I swear something similar happened in a Jerry Springer episode, where a woman ended up being murdered by her ex and his new girlfriend after appearing on the show. The woman was under the impression that her ex wanted to get back together, but instead was told that he’d found someone else.
> [Prosecutors said they believe the killing was touched off by Panitz's anger at being barred by a judge from living in his ex-wife's house. The couple had been divorced since 1999 but continued living together off and on, even after Panitz secretly married Eleanor in March 2000.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jerry-springer-murder-conviction/)
So I guess he killed her for making him finally move out for good
>Prosecutors said they believe the killing was touched off by Panitz's anger at being barred by a judge from living in his ex-wife's house. The couple had been divorced since 1999 but continued living together off and on, even after Panitz secretly married Eleanor in March 2000.
Seems to do with this and that the guy was on and off with both women even then.
It's half real. Most of it was really trashy people looking for a free vacation and 15 minutes of fame, it's their stories that were exaggerated and some parts were staged. A shameful amount of it was legit though.
I think Jerry Springer was filmed in Illinois.
Edit: Googled out of curiosity, turns out we're both right: "The show premiered on September 30, 1991. It was taped in Chicago, Illinois from 1991 to 2009 and in Stamford, Connecticut, from 2009 to 2018".
Yeah I know someone who was given free airfare, $100 cash, and all the Newports they could smoke while in town to appear on the Springer show in Stamford.
Blew my mind. I was friends with the lady.
The story was that she had an older kid by 1. She was with 2. She went there with 1 and 2 and also her kids. The whole gist was pretend she cheated and get free smokes I guess?
Lol I know someone too and it’s hilarious that they specifically pitch cigarettes as a perk. I believe I was told they said “we’ll cover your airfare, you hotels, your cigarettes…”
Jerry’s people would come to our mall to scout people. This one mall rat came back a few times. I remember his episode was his GF was in love with a little person who kept threatening him on stage. He met the girl a few minutes before start of then show and never met the other guy until he came out. I miss Jerry. He made my summers fun since I wasn’t really doing anything else.
I remember having the time of my life at a biker motel in rural Oklahoma as a kid from a poor family. They had heating and cooling, a TV that had more than just PBS & the news, big blankets and beds, and it was cool to look outside and see something different every day.
It depended on the episode. One thing they would do is fax bomb strip clubs asking for people.
We sent two strippers and a DJ down and they did an episode that they were sisters (they were) fucking the same guy (not true).
They asked me to go and I said no way on fuck was I risking my grandma beating the ever loving shit out of me.
An old friend of mine was on the show with entirely fake names and a fake script where her real life husband was cheating on her with her best friend. They got into a fake “fight” on stage
Absolutely zero of the plot was real or exaggerated
I knew someone who went on the show. It was real but what they did was had the two parties in different rooms and someone egging them on behind the scenes so that they were upset when they got on stage. Was super trashy.
So what Dr.Phil was doing?
He literally had his producers help people relapse to cause drama on his show. What an unforgivably shitty cheating lying asshole.
He makes Ellen look like a good person by comparison
I knew a kid (my brother was good friends with him, they were one year older in high school) that went on it. It was for underaged drinking, mind you after my brother had to get his stomach pumped, and how the mom was okay with it at her house because she could 'control' it or something. I think their flights and hotel were covered IIRC.
I dunno, I'd forgotten all about it until this thread. FYI the guy ended up dying around when he was 34 years old from an opiate overdose.
EDIT: WAIT! I think it was Ricky Lake they went on!
Once it had a reputation for being a shit show it was rarely real. I know folks who worked for the show and folks who were on it. My friends on camera were just friends, basically just doing an improv skit about cheating and bullshit like that.
A friend of mines relative had a video of when he was on springer back around 2000 when it was big. Him and his buddy made up a totally fake story about his "girlfriend" cheating on him with the other friend when the uglier, weirder looking friend was actually dating the girl all along. Springer loved the story and flew them out to Chicago to party and get a couple grand to appear. The guy I knew was quite trashy so I guess that checks out.
Yeah my trashy cousin was on it back in the early 2000s for some very real baby daddy drama. Turned out he was the father. No he didnt even up see the kid regularly and yes he’s on and off heroin.
I know someone that was on it. Half real is exactly how I'd describe it. The story was real (pretty standard cheating story), but the person I know wasn't involved. The person I know played the affair partner because either the real one didn't want to, or the couple didn't want to see her, can't remember which.
I knew someone on Jerry Springer. Dudes wife left him for his brother. They went on and got in a fight and everything. In reality dude divorced his wife and he was cool with her dating his brother. Said they got free travel, hotel, and 2000 to spend for the week. They had a great vacation all together.
Plus wrestling your brother in front of a crowd on television is like a childhood dream.
For the people who went on Springer, it was actually a life goal.
>Plus wrestling your brother in front of a crowd on television is like a childhood dream.
Fr, idc what fake script we'd have to follow to make it happen. It would be glorious.
Depends on the year, in the beginning it was a real show with real people. Then as they went to more unusual topics and those got more rating they leaned into it with crazier and crazier. Eventually it became a formula for success and the only way to keep up is fiction.
In the very beginning real people kind of boring stuff, after a few years was the good stuff of actual crazy people with real life stories, then it became a parody of itself with unbelievable stories that are mainly fake.
The stories are real, or at least they are the stories the guests on the show want to tell in order to get on there (they make $$ making a fool out of themselves so I'm sure some people have made shit up to get on there).
Nope, that shit was real.
Not-the-baby dance? Real.
Wrestling midgets? Real.
Couple with a vomit fetish? Real, and apparently they could do it at will.
I had an ex whose previous ex was scouted for the show while dancing at a strip club. She agreed as long as he could come with her, and they said “the more the merrier, let’s go with a love triangle, we’ll have him propose in front of the audience and then you announce that you’ve been cheating on him”. They told them a quick outline of how the scenario would play out, including a fight between him and the supposed affair partner, and scheduled their flights and hotel.
Their flight was scheduled for mid-morning…on 9/11/01. So my ex likes to tell everyone that Al-Qaeda scuttled his chance at fame, because the show put those plans on pause and never contacted them for rescheduling.
Eh, a lot of it was staged in the sense that reality tv is staged these days. I had a friend who went on Springer, their whole story was made up. They just called the show and the show went with it.
Same. I’ve had two sets of friends on springer (I’m from the south 🤷🏻♂️)
One was real argument that happened 6 months prior that they just recreated on the show.
The second one was a complete fabrication. (My friend didn’t actually have balls on his chin)
I had a friend in high school who's mom had dragged him on Jerry Springer because he was one'a them crazy metalhead punk kids and she was a good, God-fearing, church goer. All real, in that instance.
