Jerry Springer

Somebody once said I had a face for radio and a voice for newspapers. 

-Jerry Springer

Jerry Springer

February 13, 1944 – April 27, 2023

Gerald Norman Springer was born on February 13, 1944, in the London Underground station of Highgate while the station was in use as a shelter from German bombing during World War II, and was raised in Queens, New York City. He attended Northwestern University School of Law, qualified as a lawyer, and first became actively involved in politics working for the campaign of Robert Kennedy in 1968.

Springer was elected to the Cincinnati City Council in 1971. On April 29, 1974, Springer resigned from the council after admitting to soliciting a prostitute. He ran for the office in 1975, winning by a landslide. He was reelected in 1977 and 1979. Springer was considered a "gonzo" type politician with stunts such as staying a night in jail and commandeering a bus after the city took over bus service.

In 1977, Springer was chosen by the Cincinnati City Council to serve for one year as mayor. The one-year term was due to a political arrangement at the time that required the Democrats to split the mayoral term with a local third party group, the Charter Committee, with whom the Democrats governed in an electoral alliance. (Cincinnati has since changed to direct election of its mayor.) In the city council and as mayor, Springer supported changing the local election system so that council members would be elected by districts (thus better representing neighborhood interests) instead of "9X" at-large system, but his efforts (as well as those of everyone else, to date, who has supported such a change) did not meet with success.

Springer considered running for the United States Senate in 2000 and 2004, but he backed down due to negative associations with the Jerry Springer talk show. He also considered running in the 2018 Ohio gubernatorial election, but decided against it due to his age. Even after his departure from politics, he was the largest contributor to the Hamilton County Democratic Party from 1993 to 2018.

Springer's broadcast career started while he was an undergraduate at Tulane University, on WTUL New Orleans FM, a progressive format college radio station. It continued while he was still mayor of Cincinnati, with album-oriented rock radio station WEBN-FM, which was noted for its laid-back and irreverent radio format. The station featured commentaries by Springer under the banner "The Springer Memorandum." The popularity of these commentaries launched his broadcasting career.

Springer was hired as a political reporter and commentator on Cincinnati's NBC affiliate, WLWT, which had, at the time, the lowest-rated news program. Later, having been named primary news anchor and managing editor, he needed a broadcast catchphrase in the model of other great newsmen. With the help of some others at WLWT, he created his signature line: "Take care of yourself, and each other." Within two years he was Cincinnati's number-one news anchor, along with partner Norma Rashid. For five years, he was the most popular news anchor in the city,^[13] garnering ten local Emmy Awards for his nightly commentaries, which were frequently satirized by Cincinnati radio personality Gary Burbank. Those commentaries would eventually become his "Final Thought" on Jerry Springer. Springer would remain commentator at WLWT until January 1993. He resided in Loveland, Ohio, during this time.

In 1997, the Chicago-based NBC-owned station WMAQ-TV hired Springer to serve as a news commentator. However, this proved to be unpopular among viewers, as it resulted in the resignation of long-time news anchors Ron Magers and Carol Marin due to Springer's talk show. After performing only two commentaries, Springer resigned as commentator.

Jerry Springer debuted on September 30, 1991. It started as a politically oriented talk show, a longer version of Springer's commentaries. Guests on the show included Oliver North and Jesse Jackson, and topics included homelessness and gun politics.

In early 1994, Springer and his new producer, Richard Dominick, revamped the show's format in order to garner higher ratings. The show became more successful as it became targeted toward tabloidish sensationalism. Guests were everyday people confronted on a television stage by a spouse or family member's adultery, homosexuality, transsexuality, prostitution, transvestism, hate group membership, or other controversial situations. These confrontations were often promoted by scripted shouting or violence on stage. The show received substantial ratings and much attention. By 1998, it was beating The Oprah Winfrey Show in many cities, and was reaching more than 6.7 million viewers.

On July 10, 2002, the sons of guest Nancy Campbell-Panitz – who was murdered by her ex-husband after they appeared on a May 2000 episode with his girlfriend – filed suit in Sarasota County against Springer, his producers, and his distributor, claiming he created "a mood that led to murder". Ultimately, the estate of Campbell-Panitz dropped all monetary claims against Jerry Springer and the show agreed to waive its claims for malicious prosecution against the personal representative of the estate of Campbell-Panitz and his counsel.

In 2005, a UK version of the show aired on Britain's ITV network titled The Springer Show. A subdued and more tongue-in-cheek version of the U.S. show, it beat its talk-show rival Trisha Goddard five to one in the ratings.

The VH1 "celebreality" series The Springer Hustle, which took a look at how Jerry Springer is produced, premiered in April 2007.

In April 2015, Springer debuted The Jerry Springer Podcast on his website, JerrySpringer.com. He later partnered with Westwood One to stream the podcast. It was also broadcast in the UK on Talkradio, on Sundays at midnight. Springer was the second American talk show host to travel to Cuba, after Conan O'Brien, for The Jerry Springer Podcast. The podcast ended in 2022.

