Maury Povich

Hahahahahaha!

Well... hahahahaha!

If you wanna be, you can always be!

Well, you know, there are times...when you have to learn...the technique of "duck and cover."

But I can read my guests pretty well. And fortunately, believe it or not, even though there's a lot of emotion, somehow they seem to respect me, and they do a lot of things, EXCEPT attack me.

Well, it's interesting, because in the beginning, we set up the story where this woman is searching for the father of her child, and that promotes sympathy on the part of the audience. However, as the story unfolds - and then of course the man comes out, because we hear the woman's story - and the man is defiant - and then what happens is, as the story unfolds with the guy, let's say the woman messed around with other people, the feelings change among the audience. The success of the show, I think, is because we have back & forth emotion during the storytelling. And the key is that we come to a climax where the audience individually has made a decision as to whether he's the father or not. And in a significant amount of the cases, it goes the other way. And so that's why in the end, sometimes the women don't get the sympathy. They get the scorn.

The key is that we can use this kind of dramatic story in a 12 minute segment. And everyone knows the answer.

It's happened twice.

A woman accused a guy of being the father of her twins. And when I opened the envelope - and I don't know the answers before anybody else does - he was the father of one of the twins, but not the other.

And they were fraternal twins. And science says that's a million-to-one shot, that there could be two fathers of twins. And it's happened twice.

So the million-to-one shot has come in twice.

And that's the most surprised I ever was.

So somebody's gonna put me on a cave wall? I might be a spirit animal? I think that's great. Wow.

I think the answer to the last question really answers that one, where I was shocked the most. But I will say that the smartest thing I ever did - and sometimes it's just by pure luck - when I first had the paternity test story, and the producer was briefing me before the story, the first one ever ever did - and so the first time I was briefed, the producer gave me the outline of the story, and I read it, and then she said "here's the result of the test, here's the answer" and I said "I don't want the answer. I don't want to know anything more than what my guest knows, or my live audience, or my television audience. Because I would ask questions differently if I knew the result. And I want to be as surprised as anyone."

Okay.

D was a terrific part of the show for many years. He was great with those kids, those out of control kids that we used to have on. I think that what happened was he moved into a different direction. He wanted his own show, so he pursued that on his own.

smiles

Well, I don't know. I think my producers just came to me with the idea. I think when we first started the show, we were not as...edgy? As the show has become, in terms of our themes. And the paternity shows have proved so popular, because you have all this drama, and it's all wrapped up, with a conclusion, in 12 minutes. And I think we just tried it blindly to see how it would go, and it's been a huge success.

The highest number? We've had one person that's been well in the teens. She's been back something like 14 times. And I don't think she's ever found the father of at least one of her children.

Wow.

Can you please be the official historian of the Maury Show?

Hahahahahaha!

Well, it's interesting. I've always thought there are certain states that have been popular in terms of our guests. And I would say - first of all - NYC, because we tape in the New York area. So that's been a very popular place for our guests.

Atlanta, Chicago... Texas... California...Florida, definitely Florida... but I would not say that, you know, it's an urban draw. Because many of our guests come from small towns. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard "We live in a small town, and everybody thinks she's running around with everybody in the town!" or "Everybody thinks he's cheating on me in our small town!"

So that's why when people say "Where do you get your guests?" and I say "This show is made in AMERICA!"

We get them from everywhere.

Well, the stories that really get to me are the ones in which I have a 15 year old girl who's trying to accuse a 15 year old boy of being the father of her child. I mean, the teenage pregnancies, and the teenage kids, who have to deal with babies is the most disturbing part of the show. And we have been very involved in the prevention of teenage pregnancy, because of showing what it can lead to. And I'm happy, in terms of our involvement with the prevention of pregnancy people, but at the same time, it's very distressing to me to have these kids on the show.

I think the number one factor is - young boys are stupid, if they get in that situation, and don't have protection. For girls, I think one of the main reasons they search for getting pregnant and having a child is they're looking for unconditional love, that they're not getting at home, they have problems with their parents, they think that the only thing that will love them unconditionally is a baby.

And that's the worst possible thought. Because what we try to show is that your whole life will change for the worse.

HAHAHHAHA!

Well, I'll tell ya - it could apply to the guests on my show. It's okay to argue, and it's okay to have separate feelings from each other, in terms of subject matter, and argue, and things like that. But you've GOT to make up before the head hits the pillow at night.

And also, I've learned (unfortunately a lot of my guests haven't with the lie detector show) you've got to give your significant other a long leash, and have a lot of trust in them, so they can remain independent and you are a couple at the same time.

