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<text id=91TT2306>
<title>
Oct. 14, 1991: Running Off at the Mouth
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
Oct. 14, 1991 Jodie Foster:A Director Is Born
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
TELEVISION, Page 79
Running Off at the Mouth
</hdr><body>
<p>Mothers-in-law from hell and other lunacies rule the proliferating
talk shows
</p>
<p>By Richard Zoglin--With reporting by William Tynan/New York
</p>
<p> Teri Copley, who once played a blond airhead on the
sitcom We Got It Made, isn't exactly a high-profile Hollywood
celebrity these days. Still, she had plenty to say on a recent
segment of the Maury Povich Show. Povich's subject was the
dumb-blond stereotype. Teri was against it. "I get the feeling,"
said Maury, pondering one of her more heartfelt comments, "that
you're into self-awareness big time."
</p>
<p> Self-awareness is television's big-time plague. Name the
social issue, front-page crime or family trauma, and somebody
is thrashing it out on a TV talk show. A listing of typical
topics is a surrealistic blur of human misery, sideshow
voyeurism and sheer lunacy: illegitimate kids who found their
natural parents but wish they hadn't; transplant recipients who
claim to have adopted the personalities of their donors; women
who have been raped by the same man more than once; guys who
like overweight gals; mothers-in-law from hell; doctors with
AIDS; crack addicts with babies; celebrities with books. Next
Donahue, next Donahue, next Donahue...
</p>
<p> The glut has never been so thick. Povich, former host of
A Current Affair, is just one of half a dozen newcomers elbowing
their way into a field already crowded with such long-distance
runners-off-at-the-mouth as Phil Donahue, Oprah Winfrey, Geraldo
Rivera, Sally Jessy Raphael, Joan Rivers and the irrepressible
Regis & Kathie Lee. Stand-up comic Jenny Jones' new daytime show
started off with a bigger initial lineup of stations than any
syndicated talk show in history. Montel Williams, a former
naval-intelligence officer and motivational speaker, emcees an
issue-oriented program currently being test-marketed in 15
cities. Veteran game-show host Chuck Woolery chats with
Hollywood celebrities on another new syndicated show, while
Entertainment Tonight's John Tesh does the same on NBC's One on
One. Ron Reagan, son of the former President, gets weightier in
late-night, conducting sober-minded discussions of topics like
gay rights and the future of the Democratic Party.
</p>
<p> Early ratings for the newcomers are only mediocre, and
some of these shows will undoubtedly spin into oblivion.
(Reagan's show is the first one reported to be in trouble.) But
potential successors are already cranking up. Dennis Miller, the
former Saturday Night Live wiseacre, will have a late-night
forum starting in January, and Academy Award-winner Whoopi
Goldberg is set to star in her own talk show next fall.
</p>
<p> Who can tell one from another? Well, the people who
produce and star in these shows at least give it a good try.
"Ours is a real-people, real-stories show," says Jim Paratore,
senior vice president of Tele pictures, which co-produces Jenny
Jones. "But there's more of a fun attitude than a newsy or
confrontational one." Povich boasts that "my strength is
storytelling. I like stories with twists and turns, and I like
to be on the edge of my seat." Woolery is more laid back. Says
executive producer Eric Lieber: "We try to make the show as
guest friendly as possible."
</p>
<p> Woolery's tack is the exception. Most of the current spate
of talk shows are children of Phil Donahue, who revolutionized
the genre more than two decades ago. Donahue, whose syndicated
show went national in 1970, took the host off the stage and
planted him in the studio audience. He shifted the conversation
away from the bland, celebrity-dominated fluff trade marked by
such pioneers as Merv Griffin and focused on topical issues and
real-people problems. With the audience chiming in, Donahue was
the talk show as group therapy.
</p>
<p> The Donahue revolution brought heft, relevance and emotion
to a genre that had become a show-biz confection. But it also
sounded the opening fanfare for what has since become a Roman
circus. Stories of individual pain and grief are now hot-button
issues. Conversation is replaced by political cant and
psychological bromides. No personal story is too outlandish for
nationwide consumption, no private emotion safe from public
exploitation. Geraldo serves up tear-filled family reunions like
candy from a Pez dispenser. Winfrey last week brought on a
string of heartbroken lovers who pleaded with their ex-mates to
give them one more chance. ("Should she give him the date,
audience?" prompted Oprah after one sob story.)
</p>
<p> Finding a spot of fresh sod on this well-trampled ground
is getting harder and harder. Povich, whose satyrlike grin
seems to grow in direct proportion to the tackiness of his
subject matter, has run quickly through the A list of tabloid
stories and is ransacking the seedy back pages. Among his recent
guests: women who have had disfiguring accidents, the winner of
a husband-calling contest, and a pair of middle-aged twins who
are married to, and sleep together with, the same woman. "When
one is in bed with Georgia, does the other feel it?" asked the
leering Povich.
</p>
<p> Jenny Jones, best known for her feminist, no-men-allowed
stand-up comedy act, is trying to stake out her own territory
by straddling the old and the new. She wades energetically into
the studio audience like Oprah or Sally Jessy (the audience can
even vote on questions like "Are you unhappy with the size and
shape of your breasts?"). Giggly and farm fresh, however, she
seems more like a '90s reincarnation of Dinah Shore. Her homey,
lightweight segments range from cooking tips and dating advice
to an interview with a female boxing champ; for that one, Jenny
dressed up in boxing togs and took a turn at the speed bag.
</p>
<p> The established shows too have been refining their niches.
The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated daytime talk fest,
seems to get first call on Hollywood celebrities pushing new
movies and tales of personal woe (Robin Williams, Suzanne
Somers). Rivers stresses Hollywood glitz and is experimenting
with gossip segments at the start of each show. Geraldo pushes
his aggressive melodramatics more desperately than ever. For a
recent segment on "the dark side of modeling," three women were
sent undercover to answer a newspaper ad for female models. The
spies brought back a "shocking" videotape showing the
photographer asking--to nobody's surprise--if they wanted
to pose in the nude. Confronted by Geraldo on the program, the
photographer readily admitted the charge. The host's outrage was
undiminished.
</p>
<p> No show is more shrill than Donahue. Phil still scores his
coups (he had the first TV interview with Wanda Holloway,
convicted of plotting the murder of her daughter's cheerleading
rival) and does his homework. But his hyperventilating style has
reached the point of self-parody, and his exploitative gimmicks
are growing increasingly shameless. No one but Donahue could
kill an hour debating whether beauty contests in bars are
demeaning to women or just good clean fun--or manage to keep
a straight face while trotting out, after every commercial
break, a different trio of scantily clad women to demonstrate
these contests.
</p>
<p> The show, of course, had a politically correct twist. The
final group of parading lovelies were--what else?--topless
men. Come back, Merv. All is forgiven.
</p>
</body></article>
</text>