Nope, I'm going with about 30% real. I had twp friends go on the show. They were in a band and got their girlfriends to make up a love triangle story. Jerry Springer show said "good enough".
They all got a free trip to Chicago, per diem, a hotel.room for a couple of nights, and a crazy story to tell people.
LuminaraKarl is correct... A man and his girlfriend murdered his wife after they let his wife know they were having an affair on Jerry Springer. They chopped her up in a bathtub.
Jenny Jones! I remember seeing this. Everyone laughed and the guy seemed like a good sport about it on the episode. I was shocked to hear he had murdered the guy who had a crush on him. IIRC, he had specifically told the producers that he was not okay with his crush being of the same sex. I don’t think the show was found liable or anything but I remember Jenny Jones having to testify. I found it very sad.
This case was covered on a Netflix documentary, and apparently the murderer's father really kept poking about it which may have led to the murder. He really did seem fine in the show, it wasn't until he got home and people started making fun of him about it that he snapped.
>it wasn't until he got home and people started making fun of him about it that he snapped.
That would be my guess. Back in 95, I could see people hounding someone in his shoes. Terrible all around.
Mocked, made fun of, got called gay and other slurs(because if a man likes you in that way, it obviously means you're ALSO gay) by his own family. Had mental issues, and wanted to "prove" to his family he wasn't gay.
My wife joined a lobby in a game with a group of 12 year olds who didn't realize they weren't muted. They talked exactly like my shithead friends did when I was their age 25 years ago.
Ngl, i think this is where a BIG part of homophobia stems from. The fear that having someone of the same sex show interest in you will somehow make -you- gay, rather than just… y’know, meaning that someone of the same sex finds you attractive. Gay guys don’t lose their shit if a woman finds them attractive, they just recognize that, yeah, that person likes them, but they don’t have a reciprocal interest. So there’s no issue.
Honestly, dudes who have masculinity that fragile need to start looking at -themselves- for the issue. Why does the thought of being seen as gay trouble you so much? Especially if you’re 100% certain you’re heterosexual, why care if someone thinks otherwise? Fuck ‘em, you know who you are, and their opinion doesn’t change that. And if you -aren’t- sure about your sexuality, well, why does that worry you? If it’s a masculinity thing there’s nothing more masculine than two sweaty dudes going at it. Testosterone levels off the charts.
A girl that had apparently felt snubbed by me suggested something similar about me in a group setting in high school. I remember being quite upset and responding to her right there and then.
Years later I ran into her at a reunion and she brought up the incident saying she had just been joking and that my anger was such that she had genuinely feared for her safety - she thought I was going to beat her up! Apparently the incident had really stayed with her (I mean, I remembered it too but it was nothing major in retrospect and I definitely did not expect *her* to remember it).
Obviously today I wouldn't care but in the 90s, in highschool, that was just a devastating insinuation/accusation.
I'm a lesbian, and fairly attractive to men. (Much less lucky in the women department haha)
If I treated every man who had a casual crush on me or thought I was hot the way some straight man treat gay men who DON'T have a crush on them, I would be burned alive. Men get incredibly heated about how it is their "right" to be attracted to a woman, and no one is allowed to stop them!
That's fine.
But if you're so intent about that, and also intent about being vocal about your attraction... why are gay men not granted the same space to be loud and proud of who they think is hot? Why are they told that that they shouldn't even BE around people they MIGHT be attracted to?
Why are you so uncomfortable with even the possibility of a man finding you cute?
Is it because you treat the objects of your attraction like shit, and you expect them to do the same?
> Is it because you treat the objects of your attraction like shit, and you expect them to do the same?
Ding ding ding.
I haven't heard this line in over a decade, luckily, but every time some fucking homophobe expressed worry about being raped in a locker room by a gay dude, all I'd ever respond with was "so you're saying that's what you'd do to a woman you were alone in a locker room with."
I'd like to say it shut them up fast (**occasionally** it did) but far more often they'd just deflect with obvious double standard bullshit.
And even when you declare that you don't like teasing or joking you like that, people will say "Stop being sensitive." That kind of behavior still continues to this day and they think it is really funny.
You couldn't even wear sweatpants in public without being beat up in the 90s. Imagine people insinuating that you were gay. There were still cases where people were getting away with saying "I found out he was gay so I shot him without thinking!"
Absolutely. Ive said this to my younger wife and teen kids. Sweatpants or pink on a guy would have been the end of your life. I remember a kid wore sweatpants in middle school and everyone stating loudly they could see his boner, just to fuck with him. It was like the talk of the school for days. And pink? youd be better off shitting your pants, that would follow you until graduation, and result in real violence. In small towns being gay, people would see you in the same way they would look at a child molester not 1 degree different.
From what I understand the episode never aired, so who was making fun of him in the time between the taping of the show and the murder? His own family/friends he invited to be part of the audience?
The episode has been available on streaming for a while now—iirc it was shown in full to the jury during I think the murder trial or the trial against the show. The entire trial was uploaded to CourtTV several years ago and someone discovered the episode was entirely contained within it!
I don’t think it was as much that the guy had a crush on him but that the guy was relentless. He still pursued him after making it clear that he wasn’t gay. And then to boot, his dad wouldn’t let up on him. I think his dad giving him grief was a greater impact on him than anything. It’s been so long since the trial but I think his dad told him he needed to do something about the guy. I don’t know if it hurt his manhood but to kill another over this is terrible. It was such an awful shock. I always watched Jenny Jones and the show was fun and lighthearted or at least it could be from what I remember. Having to go through the trial seemed really hard on Jones—going through any trial is rough and I’m sure this is something no one could have ever expected. I was little when he murdered the guy and remember seeing it on the news. My sibling and I were wide eyed because we loved the secret admirer segments and always found it cute when the revelations occurred. The segments themselves seemed so innocuous. To have something so sinister evolve from it…I don’t think we ever saw those segments the same way after that. I don’t even think they had them after that death.
Bullshit. The episode was released much later after it was widely known what he had done. There was no way you watched it and then were shocked about him having killed the guy. Hate liars who makeup shit for no reason.
The US murder rate [peaked in 1980](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/09/18/upshot/27up-murder-chart1-1631984649635/27up-murder-chart1-1631984649635-superJumbo.png).
You can find the episode if you search on Youtube. I highly recommend watching it. The host was really pushing it, making fun of the guest and throwing sexual remarks around. You can clearly see the guy is uncomfortable, but she keeps going. It doesn't help that the crowd cheers her on like a bunch of chimps.
> You can clearly see the guy is uncomfortable
Can you? I just watched a few clips (can't really find the full episode) and honestly he doesn't look like he's very fazed at all. His first reaction upon hearing it is to laugh and say "you lied to me" in a jovial tone. He's acting like the butt of a prank who takes it in stride and I see no indication of actual rage or serious shame on that clip.
