So, last night the Duesterhaus' made it to the Jerry Springer show... notice I said "to" and not "on". Erin had tickets to see a taping of the show, so Brett, Erin and I went. I really had no clue what to expect considering I don't watch the show... I usually quickly switch to another channel if I accidentally land on Jerry Springer when surfing channels. But, hey, the tickets were free and what else you gonna do on a Monday night.
We were told to be at the studio before 7pm, so to kill some time we stopped off at a bar first to have a quick drink. I was thinking alcohol would definitely help me enjoy this show a little bit more, so I had a martini.
After the drinks, we went into the NBC studios (at Illinois and Columbus). You had to check in and go through a metal detector. The girls got their purses searched. Then they take you in shifts into a huge freight elevator up one floor and lead you to the "Waiting Room".
We were told to just hang out in there until we were lead to the studio and to use the vending machines at our own risk. The room was big and boring with chairs all lined up in rows and a couple of TV's that were playing "My Dad's Better Than Your Dad"... that's a cute show, by the way. There was a little concession stand with nachos, hot dogs, chips, candy, etc. We were sitting right by the vending machines which both had signs taped to them that said "Out of Order"... (which, by the way, the woman doing the concession stand later removed the signs as we were leaving the waiting room). Next to us were these three girls who must have just made the 18 year old cut-off age the show requires... one was talking about getting suspended because she didn't have a hall pass. Another one was talking about how she really wanted to get "Jerry beads". Nice. A lot of interesting people in the audience. I think I was definitely one of the oldest people there.
We sat in the Waiting Room for at least 45 minutes. Finally, they came in and started leading people three rows at a time out of the room. We were in the third group to get lead out. We were taken to a hallway with big black drapes behind the studio... some woman was directing where we should sit. I kept thinking "please put us in the back row, please put us in the back row". I should have actually said these words out loud because we ended up smack dab in the middle of the studio about 5 rows back. Crap, now we were definitely going to be on TV. While we sat there waiting for everyone else to be lead in, they were playing the Jerry Springer "Too Hot for TV" video on some TV's hanging from the ceiling. At this point Erin says to me "Oh, I really hate fighting, I hope there isn't a lot of fighting"... ummm... hello... have you ever seen Jerry Springer... all it is is fighting and nudity! : )
After everyone was seated, Todd (I think that's his name) comes out and tells some dirty jokes and then gives us the rules for the audience. We basically have to look at him and follow what he does during the show... we have to stand and cheer every time Jerry enters and leaves the studio. If Todd starts chanting "Jerry!Jerry!Jerry!", we start chanting. If Todd starts chanting "We love white trash!", we start chanting that. We are not allowed to say anything except Oohs and Aahs unless Todd does it first. We cannot call someone a "Whore" unless Todd says it first... his reasoning being that "they might not really be a whore". : ) Ummm... ok, this should be easy. He also tells us that if our cell phones go off during the taping, they confiscate the phone and mail it back to you in two weeks.
Now, Jerry walks out and we all stand and cheer (because that's what Todd is motioning for us to do). Jerry tells some dirty jokes of his own and talks to the audience for a few minutes. We still had no clue what the topic of the show was going to be and I was getting a little nervous about what we were in for the next hour. So, the lights get dimmed again and Jerry leaves. Finally, the show is going to get started!
Jerry's entrance is like this... he walks around the top of the set and slides down a fireman's pole (later used as a stripper pole) in a puff of smoke. We all cheer and chant "Jerry!" again. Then this blond girl with tattoos sits in the one chair that is on the stage. Jerry starts the show reading from the teleprompter and then starts questioning this blond girl who we now know is named Amber. Apparently, the topic of the show is "your boyfriend/girlfriend is cheating on you" or something like that.
Immediately we can tell she is an actress... mainly because she was so terrible at it. She was not good at improv. "Amber" was upset because her convict boyfriend was cheating on her with a dry cleaner and spent too many nights at a strip club visiting the same stripper (who I've forgotten the names of already). We learn that poor Amber is from a small town and everyone there is after her man and she wants "to beat those bitches up". The storyline was seriously lacking in any substance (big surprise)... it was like they were making it up as they went along. Jerry asked Amber what she did for a living and she said she made ovens... huh?!?! Can you not think of something better than that?!?! I would have thought they would be prepped better than that, but guess not.