All of it is real. There's not a moment that is not real. There's not a moment that is scripted. I could make a case that we were maybe one of the first reality shows that came onto the scene. The show never started out this way. We tackled a lot of different subject matter that was in the news. We didn't become a show of society behavior for a long time. And once the lie detectors, and the DNA, kicked in, that's the road we took.

Well, I'm very fortunate because all I have is my own instincts to rely on.

And people who know about the history of talk say that since I started my talk show in...whew, 1991... there are 80 talk shows in the graveyard. And we have more young viewers than any talk show in the country. And I think that I just have relied on my storytelling instincts, the fact that I was in news for a long time, the fact that I always wanted to do more about stories than just a minute and thirty seconds on the news. I wanted to delve into stories to find a true meaning. So that's what we do. And I know that there's a whole aspect of entertainment in the show, so that's well and good, but these are serious subjects, and the most gratification that I get is that my guests and viewers have somehow found a way to trust me.

And I don't know how I've earned that trust. But I just think... I have the human instincts that everyone has.

I'm thinking about this.

Uh... ponders

I'm thinking.

Uh...

This could be above my pay grade.

I don't know how you would tell the difference. And I would love to be able to call in a geneticist. Because... I'd be very confused.

All I can tell you is... don't do it! HAHAHA!

I want to tell you - we would get a prime time, nighttime special for that. If it EVER happened.

Hmm.

Well. I think maybe the best thing anybody gave me was when I dressed up on Halloween as Flavor Flav, and they put a clock around my neck.

HAHAHAHAHA!

Well, as long as you don't tell any of my doctors - I'm a HUGE bacon and eggs and a LOT of toast kinda guy. Any kind of eggs. And I'm so excited that the New England Medical Journal said that eggs aren't that bad for you.

Hehehe. Well... you know... you hope that the 6th will be.

So I've been asked that question, about how do I do this thing with a straight face. I knew a President one time. And he asked me one time, because he was flipping through stations, and he saw my show, and he said "How do you do that show with a straight face?"

And I said "Well, Mr. President, think of all the things you have to do every day with a straight face."

HAHAHAHHA!

I'm the father to some, but not to many.

HAHAHAHAHHA!!!

That's a great... you're showing a great deal of knowledge, because guess what? At least a handful.

No, I just suck on my finger during commercials.

Hahahaha!

Well... no. But I have, on occasion, walked outside to get something in my car, and the aroma is... palpable, hahahaha! It is... very, uh... very sensuous.

Well, what's happened in daytime TV is that there are less and less traditional talk shows.

And when I say "traditional" - like when Oprah was on the air, and back in the 80's, there was no only Oprah, there was Phil, there was Joan Rivers, there was Jenny Jones, there was Sally Jesse Raphael - MANY shows to pick from. And the daytime audience is unfortunately shrinking. So there aren't that many shows that can garner an audience. And the "traditional" show - where you have a show that has a variety, celebrities, cooking food, human interest stories - you don't have as many shows. Ellen? Yes. Maybe Steve Harvey, you could say. Meredith's is out there, but it's a tough market. And in the traditional way, that's all there are.

So you've got to have some kind of signature. Some kind of... uniqueness. In order to survive. And fortunately, we've had it.

Look - no television researcher could ever explain my show.

I've been on the air longer than anybody out there.

I am older than anyone out there.

And I have the youngest audience of anybody out there.

I mean, that's an inverse equation. Nobody can figure it out. And quite frankly - I don't want to figure it out.

Well, I was a very young radio reporter, in 1963. And I grew up in Washington DC, and that's what happened. I can remember exactly where I was the moment we all heard about it. I was covering a local story at the District Building, which is basically city hall in Washington DC. and my starkest memory of the ensuing days was that night, the radio station asked me to go to Andrews Air Force Base, and I saw Jackie Kennedy come off that plane, in that bloodied suit, and the casket coming out the back of the plane, and... we're talking... over 50 years ago.

I still... I can see that as if it was yesterday.

Connie has been the main parent in my son's life. She has raised this young 19 year old. He was born in 1995, she went to work for a while at ABC and CNN after a few years of raising Matthew, then she went back to raising him through his formative years, and I think because of the climate of news, and because so many outlets have an agenda, and that news cannot be disseminated the way she grew up in that business, taking a very objective and observant attitude, whereas now everyone seems to have an agenda for their programming - she's kind of glad she's out of the game.

If she could find a way to get back in a situation which she feels is appropriate, she would do it.

Well, it was fascinating.

First of all, it was brutally remarkable.

