirited folks that express such inappropriate joy with the disturbing events taking place on the Springer stage.
Of course every mob needs its very own gang boss, and Springer is as slick and unlikable as they come. In the introduction to the video, he makes the profound statement that "real life is crazy and we should just sit back and enjoy." This, of course, is simply his own very special way of saying "Bring out those 300-pound strippers!"
Springer is the talk show host as Satan and he is so smugly self-aware that it is difficult not to wish for one of his guest's flying fists to accidentally come his way. He works overtime to arouse his leering audience, and they follow him through every sewer that he swims through, laughing along with him all the way.
If anyone wants to know how Hitler pumped up his rabid followers, this tape may be a good place to find some hints.
By the time this video screeched to a halt, I found myself wanting to re-name this disturbing and humorless affair. The most accurate title I could think of was "The Decline of American Society!" Just don't forget the exclamation mark.