Jerry brings out the stripper first and the girls fight (of course!). They also play a video of the girls fighting while getting ready for the show from "earlier today". Amber is in her curlers and bathrobe in the video. Then they bring out the dry cleaner who is a bigger girl, which of course sets the crowd off. Ooh, but there's a twist... the dry cleaner actually dated the convict boyfriend for two years before Amber stole him away from her! The girls all fight again. I'm not sure why the dry-cleaner and stripper keep fighting, but whatever. At this point there are not even chairs on the stage. Everyone is just hanging out and all the crew is just standing there as well. A couple of security guards are standing by to break up these "fights", which by the way are cracking me up. It's so fake, it's ridiculous. They must do some serious editing to get the show to look how it does on TV.
It's time to bring out the convict boyfriend... his voice is so weird, it sounds like he is talking through one of those electronic voicebox things. Anyway, he starts pleading with Amber that he will stop all the extra-curricular activities and that he loves her and what-not. This upsets the dry-cleaner who then starts figthing with the convict boyfriend. The fight stops, but Todd decides it's not done so he starts chanting "rip his shirt off", so we all start chanting that. The dry-cleaner rips the boyfriend's shirt off... which takes like 5 minutes for some reason. I think the boyfriend was even partially helping take it off because she was struggling so much at it!
Ok, now, for some reason (maybe to liven up the audience because the show is going so slowly)... they start playing the Jerry Ho-Down song, which Todd had instructed us earlier meant everyone from the audience rushes the stage and starts square dancing and such. I thought he was kidding when he said that, but nope... about three-quarters of the studio audience went up on stage and started dancing. Erin, Brett and I decided to just stay back and watch the scene. Interesting.
We go to "commerical break"... during the breaks they have these weird puppet shows going on with puppets doing sexual stuff... it was like a total circus being at this show. We kept looking at each other going... what the heck is going on???
So, now the show just gets even worse... the next guest is a bald cowboy guitar player with a goatee and lots of eyeliner named "Crow Feather" who is in love with one of his groupies, but she has a boyfriend. He is worse at acting than "Amber". Every time Jerry says Crow Feather's name, Todd makes us all do a Tamahawk chop type thing and make Indian noises... does this seem politically incorrect to anyone else but me?!?! And does anyone else notice that this guy looks nothing like an Indian?!?! They bring out the "groupie" who actually wants nothing to do with Crow Feather... ok, so how is she a "groupie" again??? This storyline sucks worse than the first one! He sings her a song... terrible. Then, her boyfriend comes out and he looks like he could be in a boy-band. He sings some boy-band type song... again, terrible. Crow Feather would not fight with the boy-band boyfriend and the crowd was getting mad. Todd made everyone chant "put down the guitar and fight", but nothing happened.
The show was seriously tanking at this point and Jerry and everyone knew it. I was wondering if they ever just stop in the middle and say, yeah... we screwed this one up... sorry. Nope, they just kept trucking ahead and it was worse than a trainwreck... you didn't even want to keep watching what was going to happen next.
In an effort to save the show, Jerry decides to sing a song to the groupie girlfriend. Something about leaving his lungs in Sydney, liver in somewhere else... I don't know, but keeping his heart for her. It was stupid, but of course, everyone cheered. Then, Todd started chanting "bring in the translator", so we all start chanting. I have no idea what this means, but I chant anyway. So, some crew member with a headset comes over and Jerry sings the song again and the "translator" says the words in monotone Spanish line-by-line. It is funny, for some stupid reason. At this point, the show has totally diverted away from the storyline and Jerry asks the girl for a dance... this gets the crowd going because of his whole stint on Dancing With The Stars, I guess. They do a little ballroom number... and then we finally go to another "commerical break". Out come the crazy puppets again.
Todd comes out to tell us it is "Comment" time... thank God... he says, if you want to ask a question, you have to keep it relatively clean and you can't just say "you suck" or something stupid like that. They bring all the guests back out on stage and they are all sitting in chairs now. Everyone has questions/comments for the convict boyfriend and this is actually the funniest part of the whole show. One girl (who was one of the girls we were sitting by earlier that wanted Jerry beads) has a question for the stripper and Todd determines that it's too risque to air... something about a white stain on the stripper's dress. The translator is summoned back out again for a question series. The "guests" didn't even answer their own questions... if Todd had a good comeback, he would walk over and whisper it to them and they would say it.
Finally... Jerry does his wrap up speech and the show is over. Jerry couldn't get off the stage fast enough. He had told us earlier he may stick around after the show for pictures, but after that show I think he just wanted to get out of there.
They told us that they go back and review the tapes of the shows and decide if they are air-worthy. I'm really doubting the air-worthiness of this show, so I may be spared from being on TV after all. Of course, they also told us that they use people's reactions on their faces if they are good for other shows, so even if you weren't at a particular show, you could end up in the audience once it's aired... so unfortunately, there's still a chance, I guess.
I think I'll stick to Oprah if I'm ever inclined to see a taping of a talk show again. : )