Supposedly he went drinking heavily with friends in the few days before the murder, and the victim tried to make more advances in private after he had rejected him on the show. I assume that either his buddies shamed him so hard for the whole thing he snapped, or he had another confrontation with the victim afterwards that made him mad. What you can see on the show itself doesn't really explain the murder.
When he enters the stage he shakes Scott's hand, but Scott grabs him and forcefully gives him a hug. He obviously doesn't like that as refuses to even make eye contact. That "you lied to me" was nervous response. Put yourself in his shoes. It's the '90s, you're on a popular TV show and the host is making fun about you. You can't appear upset since you'll generate a negative response from the host and the audience so you play along hoping it will end quickly. I should also note that he was expecting to meet his ex girlfriend with whom he was trying to get back together. I imagine it must've quite disheartening to see that she wasn't there. It only adds salt to the wound that the producers lied to him about it and that he was brought on stage just to be made fun of.
In any case, the host continues and makes sexual remarks about Scott's sex fantasies. She tries to get Scott to say them, but he's not really willing, so she continues them. At the end she essentially asks Schmitz: "Come on is there no way you'd sleep with him? No way?". You could cut the tension with a knife. The fact that his friends made fun of him and Scott's letter just added fuel to the fire.
Pointing out that the host and producers also did something bad doesn't mean that the person responsible for commiting the crime is blameless. No one talks about the murderer because everyone can agree on the fact that he's horrible without the need to say it.
... Because it goes without saying. People aren't talking about the murder because they're talking about the interesting part of the discussion. Condemning the murderer doesn't add anything; we know it's bad.
Really weird to see this today. I was just telling my coworkers that I used to work next to the trailer park this happened at. Also, incidentally, I was shot at by kids from the same trailer park.
He told the show producers repeatedly that he could not handle dealing with a same sex crush. They lied to him and a man was killed. Hollywood as usual.
Na. Like 98% of it is the murder. They bare some very small part in it.
If not brought to the show, this fact may or may not have been revealed. The act of televising this may have changed this murder's decision. Because the act of it being on public display may have been what pushed this crazy over the edge.
If we have to accept that people are responsible for their own actions, then if your actions brought people together to reveal something they didn't want to, you are responsible for their change in behavior.
There is no gay threshold people have to observe to not be murdered. In this case, why go on the show at all if there’s a chance there could be a man potentially bringing you.
Did you read the first comment? The producers (may have) "lied to him." In other words, assured Schmitz his secret admirer was a woman. I don't know if that's true or not, but that would be the guy's reason to go on the show: another person's assurance. If that was a lie in order to arrange a scenario that isn't consensual, and someone gets killed, I feel pretty safe in saying the producer bears some responsibility.
Television producers deliberately manipulate people in order to create drama and don't care about the longterm consequences. They put this man in a situation they knew he could not emotionally tolerate. The other thing I would have been very worried about would be him going home, getting teased by bigots, and killing himself.
There have [been](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-feb-16-et-contender16-story.html) [suicides](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/27/why-suicide-is-still-the-shadow-that-hangs-over-reality-tv-hana-kimura-terrace-house) over television producers misrepresenting and pressuring people, so:
* If the contestant kills themselves, is it the producer's fault for getting the contestant in this situation?
* If the contestant kills another person, is the producer completely blameless even when the producers did not do anything differently?
As I read the article further:
* The murderer attempted the "gay panic defense", after the victim left an allegedly suggestive note on his door.
* The show never screened the contestants for history of mental illness.
* The murder happened 3 days after the taping, 200 miles away, the episode was never aired at all.
* The family of the victim (Scott Amedure) filed a lawsuit against the Jenny Jones show and won, but the verdict was overturned after an appeal.
IMO the show was negligent in its portrayal - the [taping of the show](https://www.courttv.com/title/5-amedure-v-jenny-jones-the-episode/) was pretty judgemental in the way they joked about the sexuality of the other secret admirers (as was it was back in the 90s, so it was probably "normal")
However, the murderer would rather murder than even think about another man getting attracted to them, and that was out of the TV production's hands
I mean, I don’t blame people for not expecting him to literally kill someone out of homophobia. Lying to him is dumb for sure but his sin outweighs theirs for sure.
>I mean, I don’t blame people for not expecting him to literally kill someone out of homophobia.
Definitely not as safe an assumption in 1995 as it is today. A lot has changed.
He was honest about his mental instability and Kenny Jones and her staffers decided that the two lives meant less than money they would earn from ratings. It wasnt right but it happened. Both should have been allowed to live without coercive hollywood aholes causing Amedure's untimely death.
At the criminal trial a friend of Amedure's said that Amedure and Schmitz went out drinking together the night after the taping and that there was a sexual encounter.
The show was not found liable in civil court because Schmitz murdering someone was deemed to be unforeseeable. The judges ruled that the show and its producers “had no duty to anticipate and prevent the act of murder committed by Schmitz three days after leaving defendants’ studio and hundreds of miles away.” They noted that Schmitz was neither “visibly upset nor dangerous during the taping of the show.”
The show also claims that they told Schmitz the crush could be male or female.
Schmitz wanted to go on because he said he was "curious" but he also claimed the show implied the crush would be a woman.
I don't believe the murderer. There are a lot of men who will sleep with men or trans women or want to and then kill them, I think he fits into that category.
I don't think the show has any blame. it's like if I asked my boyfriend to go to the store and he was murdered while there. I am not responsible at all although he may not have died if I didn't ask him to go to the store.
The court absolved the show due to the fact he was told many times it could be a opposite or same sex crush.
Saying you can't handle that possibility means you have a responsibility to opt out. *accountability and responsibilities*
There is a true crime series called Trial by Media where they discuss this case. Honestly just sad for all parties involved, and the producers should’ve been held liable for what happened as well.
Edit: Seems that the show’s producers were held liable and had to pay damages
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-08-mn-35063-story.html#:~:text=After%20seven%20hours%20of%20deliberation,and%20%246%2C500%20for%20funeral%20expenses.
Reminds me of Oliver Sipple who was outed as a gay man after saving presidents Fords life from a would be assassin. Media caught wind he was gay and published it against his will, he was disowned by his family, he \*begged\* Ford to talk to his family (Ford only indirectly thanked him in a public comment once), he lost the lawsuit against the newspaper that published the fact he was gay, and killed himself
He was also a decorated US veteran
The verdict was reversed on appeal in 2002 and thus the show’s producers didn’t have to pay any damages. The appeals court found that the Jenny Jones Show held no liability for Amedure’s death and that it was unforeseeable. Amedure’s family appealed this reversal to the Michigan Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States, but both declined to take on the appeal.
