All together now, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry… Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action is a new documentary on Netflix that details the show’s most controversial moments, including one episode that “crossed a line” and got banned.
The Jerry Springer Show was the wrestling ring of daytime TV – unscripted chaos, body slams of drama, and an audience chanting Jerry’s name like he’s the referee of society’s most bonkers feuds.
There’s no denying the influence it had on American pop culture, but whether it was a good or a bad one is still up for debate. Despite being condemned as the worst show on TV, the ratings throughout its heyday were unrivaled.
In the new docu-series on Netflix, you’ll be taken behind the scenes of The Jerry Springer Show, and what it was like for producers as they competed with themselves to amp up the shock factor and keep viewers watching. Warning: some may find this content disturbing.
Jerry Springer’s ‘I Married A Horse’ episode caused uproar
As The Jerry Springer Show grew progressively more shocking, things came to a head in 1998 with the episode ‘I Married a Horse’ – it’s not surprising that soon after it first aired, it was banned.
Long-running producer Toby Yoshimura appears in the Netflix documentary to speak about his time working for the chat show, describing the pressures he faced each day to try and find guests with interesting stories.
In the late ‘90s, at the height of The Jerry Springer Show’s fame, Oprah Winfrey publicly criticized the “appalling” series. Toby says, “That battle with Oprah was kind of this pressure cooker of like, ‘Now the knob has to go to 11.’”
But since the production team was so small, they were working down to the wire, sometimes booking guests the day before filming started. “If you were lucky, something happened,” he adds.
In the next scene, he describes the moment he received a call from a man named Mark who claimed to have left his wife and two daughters for a Shetland pony. This kickstarted the episode in question, in which Jerry spoke with three people in interspecies relationships.
Mark Matthews appeared on the show with his horse wife Pixel, who he’d been married to for the past five years. Mark admitted they were living together and even had sexual relations.
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Following a series of questions, Mark then started open-mouth kissing the horse onstage.
In Jerry’s final thought at the end of the episode, he said, “You can love and admire the beauty and grace of a horse, you can pet it, you can even bet on it. But if you’re going to ride it, make sure you’re up in the saddle.”
Netflix documentary details episode ban
Speaking on Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, Chicago media critic Robert Feder says, “To have a guy on who had married a horse, who was kissing a horse on stage, this was the most vile and grotesque freak show that’s ever been on television.”
For producers, it was like hitting a gold mine. But two weeks later, in May 1998, the episode went out and, as Toby puts it, “sh*t hit the fan.” The backlash was loud, with newspapers reporting that Springer’s “bestiality show crosses the line.”
The first place it broadcasted was in New York City, but as soon as the episode was out, it got pulled from the air.
Another producer named Melinda Chait Mele explains, “The fact that it got banned, that it hit basically every huge newspaper in the country that the Jerry Springer Show had done this show, even if it didn’t air, people were so curious about it.
“You know, disgusted but drawn. It’s the train wreck that you can’t rip your eyes off of.”
Unsurprisingly, the ‘I Married a Horse’ episode isn’t available to stream anywhere. But if you are one of those “curious” people, highlight reels can be found on YouTube – just be warned: the things Mark talks about will be hard to erase from your memory.
Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action is streaming on Netflix now. For more documentary news, find out whether Cynthia and Antwon Mans went to jail, read about the new Diddy doc, and take a look at the best true crime of 2024.
