After 20 years of 'Jerry Springer,' he's amazed, too

Hard to believe, but the current season of "Jerry Springer" is its 20th. At five days a week that amounts to a staggering amount of adulterers, cross-dressers, food (and foot) fetishists who have paraded (and often wrestled) in front of the "Springer" cameras.

And just this week, the show's distributor, NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution, extended the program - which airs at 11 a.m. daily on MyPHL, Channel 17 - through 2014.

As surprising as the lengthy run may be to some, there may be no one more shocked by the show's longevity than Springer himself.

"Obviously, I had no idea the show would last this long," he said during a recent phone call. "My first contract was for six weeks."

At the time, Springer was a news anchor on Cincinnati's NBC affiliate. The Peacock Network was also the producer and syndicator of the then-groundbreaking daily chat-fest hosted by Phil Donahue.

"The CEO of the company took me out to lunch one day and said, 'You know Phil's retiring soon,

we're gonna start a new talk show and you're going to host it,' " remembered Springer, adding that he hadn't considered such a gig.

When Springer's show debuted in 1991, the game plan was to follow in Donahue's serious, issues-oriented footsteps. It was a strategy that didn't quite work out as hoped, and the decision was ultimately made to go after a younger audience. The way to do that, it was decided, was to turn "Springer" into a televised freak show perhaps best symbolized by the infamous episode featuring a man who married a horse.

Since changing the program's course (and that, it can be argued, of TV history), Springer has regularly been accused of exploiting people's physical, emotional and psychological misfortune. It's a charge he vehemently denies, insisting that he is never condescending to his guests.

"I don't agree it's exploitive," he said. "I don't dislike these people, and I'm not endorsing their behavior.

"We're all the same. Some of us are just doing better, or got luckier in the gene pool. And it's not that we're changing the world here, it's just a silly show. You go [on it] for the entertainment. If you really need help, you go to [a professional]. You don't come on a television show for help."

Besides, he continued, it's not like he and his staff coerce guests to get them to appear. "I think 90 percent of people would never go on a television show and talk about their private lives, but 10 percent would. It's not their behavior that is [so unusual], but going on television and talking about it is."

At 66, Springer could call it a career. But don't expect a retirement announcement any time soon. When asked how long he'd like the show to continue, he responded without hesitation, "I have notified NBC Universal I'm stopping when I'm 107."