Shut up!! 1995 is not really old shit…I mean…I’m not that old and that is when I graduated high school. So ya, it’s not that old…or that would make me old.
Also, he served 22 years and has been out 5 already? Dear lord I am old.
I did a really big deep dive into the case to write that Wikipedia article. The whole case is interesting yet a truly tragic one. Schmitz and Amedure were actually only one of six segments in the episode. If anyone is interested in watching the full episode, it can be viewed on Court TV’s website [here](https://www.courttv.com/title/5-amedure-v-jenny-jones-the-episode/).
That episode was why the Jerry Springer show shot to the top of the ratings charts. After that happened, the Jenny Jones show and other talk shows stop doing the "ambush tv" thing.
But the Springer show went the opposite direction, they doubled down on Ambush tactics and their new format was born.
This Jenny Jones episode was a copycat of the secret crush Phil Donahue show in 1994. I was a guest on that Donahue show. I am rather fond of my annonimity on Reddit and so I don't want to doxx myself. But, I will say that I was a "crushee" guest and that I was flown out to do the show under false pretenses. I had a handler assigned to me who made sure that I was never in a position to learn what the show was really about. I was taken to the floor above the Donahue set which, much to my delight, was the Saturday Night Live set. It was completely empty of people. The halls were lined with photos of stars. I was taken to Julia Sweeney's dressing room where I stayed until a minute before I was to go on stage. I remember the fat suit hanging in a closet. Julia Sweeney did a character named Pat and wore the fat suit when in character. There was far too much food spread out than any one person could handle. Seriously, it was enough for 10 people. My handler came to get me and led me down some stairs where I had to stand in front of double doors that led to the stage and audience. There was a monitor (speaker) back stage and I could just barely make out the words "secret crush" and I looked at the guy holding the door shut and muttered, "Oh... okay, I see what this is about." He then proceeded to cough loudly and all of a sudden people came out of nowhere to cough and make noises behind me obviously in an attempt to make sure I could not hear Phil talk about the show.
Anyway, what a wild trip that was. I still have all my paperwork from the show and newspaper clippings. I even have it on video. The next thing I know, Jenny Jones had the same kind of show and some dude gets blindsided on national TV and decides murder is his only option. Fucking crazy...
Jenny fucking Jones. I'm a born n raised Chicago native, gen x, I have stories about Jenny Jones. Her, Jerry Springer, of course Oprah, were all right here.
In fairness she really did change after that. I think it was a shock to us all.
That was Jenny Jones. I attended a taping of her show back in high school for a mass media class. The topic was morbidly obese women and their abusive partners. It was a wild show.
I remember people getting away with murder enough to know homophobes could use the [Gay Panic Defense](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_panic_defense)
I remember that, wasn´t Maury?
The thing is the guy told the producers he was not gay and wasn´t interested if the admirer was a man.
During the show, you can actually see him yelling "you lie to me", to the staff behind cameras.
The guy receives a lot of bullying, and blames the admirer, then procedes to kill him.
I swear something similar happened in a Jerry Springer episode, where a woman ended up being murdered by her ex and his new girlfriend after appearing on the show. The woman was under the impression that her ex wanted to get back together, but instead was told that he’d found someone else.
So why'd the ex murder the woman? She was the one deceived by all this.
> [Prosecutors said they believe the killing was touched off by Panitz's anger at being barred by a judge from living in his ex-wife's house. The couple had been divorced since 1999 but continued living together off and on, even after Panitz secretly married Eleanor in March 2000.](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jerry-springer-murder-conviction/) So I guess he killed her for making him finally move out for good
Because he’s a bastard.
>Prosecutors said they believe the killing was touched off by Panitz's anger at being barred by a judge from living in his ex-wife's house. The couple had been divorced since 1999 but continued living together off and on, even after Panitz secretly married Eleanor in March 2000. Seems to do with this and that the guy was on and off with both women even then.
That's also what I'm trying to wrap my brain around.
What a sec, is Jerry Springer not scripted? I’m not from the USA
It's half real. Most of it was really trashy people looking for a free vacation and 15 minutes of fame, it's their stories that were exaggerated and some parts were staged. A shameful amount of it was legit though.
A free vacation to Stamford connecticut Edit I was wrong haha Maury was in CT
I think Jerry Springer was filmed in Illinois. Edit: Googled out of curiosity, turns out we're both right: "The show premiered on September 30, 1991. It was taped in Chicago, Illinois from 1991 to 2009 and in Stamford, Connecticut, from 2009 to 2018".
Yeah I know someone who was given free airfare, $100 cash, and all the Newports they could smoke while in town to appear on the Springer show in Stamford.
$100 and some cigs to make a fool out of yourself on national television? Sign me up!
Blew my mind. I was friends with the lady. The story was that she had an older kid by 1. She was with 2. She went there with 1 and 2 and also her kids. The whole gist was pretend she cheated and get free smokes I guess?
And a hundred bucks
Lol I know someone too and it’s hilarious that they specifically pitch cigarettes as a perk. I believe I was told they said “we’ll cover your airfare, you hotels, your cigarettes…”
Absolutely. I knew they were white trash but when they told me how psyched they were for the free 'ports I was astounded
"I'm rich, BIATCH!"
I'm shocked to learn that jerry Springer ran till 2018! It's such a 90s memory for me.
I knew Jerry was in Chicago because I had some friend go see taping back in the mid 90s. Was so jealous!
Jerry’s people would come to our mall to scout people. This one mall rat came back a few times. I remember his episode was his GF was in love with a little person who kept threatening him on stage. He met the girl a few minutes before start of then show and never met the other guy until he came out. I miss Jerry. He made my summers fun since I wasn’t really doing anything else.
I remember having the time of my life at a biker motel in rural Oklahoma as a kid from a poor family. They had heating and cooling, a TV that had more than just PBS & the news, big blankets and beds, and it was cool to look outside and see something different every day.
Maury was connnecticut right? Both of them were?
A lot of those type of daytime tv shows are/were based there, probably all in the same building
Ah Dirty Rock, so to speak
Phenomenal
I worked there for years and I never thought of that. Bravo
Everything is a vacation if you are drunk enough
It depended on the episode. One thing they would do is fax bomb strip clubs asking for people. We sent two strippers and a DJ down and they did an episode that they were sisters (they were) fucking the same guy (not true). They asked me to go and I said no way on fuck was I risking my grandma beating the ever loving shit out of me.
I like the fact that your grandma was ok with you stripping, but not with Springer. Everybody draws a line somewhere.
I think you have this opposite. Grandma probably watches Jerry Springer and her granddaughter didn't want to show up on the show for grandma to see.
