TVSquad

It's amazing how many bad talk shows there are on the air. I'm not talking about The Late Show with David Letterman or Late Night with Conan O'Brien or Jimmy Kimmel Live. Those are good shows, and if you clicked on this list expecting to find any of them, you're going to be disappointed. The shows I picked are the talk shows that deal in exploitation, human degradation, and feature terrible, terrible people. In short, daytime talk shows!

Well, OK, I did include one late night talk show, but you'll have to click after the jump to see which one it is.

1. Maury (syndicated). Really, was there any question that this would be number one? It shouldn't even be called Maury anymore, they should just go ahead and call it Paternity Tests!, since that is what it's most known for. Doesn't Povich have enough money? Can't he do something else in his life besides this show? What does Connie think of this? Who knows, considering she co-hosted one of the worst shows from a few years ago. If aliens watch our TV broadcasts and happen upon this show every single morning, we're all doomed.



2. Jerry Springer (syndicated). I've said this before, but I don't even think that all of the people you see on this show are even real. I think they're actors, or at the very least have been heavily coached and prodded on how to act (or have seen the show and act this way on purpose). Not only do I not understand why anyone would want to be on this despicable show (and this does indeed go from the "worst" to the "despicable" category), I don't understand why anyone would want to be in the studio audience. But that would be another post, "Worst TV Show Audiences."

Note that the clip below is from Season 14, Episode 915. Let me repeat: season 14, episode 915. Mother of God.



3. Dr. Phil (syndicated). In some ways, this might be the worst of the lot, because it's the daytime talk show with some credibility: it's produced by Oprah Winfrey, the show is mainstream, and Dr. Phil is a bestselling author. That's what makes it so dangerous. I know some very reasonable, nice, intelligent people who just love his show, and I'm sad to say that they just don't get it. This guy is sleazy, exploitative, and often just plain wrong, and it's all put in a nice, shiny, approved-by-Oprah "I'm only trying to help" package. Luckily, his ratings are down, but don't kid yourself, this show is going to be here for a very long time.

I was going to include a clip from the prime time show where he called a 13 year-old kid a potential killer, but I won't. Let's just link to posts where he pseudo-apologizes for annoying Britney Spears, gets into legal trouble for his weight-loss plan, and does a ratings stunt show with Pat O'Brien.



4. Nancy Grace (CNN Headline News). Much like Dr. Phil, just a look at this woman and the first sound of her voice when you tune into her show is enough to shift even the most cast iron of stomachs into flip-flops. Grace is judge, jury, executioner, press agent, and prosecutor, no matter what the case is. All done with an unappealing, charmless snarl.

I'll spare you any actual footage from her show. Instead, Amy Poehler!



5. The Tyra Banks Show (syndicated). While I admit that I'm not the demographic for this show (a demographic that I'm guessing is 20-something women who either have weight issues or dating problems), this is one sorry show. It's one of those talk shows where you just wonder, why are these people coming on this show? They either look arrogant, completely pathetic, or really lost. And then there are the shows where Tyra reveals some secret about herself that you really wish she'd have kept to herself. Enjoy the clip below.



6. Last Call with Carson Daly (NBC). If we were doing a list of non-freak show talk shows, Last Call with Carson Daly would be in the number one slot. It's one of the slightest talk shows in the history of television: it isn't funny, the guests are usually the ones that barely make it on the couches of the other late night hosts, and the whole thing is over in a half hour. If there's one great decision that NBC has made in the past couple of years, it's giving the 12:35 am slot to Jimmy Fallon and not Daly.

(A clip would be embedded here is there was ever anything even remotely interesting on Last Call with Carson Daly.)