We’ve all watched it — the paternity tests, the strange people, the chairs being thrown around as much as the profanity. Maury and The Jerry Springer Show are just as much part of American culture these days as anything else. But most people live their lives never seeing how this show works, if the fights are real, or if the baby daddies are actually the babies’ daddies.
The great thing is, I do.
My hometown is a tiny city in Connecticut called Stamford. When I tell people from New Jersey about it, their first question is, “Is it anywhere near New Haven?” No, Stamford is about and hour and fifteen minutes away from New Haven. Not much goes on there. You can see a movie, there’s a little mall, and you can go to about one of 800 Starbucks, but that’s about it.
But being 30 minutes by train from New York City, a lot of media tends to go on around here. Ever seen The Stepford Wives? Reservation Road? College Road Trip? They were all filmed here, not to mention the many famous people that live in my city. On any given day I can see Gene Wilder shopping, Cindi Lauper in aerobics class or Rihanna and A-Rod at the beach.
But Stamford’s most famous contribution to the media world: We host The Jerry Spinger Show, Maury and Deal or No Deal. Before we all left for school, I got to see first-hand how they taped Maury and check if it’s actually legit.
It is.
You see, I didn’t just go to any old paternity test show. I got to see what everyone turns on Maury to watch: the “Back-to-School Is She or Isn’t She a Man” episode.
My journey started off in a cramped grey room with about 500 people and a soda machine. For two hours we sat there and watched the same promo reel over and over. Everyone had to be thinking the same thing; “I’m sure Maury is going to pop out of this room any second now.”
Sadly, it never happened.
After two hours of waiting, they finally let us in. The studio was huge, with steel chairs and bright colors. There was no reserved seating, so you sit wherever they put you. I went with four girls; we were last in line, and were all separated from each other. I was now going to be on national TV looking like a loner.
I immediately adopted the fat man sitting next to me as my father, that way I didn’t look so pathetic. To make the situation worse, I looked down at my only to see I was wearing two very different flip-flops. Just as I wanted to walk out in shame, Maury came out.
“Maury’s here,” I thought. “He’ll fix this nasty little situation. He’ll send someone out to buy me new shoes. Expensive ones! Jimmy Choos!”
Not so.
That Maury is such a tease. He came out for five seconds, turned around and walked right back behind the stage. This went on for about 20 minutes.
Five minuets before the show started, the stage manager came out to scream “Alright, everyone, when the guests come out I need you to scream! And when they say funny things I need you to laugh hard!”
I thought, “No, you 5-foot 380-pound stage manager, I will not fake emotion. If I don’t think something is funny, you will not get a reaction out of me.”
The show started —big lights, even bigger screams. The drag queens came out with Maury, and there were even bigger screams. These were not synthetic screams, either. These people really wanted to see Maury. They seriously thought he was God’s gift to trashy television.
The show ran smoothly for about 30 seconds, then a commercial — no, let me rephrase that — a 20-minute break. This happened about five times throughout the show.
As I watched from the audience, I saw that the crowd was getting really into this — and so was I. The stage manager’s reverse-psychology had worked.
When they shined the camera on each person, they screamed and cheered and yelled, especially when they announced whether Cookie, Fantasy, and all the other guests were men or women. Needless to say, all my guesses were wrong. I’m really bad at that.
When we finally got out of the show (about four hours later), they had pizza waiting for us outside. Let me tell you: When you offer people free pizza, they turn from decent human beings to savage beasts.
A few months ago the show aired. I was actually on it a lot, more than all my friends sitting in their respective lonely spots with their adopted relatives. This was probably because I was sitting third row, center. I was proud that I didn’t look like a complete loser — then I saw my shoes.
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