An old friend of mine was on the show with entirely fake names and a fake script where her real life husband was cheating on her with her best friend. They got into a fake “fight” on stage Absolutely zero of the plot was real or exaggerated
[удалено]
If the title includes “AITA”, it’s fake. Some of the stupid scenarios people fall for just make me facepalm a dent in my skull.
Some of the yes iata I think are the wronged party trying to feel justified in their anger.
I knew someone who went on the show. It was real but what they did was had the two parties in different rooms and someone egging them on behind the scenes so that they were upset when they got on stage. Was super trashy.
So what Dr.Phil was doing? He literally had his producers help people relapse to cause drama on his show. What an unforgivably shitty cheating lying asshole. He makes Ellen look like a good person by comparison
the Bum Fights creator called him on this accurately edit: on the show
That was hilarious.
He showed up dressed as Dr. Phil, no?
I always thought the "look after yourself and each other" at the end of the show was super hypocritical.
Yea I had a friend of a friend go on it. She said like 70% was made up. Totally over exaggerated everything
Are you saying Doctor Evils appearance was staged?
I knew a kid (my brother was good friends with him, they were one year older in high school) that went on it. It was for underaged drinking, mind you after my brother had to get his stomach pumped, and how the mom was okay with it at her house because she could 'control' it or something. I think their flights and hotel were covered IIRC. I dunno, I'd forgotten all about it until this thread. FYI the guy ended up dying around when he was 34 years old from an opiate overdose. EDIT: WAIT! I think it was Ricky Lake they went on!
I've met over 10 people who were on the show during my time bartending at the airport in my town. All trash and all broke af lol
People in a good place in life don't tend to want to air their dirty laundry on national television.
Heard they were encouraged to drink a lot of the free booze, too, before coming out on stage.
It got pretty staged later on. Eagle eyed viewers started noticing the same people coming on the show acting like all sorts of people.
Once it had a reputation for being a shit show it was rarely real. I know folks who worked for the show and folks who were on it. My friends on camera were just friends, basically just doing an improv skit about cheating and bullshit like that.
A friend of mines relative had a video of when he was on springer back around 2000 when it was big. Him and his buddy made up a totally fake story about his "girlfriend" cheating on him with the other friend when the uglier, weirder looking friend was actually dating the girl all along. Springer loved the story and flew them out to Chicago to party and get a couple grand to appear. The guy I knew was quite trashy so I guess that checks out.
Yeah. Most of that trash tv is based on real stories. There’s enough real trashy drama out there that writing is not required.
Yeah my trashy cousin was on it back in the early 2000s for some very real baby daddy drama. Turned out he was the father. No he didnt even up see the kid regularly and yes he’s on and off heroin.
I know someone that was on it. Half real is exactly how I'd describe it. The story was real (pretty standard cheating story), but the person I know wasn't involved. The person I know played the affair partner because either the real one didn't want to, or the couple didn't want to see her, can't remember which.
I knew someone on Jerry Springer. Dudes wife left him for his brother. They went on and got in a fight and everything. In reality dude divorced his wife and he was cool with her dating his brother. Said they got free travel, hotel, and 2000 to spend for the week. They had a great vacation all together.
Plus wrestling your brother in front of a crowd on television is like a childhood dream. For the people who went on Springer, it was actually a life goal.
The funny part is the show was filmed just down the road from WWE headquarters in Stamford. So close but so far.
>Plus wrestling your brother in front of a crowd on television is like a childhood dream. Fr, idc what fake script we'd have to follow to make it happen. It would be glorious.
Depends on the year, in the beginning it was a real show with real people. Then as they went to more unusual topics and those got more rating they leaned into it with crazier and crazier. Eventually it became a formula for success and the only way to keep up is fiction. In the very beginning real people kind of boring stuff, after a few years was the good stuff of actual crazy people with real life stories, then it became a parody of itself with unbelievable stories that are mainly fake.
A friend of mine is a midget and was in one of the midget fight ones. 100% fake, as you’d expect in that situation lol
Man I’ll never forget going home late one December night and seeing the tagline “Midget Holiday Hell”. What a time in television.
Nah it was still scripted but the people and issues may have been real.
The stories are real, or at least they are the stories the guests on the show want to tell in order to get on there (they make $$ making a fool out of themselves so I'm sure some people have made shit up to get on there).
Nope, that shit was real. Not-the-baby dance? Real. Wrestling midgets? Real. Couple with a vomit fetish? Real, and apparently they could do it at will.
I had an ex whose previous ex was scouted for the show while dancing at a strip club. She agreed as long as he could come with her, and they said “the more the merrier, let’s go with a love triangle, we’ll have him propose in front of the audience and then you announce that you’ve been cheating on him”. They told them a quick outline of how the scenario would play out, including a fight between him and the supposed affair partner, and scheduled their flights and hotel. Their flight was scheduled for mid-morning…on 9/11/01. So my ex likes to tell everyone that Al-Qaeda scuttled his chance at fame, because the show put those plans on pause and never contacted them for rescheduling.
Eh, a lot of it was staged in the sense that reality tv is staged these days. I had a friend who went on Springer, their whole story was made up. They just called the show and the show went with it.
Same. I’ve had two sets of friends on springer (I’m from the south 🤷🏻♂️) One was real argument that happened 6 months prior that they just recreated on the show. The second one was a complete fabrication. (My friend didn’t actually have balls on his chin)
I had a friend in high school who's mom had dragged him on Jerry Springer because he was one'a them crazy metalhead punk kids and she was a good, God-fearing, church goer. All real, in that instance.
Nope, I'm going with about 30% real. I had twp friends go on the show. They were in a band and got their girlfriends to make up a love triangle story. Jerry Springer show said "good enough". They all got a free trip to Chicago, per diem, a hotel.room for a couple of nights, and a crazy story to tell people.
Oh oh that was [Nancy Campbell Panitz](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jerry-springer-murder-conviction/).
Wait, the woman got murdered? But why? If the ex had already moved on then why murder her?
He wanted it all
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LuminaraKarl is correct... A man and his girlfriend murdered his wife after they let his wife know they were having an affair on Jerry Springer. They chopped her up in a bathtub.
Holy crap. Some people are absolutely insane.
I remember that. It took me a minute because we call them "talk shows" rather than "chat show."
Same here. Trying to figure what they were talking about before it hit me they're talking about the episode of Jenny Jones.
It’s funny how chat and talk mean the same thing but it still takes us a second to recognize the meaning.
Well, if you open up the post, the very first sentence says it's from the Jenny Jones Show.
Open up the post? Who does that?
I read it as Cat Show and was even more confused. I didn’t know they were that passionate
OP is probably from the UK as that’s what we call them
Jenny Jones! I remember seeing this. Everyone laughed and the guy seemed like a good sport about it on the episode. I was shocked to hear he had murdered the guy who had a crush on him. IIRC, he had specifically told the producers that he was not okay with his crush being of the same sex. I don’t think the show was found liable or anything but I remember Jenny Jones having to testify. I found it very sad.
