Running Off at the Mouth

By Richard Zoglin

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."

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 . . .

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.

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.

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 Telepictures, 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."

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 trademarked 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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: NO CREDIT

CAPTION: Book your own talk show

With reporting by William Tynan/New York