The Best Talk Show Ever...

Homage to Richard Bey

No discussion of Trashy Talk Shows is complete without Richard Bey. Richard Bey may not be a name or a face familiar to those outside of the New York Metro area.

Channel 9 (WWOR), prior to sinking to the level of UPN, used to have some unique, allbeit trashy, content. One has to wonder if this had something to do with the fact that it was a New York station located in New Jersey.

In any case, WWOR created TV programs that pushed the envelope of good taste and FCC regulations. These programs, though, had an undeniable appeal. (The original Howard Stern show, for instance, also aired on WWOR. This show, unlike the current E! incarnation, captured the true essence of Stern.)

Howard aside, the Richard Bey Show was WWOR's greatest creation. It featured white trash love triangles, trailer park antics, and elderly strippers years before Springer was even on TV.

Geraldo may have been the first to have dysfunctional guests. Richard Bey was to the first to publicly humiliate them in a whimsical manner. He quite literally put the fun into dysfunctional.

The Mother of All Talk Shows

Richard Bey was hammered by the critics and media elite for lowering the standard of Trash TV. So it is not without irony that several years after the show's incarnation, every other talk show follows the format he pioneered.

The yelling, the screaming, the fighting, and audience participation are all Richard Bey's innovations. Sorry Jerry!

Additionally, the Richard Bey Show was the first to use sound effects to "enhance" the viewing experience. For instance, when someone said something dumb like "Of course it's mine: I stole it" a voice over said "Duh" complete with reverb and echo.

Jenny Jones tried this for a while, but she didn't have the comic sense of timing to pull it off.

The Richard Bey Show also had "game show-themed" episodes. Mostly they were spoofs of game shows that needed to be spoofed. (ie. The Newly Wed Game aka "Make a fool of youself for cash and prizes")

Thankfully, no one else has tried to duplicate this. If Jenny couldn't handle the sound effects thing, she could most definitely not tackle a spoofed game show.

Audience Participation

The smart talk sow host knows that the audience is as much part of the show as the freaky guests. Richard Bey pioneered the extreme level of audience participation.

Aside from the Right Said Fred song "I'm Too Sexy," which seemed to play in the background of almost every episode, the audience particpations aspect of the show was the most innovative. This was the first show to make the audience as much of the show as the demented and marginally psychotic guests. It's a technique that's been duplicated time and again, from Montell to Sally Jessie Raphael.

The best part of the Richard Bey show was that he didn't take the show seriously at all. He never passed up an opportunity to poke fun at himself, the guests, the audience, or pop culture itself. He didn't bore us or insult our intelligence by claiming that the show was a serious endeavor the way Springer, Jenny, and Ricki do.

Although cancelled, the Richard Bey Show lives on in cyberspace. Well, sort of.

He's inspired the Richard Bey Award, which is awarded to people which "have no other purpose than to lower our standards."

Their idea, not ours. Trash TV's dirty little secret is that we lower our own standards. If you're drawn to trash TV, there's a little bit trash inside of you waiting to get out and start a fight on Springer.

Satire Gone Out of Control

Ultimately, the Richard Bey Show was created to show America what was wrong with America's media-obsessed pop-culture. That strategy backfired, however, as the show became as popular as it did. Most people couldn't look beyond the freaky guests to see the satire. In the end the joke was on us, the show was a hit for all the reasons it should not have been.

So, feel free to get in touch with your wounded inner redneck. Just don't let Jerry's guards beat you up too badly.

And the show lives on in various fan sites such as TVTalkShows.com, where these excellent pictures came from.