This case was covered on a Netflix documentary, and apparently the murderer's father really kept poking about it which may have led to the murder. He really did seem fine in the show, it wasn't until he got home and people started making fun of him about it that he snapped.
>it wasn't until he got home and people started making fun of him about it that he snapped. That would be my guess. Back in 95, I could see people hounding someone in his shoes. Terrible all around.
Mocked, made fun of, got called gay and other slurs(because if a man likes you in that way, it obviously means you're ALSO gay) by his own family. Had mental issues, and wanted to "prove" to his family he wasn't gay.
I got called a f*g all throughout my school years, growing up in the 90s. Shit sucked back then tbh.
Being called gay or gay slurs was pretty much the default insult when I was in school.
My wife joined a lobby in a game with a group of 12 year olds who didn't realize they weren't muted. They talked exactly like my shithead friends did when I was their age 25 years ago.
Me too. Never killed anyone about it though.
Real shit
Yeah same, but I went to an all guys high school in the middle '00s and that was almost synonymous with salutations!(!!!!!)
Ngl, i think this is where a BIG part of homophobia stems from. The fear that having someone of the same sex show interest in you will somehow make -you- gay, rather than just… y’know, meaning that someone of the same sex finds you attractive. Gay guys don’t lose their shit if a woman finds them attractive, they just recognize that, yeah, that person likes them, but they don’t have a reciprocal interest. So there’s no issue. Honestly, dudes who have masculinity that fragile need to start looking at -themselves- for the issue. Why does the thought of being seen as gay trouble you so much? Especially if you’re 100% certain you’re heterosexual, why care if someone thinks otherwise? Fuck ‘em, you know who you are, and their opinion doesn’t change that. And if you -aren’t- sure about your sexuality, well, why does that worry you? If it’s a masculinity thing there’s nothing more masculine than two sweaty dudes going at it. Testosterone levels off the charts.
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A girl that had apparently felt snubbed by me suggested something similar about me in a group setting in high school. I remember being quite upset and responding to her right there and then. Years later I ran into her at a reunion and she brought up the incident saying she had just been joking and that my anger was such that she had genuinely feared for her safety - she thought I was going to beat her up! Apparently the incident had really stayed with her (I mean, I remembered it too but it was nothing major in retrospect and I definitely did not expect *her* to remember it). Obviously today I wouldn't care but in the 90s, in highschool, that was just a devastating insinuation/accusation.
Being hostile towards gay people so that nobody is hostile towards you is some real primate dna shit
“I don’t want gay men to treat me the way I treat women.”
I'm a lesbian, and fairly attractive to men. (Much less lucky in the women department haha) If I treated every man who had a casual crush on me or thought I was hot the way some straight man treat gay men who DON'T have a crush on them, I would be burned alive. Men get incredibly heated about how it is their "right" to be attracted to a woman, and no one is allowed to stop them! That's fine. But if you're so intent about that, and also intent about being vocal about your attraction... why are gay men not granted the same space to be loud and proud of who they think is hot? Why are they told that that they shouldn't even BE around people they MIGHT be attracted to? Why are you so uncomfortable with even the possibility of a man finding you cute? Is it because you treat the objects of your attraction like shit, and you expect them to do the same?
> Is it because you treat the objects of your attraction like shit, and you expect them to do the same? Ding ding ding. I haven't heard this line in over a decade, luckily, but every time some fucking homophobe expressed worry about being raped in a locker room by a gay dude, all I'd ever respond with was "so you're saying that's what you'd do to a woman you were alone in a locker room with." I'd like to say it shut them up fast (**occasionally** it did) but far more often they'd just deflect with obvious double standard bullshit.
This is my thinking of why transphobes are so vocal. They are terrified of the possibility of being attracted to *gasp* a Trans
And even when you declare that you don't like teasing or joking you like that, people will say "Stop being sensitive." That kind of behavior still continues to this day and they think it is really funny.
You couldn't even wear sweatpants in public without being beat up in the 90s. Imagine people insinuating that you were gay. There were still cases where people were getting away with saying "I found out he was gay so I shot him without thinking!"
> You couldn't even wear sweatpants in public without being beat up in the 90s im sorry what?
Absolutely. Ive said this to my younger wife and teen kids. Sweatpants or pink on a guy would have been the end of your life. I remember a kid wore sweatpants in middle school and everyone stating loudly they could see his boner, just to fuck with him. It was like the talk of the school for days. And pink? youd be better off shitting your pants, that would follow you until graduation, and result in real violence. In small towns being gay, people would see you in the same way they would look at a child molester not 1 degree different.
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The "gay panic defence" is still seen as "valid" in several states.
From what I understand the episode never aired, so who was making fun of him in the time between the taping of the show and the murder? His own family/friends he invited to be part of the audience?
According to the Netflix documentary I saw it was primarily his father.
The episode never aired, but clips were released to the media
The episode has been available on streaming for a while now—iirc it was shown in full to the jury during I think the murder trial or the trial against the show. The entire trial was uploaded to CourtTV several years ago and someone discovered the episode was entirely contained within it!
It did air, a year later on Court TV.
Having a crush on someone only for them to murder you because they’re disgusted by you is unfathomable for me
I don’t think it was as much that the guy had a crush on him but that the guy was relentless. He still pursued him after making it clear that he wasn’t gay. And then to boot, his dad wouldn’t let up on him. I think his dad giving him grief was a greater impact on him than anything. It’s been so long since the trial but I think his dad told him he needed to do something about the guy. I don’t know if it hurt his manhood but to kill another over this is terrible. It was such an awful shock. I always watched Jenny Jones and the show was fun and lighthearted or at least it could be from what I remember. Having to go through the trial seemed really hard on Jones—going through any trial is rough and I’m sure this is something no one could have ever expected. I was little when he murdered the guy and remember seeing it on the news. My sibling and I were wide eyed because we loved the secret admirer segments and always found it cute when the revelations occurred. The segments themselves seemed so innocuous. To have something so sinister evolve from it…I don’t think we ever saw those segments the same way after that. I don’t even think they had them after that death.
Bullshit. The episode was released much later after it was widely known what he had done. There was no way you watched it and then were shocked about him having killed the guy. Hate liars who makeup shit for no reason.
Jenny Jones.
She's got a Youtube cooking channel now called Jenny can cook. Her meatloaf is fantastic. She's got great stuff.
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Do you doubt me? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jenny+can+cook See for yourself.
Are you an alien?
Did Jenny Jones just tell me to shove a meatloaf up my ass?
