Kevin If you’ve ever been at home in the afternoons, or late at night, you’ve probably seen more than your fair share of TV talk shows over the years. Today is TV Talk Show Host Day 2023, so let’s make it the day we talk about those daytime TV talk shows.
As a kid, I definitely did during the summers, and when I was home from school. By college, I was rarely home in time to see my old favorites, or what was left of em. Most of em had ended their run by the time I graduated from high school, and all I had were the memories. Since all we had was network TV at the time, there was no way to revisit those shows, short of recording them on videotapes nobody cared about anymore.
I managed to get a few episodes of Sally toward the end of that show’s run. Speaking of which, how about we start here?
Sally had been on channel 17 for as long as I could remember. I don’t remember much about this specific episode, but I remember others like it on Sally, along w/ other talk shows. The way the audience would raise hell w/ the ppl dressed like what was shown in this episode, and the way their so-called “families” would throw em all under the bus over the way they looked hurt me to hear it as a kid, and it hurts to see it now. These ppl weren’t hurting anyone, they weren’t stealing cars or robbing banks, and these asswads acted like they did, by virtue of the way they looked.
The way I figure it, if this was an era for them, great. If they’re still looking like this however many years later, also great.
Sally also had other topics, and toward the end of the show’s run, there was a retrospective. I remember one being about futuristic styles filmed in the late 1980s. For some reason, one of the outfits was this black vinyl (or rubber, whatever it was) dress w/ tubes of some kind. It was what someone thought we’d be wearing in 2000. I wish I could find a pic of it, and I wish I could draw it out somehow.
I think I may have recorded it, but idk. I’ll have to get my hands on a VCR somehow, and find out sometime.
Another episode I found on YouTube late one night before my life turned to absolute shyt was the one about AIDS, where Cleve Jones was on the panel. This was from the late 1980s, and HIV and AIDS were considered a death sentence at that time. Modern medicine’s come a long way, but sadly it was too little, too late to save so many ppl.
Other talk shows on the air at the time also talked about it, including Oprah. I often wonder what became of those ppl who were on the show, and what became of the audience members too.
Speaking of which, Ricki Lake was one of the shows I watched as a kid. Some of it talked about stuff I had no business watching, and it went right over my head anyways, so nothing ventured, nothing gained. Over the years, I somehow forgot about this show, until it occurred to me a few years back to see what was on YouTube. I found an episode about ppl in punk-style outfits, and how others thought they were this, that, the next, and whatever, again by virtue of the way they looked.
Has anyone taught these idiot naysayers not to judge books by their covers? Too bad, cuz it was something they all deserved to know.
I remember one panelist who had a jean jacket w/ patches on it, and unfortunately one of those patches was of a certain flag that once meant rebellion, but has shifted toward meaning prejudiced and racist ideas against others. Basically, it was the antithesis of punk. Anyways, I wondered how they were holding up these days, and sad to say, it turns out they since passed on.
One of the talk show hosts that was basically the talk of the town was none other than the famous (or infamous) Jerry Springer. This one aired late at night, so I didn’t get a chance to see it that often as a kid. Just before cable TV and the internet came to my house in college, I’d sometimes watch Jerry. The episodes all kinda run together, but the show ended up spawning another talk show: Steve Wilkos. Steve started out as security on Jerry Springer, and sometimes he’d host the show himself.
As controversial as some of Jerry’s shows were, Jerry actually cared about ppl at the end of the day, and I’m sad to say he’s since passed on.
I gotta say, there’s some episodes of the Steve Wilkos Show that continue to haunt me to this day, along w/ Oprah and Sally. There’s the episode of Steve where this mom was a major jerk to her kid (to say the least!), and got life in the slammer as a result. Good fuckin riddance.. There’s the episode of Oprah that talked about homework, and this one kid who got like 5 hours of it just for one class alone and had to carry literal fuckin SUITCASES to school b/c of it. There’s no way in hell that’s healthy for anyone, and just think of what that does to a kid’s psyche!
There’s the episode of Sally, where there were seriously overweight ppl talking about what their binges were like, and it really hit close to home for me.
I often wonder what became of those ppl, and how they’re holding up these days. Just not for that jerky mom, cuz who gives a shyt about that?
Over to you, readers. Got any talk shows and talk show hosts you remember from back in the day, or from today’s TV lineup? Any episodes resonate w/ you, or continue to haunt you years after the fact? I’d love to hear all about your thoughts and takeaways, so drop it all like it’s hawt, and let’s talk.