On July 26, 2018, Jerry Springer aired its final episode in syndication after 27 seasons before it began airing reruns on The CW on September 10, 2018.

Springer debuted a new courtroom show, Judge Jerry, on September 9, 2019. The show gave him the opportunity to host a more "grown-up" program and to use his law school education. On March 9, 2022, the series was canceled after three seasons.

Springer hosted America's Got Talent on NBC for its second and third seasons, replacing Regis Philbin, before leaving to concentrate on other projects.

From January 17, 2005, to December 5, 2006, Springer hosted Springer on the Radio, a liberal talk show on Cincinnati's WCKY-AM. He did the show from the Clear Channel studios in Kenwood, Ohio on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and in Chicago (where his television show taped at the time) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Air America Radio syndicated the program for most of the show's run.

Good Night Jerry

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

Take Care of Yourselves

and Each Other

Harry Belafonte

My activism always existed.

My art gave me the platform to do something about the activism.

-Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

(born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.

March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023

Harry Belafonte was a Jamaican-American singer, actor and activist, who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.

Belafonte was best known for his recordings of "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)", with its signature "Day-O" lyric, "Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)", "Jamaica Farewell", and "Mary's Boy Child". He recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. He also starred in several films, including Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959).

Belafonte considered the actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson a mentor, and he was a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. As he later recalled, "Paul Robeson had been my first great formative influence; you might say he gave me my backbone. Martin King was the second; he nourished my soul." Throughout his career, Belafonte was an advocate for political and humanitarian causes, such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and USA for Africa. From 1987 until his death, he was a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He was a vocal critic of the policies of the George W. Bush presidential administration. Belafonte acted as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues.

Belafonte won three Grammy Awards (including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy's 6th Annual Governors Awards and in 2022 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category.

Good Night Mr. Belafonte

Stay Tuned 
Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: April 2023 PART III

   

April 25, 1908

Edward R. Murrow was born Egbert Roscoe Murrow. 

He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States.

Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick considered Murrow one of journalism's greatest figures, noting his honesty and integrity in delivering the news.

A pioneer of television news broadcasting, Murrow produced a series of TV news reports that helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

A chain smoker throughout his life, Murrow was almost never seen without his trademark Camel cigarette. It was reported that he smoked anywhere from sixty to sixty-five cigarettes a day, equivalent to roughly three packs. See It Now was the first television program to have a report about the connection between smoking and cancer; Murrow said during the show that "I doubt I could spend a half hour without a cigarette with any comfort or ease." He developed lung cancer and lived for two years after an operation to remove his left lung.

Murrow died at his home on April 27, 1965, two days after his 57th birthday. His colleague and friend Eric Sevareid said of him, "He was a shooting star; and we will live in his afterglow a very long time." CBS carried a memorial program, which included a rare on-camera appearance by Paley.

April 25, 1978

Vega$ first aired

April 26, 1933

Carol Creighton Burnett was born.

Actress, comedienne, singer and writer, whose career spans six decades of television. She is best known for her long-running TV variety show, The Carol Burnett Show, originally aired on CBS. She has achieved success on stage, television and film in varying genres including dramatic and comedy roles. She also has appeared on various talk shows and as a panelist on game shows.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Burnett moved with her grandmother to Hollywood, where she attended Hollywood High School and eventually studied theater and musical comedy at UCLA. Later she performed in nightclubs in New York City and had a breakout success on Broadway in 1959 in Once Upon a Mattress, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. She soon made her television debut, regularly appearing on The Garry Moore Show for the next three years, and won her first Emmy Award in 1962. In 1963, she was the star of the Dallas State Fair Musicals presentation of "Calamity Jane". Burnett moved to Los Angeles, California, and began an 11-year run as star of The Carol Burnett Show on CBS television from 1967 to 1978. With its vaudeville roots, The Carol Burnett Show was a variety show that combined comedy sketches with song and dance. The comedy sketches included film parodies and character pieces. Burnett created many memorable characters during the show's run, and both she and the show won numerous Emmy and Golden Globe Awards.

During and after her variety show, Burnett appeared in many television and film projects. Her film roles include Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), The Front Page (1974), The Four Seasons (1981), Annie (1982), Noises Off (1992), and Horton Hears a Who! (2008). On television, she has appeared in other sketch shows; in dramatic roles in 6 Rms Riv Vu (1974) and Friendly Fire (1979); in various well-regarded guest roles, such as in Mad About You, for which she won an Emmy Award; and in specials with Julie Andrews, Dolly Parton, Beverly Sills, and others. She returned to the Broadway stage in 1995 in Moon Over Buffalo, for which she was again nominated for a Tony Award.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

John Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage)

 When people laugh at me, they are not laughing in the way that they normally would at a comedian. They are laughing with relief, because the truth has been spoken, and political correctness has not strangled this particular gigastar.