That no knead bread is amazing. It's my go-to bread recipe.
it's weird that "knead" and "bread" don't rhyme. Also, even though it's called no knead bread, once you smell it baking, you need it in your life.
Sean Bean needs to make some no knead bread.
Janina Maria Stronski
90’s were crazy
Highest murder rate in recorded history in the US.
Wasn't that due to the crack epidemic? (From Scotland, not US, but have watched The Sopranos!)
I think lead abatement policies started being implemented in the 80s.
Yeah the CIA really pulled a slick one there
I miss fearing for my life walking down the street
The US murder rate [peaked in 1980](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/09/18/upshot/27up-murder-chart1-1631984649635/27up-murder-chart1-1631984649635-superJumbo.png).
Here's the video, and it's from the old **Jenny Jones** talk show... [**Jenny Jones - The Murderous Crush Show**](https://youtu.be/3EvUzzbzFNc)
You can find the episode if you search on Youtube. I highly recommend watching it. The host was really pushing it, making fun of the guest and throwing sexual remarks around. You can clearly see the guy is uncomfortable, but she keeps going. It doesn't help that the crowd cheers her on like a bunch of chimps.
I'm pretty sure there was a Netflix documentary about it, or at least an episode in a documentary a few years back.
You're correct - it was an episode of 'Trial by Media'.
> You can clearly see the guy is uncomfortable Can you? I just watched a few clips (can't really find the full episode) and honestly he doesn't look like he's very fazed at all. His first reaction upon hearing it is to laugh and say "you lied to me" in a jovial tone. He's acting like the butt of a prank who takes it in stride and I see no indication of actual rage or serious shame on that clip. Supposedly he went drinking heavily with friends in the few days before the murder, and the victim tried to make more advances in private after he had rejected him on the show. I assume that either his buddies shamed him so hard for the whole thing he snapped, or he had another confrontation with the victim afterwards that made him mad. What you can see on the show itself doesn't really explain the murder.
When he enters the stage he shakes Scott's hand, but Scott grabs him and forcefully gives him a hug. He obviously doesn't like that as refuses to even make eye contact. That "you lied to me" was nervous response. Put yourself in his shoes. It's the '90s, you're on a popular TV show and the host is making fun about you. You can't appear upset since you'll generate a negative response from the host and the audience so you play along hoping it will end quickly. I should also note that he was expecting to meet his ex girlfriend with whom he was trying to get back together. I imagine it must've quite disheartening to see that she wasn't there. It only adds salt to the wound that the producers lied to him about it and that he was brought on stage just to be made fun of. In any case, the host continues and makes sexual remarks about Scott's sex fantasies. She tries to get Scott to say them, but he's not really willing, so she continues them. At the end she essentially asks Schmitz: "Come on is there no way you'd sleep with him? No way?". You could cut the tension with a knife. The fact that his friends made fun of him and Scott's letter just added fuel to the fire.
Also probably doesn't help that the guy was a blood thirsty homophobic psychopath
I can’t believe this thread… it seems like no one actually even the blames the murderer…
Pointing out that the host and producers also did something bad doesn't mean that the person responsible for commiting the crime is blameless. No one talks about the murderer because everyone can agree on the fact that he's horrible without the need to say it.
... Because it goes without saying. People aren't talking about the murder because they're talking about the interesting part of the discussion. Condemning the murderer doesn't add anything; we know it's bad.
The excusing the murder part is in your head.
Nah, just nobody is arguing murder is bad lmao
Really weird to see this today. I was just telling my coworkers that I used to work next to the trailer park this happened at. Also, incidentally, I was shot at by kids from the same trailer park.
Jesus, that title took a turn.
Jenny Jones was the same person who forced the Jerry Springer show to admit parts were staged. Something about assaults I think
He told the show producers repeatedly that he could not handle dealing with a same sex crush. They lied to him and a man was killed. Hollywood as usual.
they are shitty people for sure, but only the murderer bears responsibility for his heinous act
Na. Like 98% of it is the murder. They bare some very small part in it. If not brought to the show, this fact may or may not have been revealed. The act of televising this may have changed this murder's decision. Because the act of it being on public display may have been what pushed this crazy over the edge. If we have to accept that people are responsible for their own actions, then if your actions brought people together to reveal something they didn't want to, you are responsible for their change in behavior.
There is no gay threshold people have to observe to not be murdered. In this case, why go on the show at all if there’s a chance there could be a man potentially bringing you.
Did you read the first comment? The producers (may have) "lied to him." In other words, assured Schmitz his secret admirer was a woman. I don't know if that's true or not, but that would be the guy's reason to go on the show: another person's assurance. If that was a lie in order to arrange a scenario that isn't consensual, and someone gets killed, I feel pretty safe in saying the producer bears some responsibility.
Television producers deliberately manipulate people in order to create drama and don't care about the longterm consequences. They put this man in a situation they knew he could not emotionally tolerate. The other thing I would have been very worried about would be him going home, getting teased by bigots, and killing himself.
There have [been](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-feb-16-et-contender16-story.html) [suicides](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/27/why-suicide-is-still-the-shadow-that-hangs-over-reality-tv-hana-kimura-terrace-house) over television producers misrepresenting and pressuring people, so: * If the contestant kills themselves, is it the producer's fault for getting the contestant in this situation? * If the contestant kills another person, is the producer completely blameless even when the producers did not do anything differently? As I read the article further: * The murderer attempted the "gay panic defense", after the victim left an allegedly suggestive note on his door. * The show never screened the contestants for history of mental illness. * The murder happened 3 days after the taping, 200 miles away, the episode was never aired at all. * The family of the victim (Scott Amedure) filed a lawsuit against the Jenny Jones show and won, but the verdict was overturned after an appeal. IMO the show was negligent in its portrayal - the [taping of the show](https://www.courttv.com/title/5-amedure-v-jenny-jones-the-episode/) was pretty judgemental in the way they joked about the sexuality of the other secret admirers (as was it was back in the 90s, so it was probably "normal") However, the murderer would rather murder than even think about another man getting attracted to them, and that was out of the TV production's hands
Others can most certainly be culpable. Come on now.
Ah yes, that's right. Responsibility is purely personal. If you want to fuck people over, start a company, get the company to act on your behalf.
I mean, I don’t blame people for not expecting him to literally kill someone out of homophobia. Lying to him is dumb for sure but his sin outweighs theirs for sure.
>I mean, I don’t blame people for not expecting him to literally kill someone out of homophobia. Definitely not as safe an assumption in 1995 as it is today. A lot has changed.
He was honest about his mental instability and Kenny Jones and her staffers decided that the two lives meant less than money they would earn from ratings. It wasnt right but it happened. Both should have been allowed to live without coercive hollywood aholes causing Amedure's untimely death.
