| Creator: | Richard Bey |
| Presenter: | Richard Bey |
| Company: | All American Television (1995–1996) Chris-Craft Television (1992 - 1996) UPN (1995 - 1996) |
| Country: | United States |
| Runtime: | 60 minutes |
| Network: | WWOR (1992–1995) Syndication (1995–1996) |
The Richard Bey Show is a syndicated American talk show hosted by Richard Bey which aired from September 28, 1992[1] (although the show originally started off as a combination of People are Talking [1982 - 1992], of which Bey was a host, and 9 Broadcast Plaza [1987 - 1992], which Bey hosted in 1989, after Matt Lauer) to December 27, 1996.[2] [3] The program was originally produced from and aired on WWOR, from 1992 to late 1996. It was nationally syndicated by All American Television from January 2, 1995 to December 27, 1996 (almost exclusively on UPN stations, due to Chris-Craft Television being the show's distributor). The talk show was executive produced by Bob Woodruff and David Sittenfeld.[4] [5] The show was one of many shows that helped pioneer trash TV, with hard R-rated content such as fights, graphic language, graphic sexual content, drug references, etc..
The show was taped at 9 Broadcast Plaza, which is the WWOR facility, in Secaucus, for which the show's original name came from, a major complex that held every WWOR show as well as WWOR news (pre-, during and post-UPN). The show's set evolved throughout the show's run years. As 9BP (9 Broadcast Plaza) the show had a more beige color. The show's logo was a homage to the change of meanings for pyramids at the time, as it became a symbol of cyborg and cybernetic research. It was a pyramid with the show's title in Futura Condensed Extra Bold. As WWOR's official renaming of the show to The Richard Bey Show approached, the show's set got more colorful. When the renaming happened, the stage looked like a metal concert stage, as shown in one episode where Bey had a big butt contest set to some rock songs. Eventually the set became a mix of Lavender and pink for the rest of the show's run.
The series frequently and deliberately played up the humorous aspects of the tabloid talk show format, bordering on a full-out variety show with its unusual features. It featured such competitive events as the "Miss Big Butt" contest, the "Mr. Puniverse" contest, "Country Drag Queens versus City Drag Queens", "Dysfunctional Family Feud" and "Blacks who think O.J. is guilty vs. Whites who think he is innocent." Young women who were guests on the show were sometimes placed in a spoof of The Dating Game in which the guest interviewed three hidden "bachelors", all of whom were an obvious mismatch for the "bachelorette", e.g., a drag queen or a dwarf. The show also became a more seriously hardened talk show with nasty fights, sexual content, graphic language (and graphic humor) as time progressed.
Bey's show made frequent use of sound effects like "uh-duh" for an insane response, "I've been framed" for a guest proclaiming innocence and "You're busted!" for one accused of wrongdoing. Bey would often exclaim "Where do they find these people?!" in the presence of unbelievable guests or audience members. During some shows, there would be a secret word. If an audience member used it in a comment, he would receive $100, a homage to a prior talk and game show, You Bet Your Life. A joking suggestion was then made on how to spend it: "Lobster dinner tonight!"
The show was a precursor to reality television, featuring a variety of games incorporating guests' stories, most notoriously "The Wheel of Torture", in which a guest would be strapped to a spinning wheel while a spouse or lover poured slime on them as punishment for a misdeed.
Richard would frequently make fun of Jerry Springer on his show, as when he lost his contact lenses and was forced to wear eyeglasses, remarking, "Don't worry, you're not watching Jerry Springer" and showing Jerry in his "Bad Neighbors" segment, a reference to Springer's show being the lead-in or lead-out to Bey on many stations in the early-to-mid-1990s. Springer defended himself in 2019 by noting that during the run of his own show, he "wasn't in fights involving Jell-O."[6] He also made light of Ricki Lake, Rosie O'Donnell, Phil Donahue, and Oprah Winfrey's shows.
Bey claimed his TV show was canceled in December 1996 not due to ratings, but as a direct result of doing a program the previous day with Gennifer Flowers, discussing her sexual relationship with then-President Bill Clinton.[7] [8] However, in a report by the New York Daily News from approximately a month before the show was cancelled outright, Bey had been losing significant ground in the ratings and his show had already been dropped by nineteen of the stations that were airing it. Despite what the Daily News allegedly said, the show on many occasions (before and during national syndication and due to the WWOR Superstation package [for before and even during national syndication] being a big hit), it beat The Oprah Winfrey Show, making WWOR the top-rated station many times.[9]