NEW YORK — Long before the Real Housewives, the Kardashians, or the Nader sisters, reality ruled every afternoon.
And now, the new docuseries “Dirty Talk: When Daytime Talk Shows Ruled TV” takes us behind the scenes of some of the most sensational shows that shaped pop culture.
The series features candid, never-before-told stories from hosts, producers, and insiders who dominated the airwaves in the ’90s and early 2000s,including Maury Povich.
Joelle Garguilo: “This is such a treat. First of all, I watched you for years and years!”
It’s like a television time capsule, capturing an era that will never be replicated.
Maury Povich: “All these shows triggered the Kardashians, Jersey Shore, all of those shows now were triggered by what we did in the ’90s and early 2000s. It was a dog-eat-dog world, pushing the envelope. I mean, one person would get a good rating, so we had to come back and do something
even riskier. That’s the way it was. There were 20 daytime talk shows between maybe the mid-’80s to the 2000s. And there were 50 others that failed.”
Joelle Garguilo: “What did a great day on the morning show look like?”
Maury Povich: “More than anything else, if you could make a difference. When I went into the paternity tests and the lie detector tests and the out-of-control teenagers, if I could find a way when this guy was denying being the father of this child, if I could get that fellow into this child’s life, I know that child had a better chance. I feel like that’s the part that people didn’t really see all the time, you know?”
Joelle Garguilo: “What do you want everyone to know about ‘Dirty Talk?'”
Maury Povich: “It’s a moment in time, well, more than a moment. It was about a decade and a half where it set the stage for everything that everybody watches now. It was a time when daytime talk shows ruled TV.”
The new three-part docuseries premieres Wednesday, Jan. 14 (9:02-10:02 p.m. EST), on ABC and streams next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
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