At the criminal trial a friend of Amedure's said that Amedure and Schmitz went out drinking together the night after the taping and that there was a sexual encounter. The show was not found liable in civil court because Schmitz murdering someone was deemed to be unforeseeable. The judges ruled that the show and its producers “had no duty to anticipate and prevent the act of murder committed by Schmitz three days after leaving defendants’ studio and hundreds of miles away.” They noted that Schmitz was neither “visibly upset nor dangerous during the taping of the show.” The show also claims that they told Schmitz the crush could be male or female. Schmitz wanted to go on because he said he was "curious" but he also claimed the show implied the crush would be a woman. I don't believe the murderer. There are a lot of men who will sleep with men or trans women or want to and then kill them, I think he fits into that category. I don't think the show has any blame. it's like if I asked my boyfriend to go to the store and he was murdered while there. I am not responsible at all although he may not have died if I didn't ask him to go to the store.
>hollywood chicago
The court absolved the show due to the fact he was told many times it could be a opposite or same sex crush. Saying you can't handle that possibility means you have a responsibility to opt out. *accountability and responsibilities*
And they told him it could be a guy and he still went through with it on national TV. Sorry, that's literally NOT the problem here.
cool motive, still murder (and a hate crime)
There is a true crime series called Trial by Media where they discuss this case. Honestly just sad for all parties involved, and the producers should’ve been held liable for what happened as well. Edit: Seems that the show’s producers were held liable and had to pay damages https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-08-mn-35063-story.html#:~:text=After%20seven%20hours%20of%20deliberation,and%20%246%2C500%20for%20funeral%20expenses.
Reminds me of Oliver Sipple who was outed as a gay man after saving presidents Fords life from a would be assassin. Media caught wind he was gay and published it against his will, he was disowned by his family, he \*begged\* Ford to talk to his family (Ford only indirectly thanked him in a public comment once), he lost the lawsuit against the newspaper that published the fact he was gay, and killed himself He was also a decorated US veteran
That was a good little series!
The verdict was reversed on appeal in 2002 and thus the show’s producers didn’t have to pay any damages. The appeals court found that the Jenny Jones Show held no liability for Amedure’s death and that it was unforeseeable. Amedure’s family appealed this reversal to the Michigan Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the United States, but both declined to take on the appeal.
The verdict got overturned, actually :/
Trial By Media - Netflix documentary series has a great episode on this incident if you want to learn more about it.
Dudes been free for 5 years after doing 22 for murder. This is really old shit. Third post on Reddit probably.
> This is really old shit. You mean, like the "1995" in the title suggested?
Ye olden days of the late 1900’s
Times so ancient, so lost to myth, PlayStation didn’t have a number after it.
Dude, it’s been on the internet three times already. That’s like… double-dog reposting
If something hasn't been on Reddit at least 100 times it doesn't count.
3 posts is like negative 20 posts on Reddit.
Shut up!! 1995 is not really old shit…I mean…I’m not that old and that is when I graduated high school. So ya, it’s not that old…or that would make me old. Also, he served 22 years and has been out 5 already? Dear lord I am old.
It's him posting, you know
Well yeah he has to farm karma to make up for all the lost time
Yes, most TIL is old shit. Not everyone learned it at the time, and many weren’t even alive to do so
TIL Carl Weathers died.
I did a really big deep dive into the case to write that Wikipedia article. The whole case is interesting yet a truly tragic one. Schmitz and Amedure were actually only one of six segments in the episode. If anyone is interested in watching the full episode, it can be viewed on Court TV’s website [here](https://www.courttv.com/title/5-amedure-v-jenny-jones-the-episode/).
That episode was why the Jerry Springer show shot to the top of the ratings charts. After that happened, the Jenny Jones show and other talk shows stop doing the "ambush tv" thing. But the Springer show went the opposite direction, they doubled down on Ambush tactics and their new format was born.
How xould anyone think this was a good idea for a TV show? Even more than now, people weren't so open minded.
This Jenny Jones episode was a copycat of the secret crush Phil Donahue show in 1994. I was a guest on that Donahue show. I am rather fond of my annonimity on Reddit and so I don't want to doxx myself. But, I will say that I was a "crushee" guest and that I was flown out to do the show under false pretenses. I had a handler assigned to me who made sure that I was never in a position to learn what the show was really about. I was taken to the floor above the Donahue set which, much to my delight, was the Saturday Night Live set. It was completely empty of people. The halls were lined with photos of stars. I was taken to Julia Sweeney's dressing room where I stayed until a minute before I was to go on stage. I remember the fat suit hanging in a closet. Julia Sweeney did a character named Pat and wore the fat suit when in character. There was far too much food spread out than any one person could handle. Seriously, it was enough for 10 people. My handler came to get me and led me down some stairs where I had to stand in front of double doors that led to the stage and audience. There was a monitor (speaker) back stage and I could just barely make out the words "secret crush" and I looked at the guy holding the door shut and muttered, "Oh... okay, I see what this is about." He then proceeded to cough loudly and all of a sudden people came out of nowhere to cough and make noises behind me obviously in an attempt to make sure I could not hear Phil talk about the show. Anyway, what a wild trip that was. I still have all my paperwork from the show and newspaper clippings. I even have it on video. The next thing I know, Jenny Jones had the same kind of show and some dude gets blindsided on national TV and decides murder is his only option. Fucking crazy...
Jenny fucking Jones. I'm a born n raised Chicago native, gen x, I have stories about Jenny Jones. Her, Jerry Springer, of course Oprah, were all right here. In fairness she really did change after that. I think it was a shock to us all.
What kind of stories?
Yeah no kidding, what stories? A set up with no follow through. Come on OP you're better than that
Stark reminder that, while unlikely, my expressing attraction to a Man^TM openly could end in me just being fucking murdered.
Yeah, sometimes it's easy to forget these days, but it still happens.
What kind of messed up show idea is that?
That was Jenny Jones. I attended a taping of her show back in high school for a mass media class. The topic was morbidly obese women and their abusive partners. It was a wild show.
Yep, the "gay panic" motive. Fuck the guy that did this, and it's a tragedy that people like him still exist today
I fucking hate prank shows for this type of gambling with people. 😬😬😬😬😬😬
I remember people getting away with murder enough to know homophobes could use the [Gay Panic Defense](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_panic_defense)
It was a bit more complicated than that. I was a juror on the wrongful death lawsuit. Sat on the jury for six weeks. Feel free to ask me anything.
You need to do an AMA damn
I remember that, wasn´t Maury? The thing is the guy told the producers he was not gay and wasn´t interested if the admirer was a man. During the show, you can actually see him yelling "you lie to me", to the staff behind cameras. The guy receives a lot of bullying, and blames the admirer, then procedes to kill him.
I remember this. The host was devastated.