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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Hoaxsters Get Best Of TV Misery Monger

Eric Zorn Chicago Tribune

The special part - the most uplifting, educational and entertaining part - was not the tears, the human suffering or the embarrassment. While these elements were satisfying indeed, they were standard for a daytime TV talk show.

No. The special part - the very best part - was watching as an apparently unsuspecting woman was shocked and degraded in front of a national viewing audience.

The program was Tuesday’s syndicated “Jerry Springer,” and the theme was “Honey, have I got a secret for you.” The show’s producers had lured unsuspecting victims of romantic infidelity to the Chicago studio for the January taping - reportedly by saying the show concerned how to save marriages - then rolled the cameras as their mates confessed.

I flipped accidentally onto the program (no! really!) just as John, a scruffy, twitchy man seated alone, was telling the studio audience that he’d cheated on his wife of 12 years with the teen-age baby-sitter of their two children, now 4 and 9 years old.

“Let’s bring out your wife, Shannon!” said host Jerry Springer. A somber woman who had been secreted in a soundproof room came out and took a seat next to her husband, who shortly thereafter blurted out his sordid admission.

The audience hooted. Shannon’s hand went to her mouth. She began to shake and weep. “I don’t even know what to say to you,” she stammered to John, dabbing her eyes.

“Did you have any inkling about what he was doing with the baby-sitter?” asked Springer, moments later.

The woman, still crying softly, looked shattered. “I don’t even understand where this is coming from. … Oh, Jesus, no!”

“Well she’s here …,” said Springer - “Oh my God,” said Shannon - “… and her name is Cindy,” Springer concluded.

Shannon twisted as though slapped, and moaned.

After a commercial break, Cindy flounced out and not only revealed the details of John’s fling with her, but also said that he continues to telephone her and profess his love.

The wife appeared stunned, confused. The only thing better would have been if the kids had come out to show their horrified reactions. “I don’t even know what to say to these people,” she said.

What she might have said, however, was “Jerry, have we got a secret for you.” And that secret would have been that her name was not Shannon but Suzanne Muir, and that her “husband” was Johnny Gardhouse, a fellow member of the Toronto-based comedy troupe Blockheads. The baby-sitter was actually Toronto stand-up comic Mimi Holmes.

The ruse continued, however, and Springer kept picking at the bogus wound. The couple then left the set during a commercial break, feigning agony. Springer showed footage of them walking away down a hallway. He said, “This was very hard, obviously. … There is no purpose in keeping them on the show anymore.”

There was, of course, a purpose in having them on in the first place; much was to be gained and enjoyed from watching a woman’s life fall apart before our eyes. As ever, Springer explained why during his solemn and redeeming “final thought,” in which he noted that bad news hurts, but honesty pays.

And if he had to use deception and the humiliation that resulted to illustrate his point, well, hey, it’s all just entertainment, as he often says.

And yet the staff at “Springer” was not entertained to hear that the tables had been turned and they’d been lied to and exploited themselves for amusement purposes. News of the hoax was published in the Toronto Star on Wednesday, and Springer’s spokeswoman Laurie Fried said the program has decided to sue the hoaxsters for violating the terms of their signed, pre-show release. That release mandates truthfulness (from the guests).

Jerry Springer does not want to cheat his audience with fake pain! The emotional wreckage must be real!

“If I had really been this woman,” observed Suzanne “Shannon” Muir in the Toronto Star, “they would have ruined my life.”

What a letdown it is to learn that they didn’t.