-Barry Humphries

John Barry Humphries

February 17th 1934 – April 22nd 2023

The Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He was best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He was also a film producer and script writer, a star of London's West End musical theatre, a writer, and a landscape painter. For his delivery of dadaist and absurdist humour to millions, biographer Anne Pender described Humphries in 2010 as not only "the most significant theatrical figure of our time … [but] the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin".

Humphries' characters brought him international renown, and he also appeared in numerous stage productions, films, and television shows. Originally conceived as a dowdy Moonee Ponds housewife who caricatured Australian suburban complacency and insularity, Dame Edna Everage evolved over four decades to become a satire of stardom – a gaudily dressed, acid-tongued, egomaniacal, internationally fêted "Housewife Gigastar".

Humphries' other satirical characters included the "priapic and inebriated cultural attaché" Sir Les Patterson, who "continued to bring worldwide discredit upon Australian arts and culture, while contributing as much to the Australian vernacular as he has borrowed from it"; gentle, grandfatherly "returned gentleman" Sandy Stone; iconoclastic 1960s underground film-maker Martin Agrippa; Paddington socialist academic Neil Singleton; sleazy trade union official Lance Boyle; high-pressure art salesman Morrie O'Connor; failed tycoon Owen Steele; and archetypal Australian bloke Barry McKenzie.

Good Night Mr. Humphries

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa

This Week in Television History: April 2023 PART II

  

April 19, 1938

The National Broadcasting Company launched experimental television broadcasts from the Empire State Building. These experiments aired only five hours a week to very few TV households.

 

April 22, 1978

The Blues Brothers make their world premiere on Saturday Night Live. 

The characters and the band that Belushi and Aykroyd unveiled that night took more than two years to evolve. The first incarnation came during SNL's first season, in a January 17, 1976, appearance singing "I'm a King Bee" as "Howard Shore and his All-Bee Band." There were no dark suits, skinny ties or Ray-Bans at that point, but the appearance did feature Aykroyd on the harmonica and Belushi on vocals belting out a blues classic very much in the style of the future Elwood and "Joliet" Jake Blues, albeit while wearing bee costumes. The Blues Brothers' look—and much of their repertoire—would come together after Belushi's trip to Eugene, Oregon, during the hiatus between SNL seasons two and three to film Animal House. It was there that Belushi, a committed rock-and-roll fan, met a 25-year-old bluesman named Curtis Salgado, future harmonica player for Robert Cray, frontman for Roomful of Blues and a major figure on the burgeoning Pacific Northwest blues scene of the 1970s. Belushi became a regular visitor to the Eugene Hotel to catch Salgado's act during the filming of Animal House, and it was from that act and from Salgado himself that he picked up a passion for the blues as well as the inspiration for the Blues Brothers' sound and look .

Back in New York for the third season of SNL, Belushi and Aykroyd honed their concept for the Blues Brothers Band and recruited an incredible roster of backing instrumentalists drawn from among the finest blues and R&B session musicians in the country. Even if their debut performance on this night in 1978 hadn't been a huge hit, the band was far too good to break up after a single gig. Indeed, the closing portion of Paul Shaffer's introduction that night—"Today they are no longer an authentic blues act, but have managed to become a viable commercial product"—ended up being borne out in real life, with the Blues Brothers earning three top-40 hits ("Soul Man," "Rubber Biscuit" and "Gimme Some Lovin'"), a #1 pop album (Briefcase Full of Blues) and a piece of screen immortality via their 1980 film, The Blues Brothers.

Steve Martin was the host of that episode and he previewed the novelty song "King Tut". Performed by and the Toot Uncommons (actually members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band). It was released as a single in 1978, sold over a million copies, and reached number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song was also included on Martin's album A Wild and Crazy Guy.

"King Tut" paid homage to Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun and presents a caricature of the sensational Treasures of Tutankhamun traveling exhibit that toured seven United States cities from 1976 to 1979. The exhibit attracted approximately eight million visitors. In the Saturday Night Live performance of "King Tut," loyal subjects appease a joyful King Tut with kitchen appliances. An instrumental solo is delivered by saxophone player Lou Marini, who steps out of a sarcophagus to great laughter.

In the book Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, authors Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad write that the sketch was one of the most expensive productions the show had attempted up to that point. Steve Martin had brought the song to the show and asked if he could perform it, not expecting the production that occurred—producer Lorne Michaels put everything behind it.

Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers recorded the song in a bluegrass version for their 2011 album, Rare Bird Alert.

The song is the subject of in-depth analysis in Melani McAlister's Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945–2000.

It is also referenced in a dialogue in the video game The Lost Vikings (1992) at the end of one of the Egyptian themed levels of the game.

April 22, 1978

Maude aired its final episode after 6 seasons on the air.

"Maude's Big Move: Part 3"                          

Maude and Walter leave New York for Washington, D.C. to begin a new chapter in their lives. Final episode of the series.

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa