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Apr 11, 2024 · Before the advent of reality television as we know it today, early pioneers dabbled in shocking content, albeit in subtler forms. Shows like Allen Funt’s “Candid Camera,” which debuted in the 1940s, laid the foundation for capturing genuine human reactions in contrived scenarios.
- Phil Donahue
- Sally Jessy Raphael
- Jenny Jones
- Maury Povich
- Chuck Barris
- Geraldo Rivera
- Les Crane
- Joe Pyne
- Morton Downey Jr.
- Jerry Springer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r88G8aR73gQ After graduating from Notre Dame in 1957, Phil Donahue went to work at a radio station in Cleveland. In 1963, he started one of the first radio talk shows, and in 1967 tried his hand at television with The Phil Donahue Show (later shortened to Donahue). His talk show format, which was targeted at “women w...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9kVHoJL6aU After getting her degree in broadcasting from Columbia, Raphael (whose real name is Sally Lowenthal), went to work in Puerto Rico as a correspondent. After that, she came back to the United States to work in broadcasting. Over the course of three years, she was fired 18 times and she, her three children, ...
In 1991, when The Jenny Jones Show went on the air, the daytime talk show circuit was pretty crowded. The host, Jenny Jones, was a comedian who became famous for her Girl’s Night Out comedy act that banned men from coming in. When the show started, Jones explained that it would be“part pajama party, part group therapy, part Oprah.” But, like many s...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw57CRiTxzw After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in television journalism, Maury Povich started working as a reporter and newscaster in Washington, DC. In 1986, he became the host of a new tabloid news show, A Current Affair. Then in 1991, Povich got his first chance at hosting his own t...
Chuck Barris got his start in television in 1960 as the assistant to American Bandstand host Dick Clark. In 1965, Barris borrowed $20,000 from his stepfather and produced a pilot for his show The Dating Game. The game show involved a bachelor or bachelorette, who would ask three eligible single people behind a wall a series of question. The contest...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0yN0dGNfwk Brooklyn native Geraldo Rivera got a law degree in 1969, but instead of entering the legal profession, he became a TV news reporter for New York’s WABC-TV. His breakout moment was in 1972, when he did an exposé on abuse against mentally disabled children at the Willowbrook School on Staten Island. From th...
After graduating from Tulane University and serving in the Air Force, Les Crane started off his career in broadcasting in the early 1960s as one of the first “shock jocks” on the radio. While tame by today’s standards, Crane would take calls from all over the West Coast of the United States and had no problem insulting and dismissing certain caller...
Joe Pyne served in World War II, and an injury led to part of his leg being amputated. In 1954, he got his start in television and by 1964, his television show was syndicated in 84 cities. On top of that, his hour long radio show was syndicated in 450 cities. On his show, Pyne would chain smoke behind a news desk, not unlike Edward R. Murrow, but i...
In the fall of 1987, a new talk show aired on a local TV station in Secaucus, New Jersey. The show was similar to what Sally Jessy Raphael and Phil Donahue were doing, but the host was a combination of Les Crane and Joe Pyne. That man was 55-year-old Morton Downey Jr.: a chain smoking right winger who screamed, swore, and even got physical with his...
We’ve hinted at him through the whole list, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Jerry Springer is number one. The man is synonymous with trash television, and he seemingly embraces being king of rock bottom. Born on February 13, 1944, to parents who escaped the Holocaust, Springer came to the United States when he was five-years-old. By 1...
Feb 1, 2024 · Review TVLine’s list of the most shocking live TV moments, presented in chronological order, and press PLAY to relive them, then hit the comments to share which ones had your jaw on the floor.
Founded in 2012 by local artiste Kelvin Soon, SHOCK Entertainment works with renowned artistes from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia to provide entertainment needs tailored for a wide range of audiences.
- EW Staff
- 20 min
- David Tennant returns to Doctor Who. It is always a big episode of Doctor Who when one actor's version of the titular time traveler "regenerates" into another.
- The Dua Lipa dance break, Resident Evil. The most brow-raising, popcorn-spilling moment of the Netflix Resident Evil series wasn't the gargantuan zombie caterpillar or the Lickers made real, it wasn't the kaiju crocodile or all the Wesker clones.
- Larys Strong's foot fetish, House of the Dragon. Just like its predecessor, Game of Thrones, prequel series House of the Dragon quickly proved to audiences that they were going to see things that other fantasy series weren't going to touch even with medical gloves and hand sanitizer.
- Judy dies, Dead to Me. A death in a series about grief and loss is, by all accounts, not very shocking, but Judy's (Linda Cardellini) terminal cancer diagnosis and death in the Dead to Me series finale had the effect of a hit-and-run.
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