I was taken by it. To the point where I called up the creators, and I couldn't get them, for several days, because I guess they thought I was mad at them. And I wasn't at ALL! I was so humbled by their efforts that all I wanted was a couple of the cartoon cells so I could put them on my wall. And finally, the powers that be answered the call and I have them! And they're displayed prominently in my home.

HA HA HA!

Anything that doesn't smell. I'd say I'm a very easy guy, in terms of food. If you give me a Jarlsberg, that's great. If you give me a Muenster, that's great. If you give me provolone, that's great. If you give me Parmigiana, that's great. Anything that doesn't stink.

Hahahaha!

Well, I mean, I think genes have something to do with it. My father was 92 when he passed away, and he was the sports columnist for the Washington Post for 75 years, and he died the day after he wrote his last column. And my mother lived to 95, and I don't work real hard at exercise, but I work out because I like to play golf. I am a firm believer- and it's becoming more and more popular - the doctors say "Look, if you walk 20-30 minutes a day. That's really good."

Just don't be sedentary. I don't care what you do. Just don't sit around, or lie around.

HA HA!

Tell her to call our show, we'll be glad to have her back, and do it all over again.

I don't know.

But I have people here who are getting this question, and will try to respond to it. Hopefully we had an effect.

Just get me a address.

We'll get one out of mothballs!

I have several, but I'm a huge believer in education. Early education, college education, I'm a huge supporter of charter schools, I give a lot of money to my university and my high school, so that underprivileged kids from those towns are able to attend the best schools. I'm a huge supporter of the National Adoption Center, which is headquartered in Philadelphia, because Connie and my great joy, our son, is adopted, and we know how much of a gift adoption can be.

It's just all instinct.

I mean, "You are NOT the father," "You ARE the father," and "That's a lie!" just came out. It was never written, it was never enunciated to me, it was just the way I responded... to those themes, once we did them. I mean, I guess it's like Donald Trump saying "You're fired" or whatever signature lines from somebody - it's just become part of my demeanor. It's become part of my being. And I see all kinds of ... Christmas cards... "Maury Christmas," "Joseph, you are NOT the father!" and when somebody is lying on a big news story, I see that on YouTube... I see various billboards, so it's almost become part of Americana.

Well, we tape the show probably 27, or 28, weeks a year. We tape twice a week, Wednesday evenings and Thursdays. We do two shows a day. I have a very understanding wife, and now that we are empty nesters, I spend most of my daytime hours on the golf course. Or on the practice range.

I was a dreadful student.

And one of the reasons I think I was so bad was that I had very few teachers that I remember. And so I really think that I could teach. But I don't think I could teach with a huge syllabus.

I think I would be more of a storytelling teacher than a teacher who gave out huge reading assignments.

I can tell you that maybe - MAYBE - we've done 5 tests again, only because of the insistence of the guests. And it's never gone the other way.

I mean, when they say 99.999 - they're not kidding.

Well, it was - first of all - I was touched by the fact that they asked me. Tina Fey has told me that it was one of her absolute favorite episodes. It's an episode in which Tracy Morgan was the illegitimate child of Thomas Jefferson, who was played by Alec Baldwin, and Sally Hemmings was played by - I can't remember who played her - and Alec and Tracy were at my show, and we did it on the set, and I just, I mean, I was just blown away that this hip, primetime sitcom would use me. And when Tina - at some point I saw her later - said it was one of her favorite shows I was just blown away.

HAHAHAHAHA!

Well... we've had people... who say that... they've slept for cheeseburgers. I get very distressed about stories like that.

Transgender people usually show up on my show where you don't know whether it's a man or a woman. We love those shows. "Is it a man or a woman?" And I defy anyone to get 10 out of 10.

We have had - I think my favorite success stories are two, just thematically.

One in which the father has denied being the father, was proved to be the father, and they get into the child's life. And the second is that young teenager who ran in the streets, who wanted to get pregnant, or wanted to run away and be a stripper, turned their life around and went back to school and didn't get pregnant and is living a productive life.

Those are my favorite success stories.

I think that... although we were set up as a news show, just in terms of the look - I was behind a desk, I was reading copy - by the way, I think a lot of the Daily Show came out of A Current Affair - we never took ourselves seriously. We took our work seriously. And we changed television news because we did stories traditional network newscasts would never do.

They would've never done the OJ Simpson story.

They would've never done the "Preppy Murder" story.

They would've never done Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker, and his promiscuity.

And our success, our ratings success, changed the whole view of network news on what stories to cover. For good, or bad, I mean, you know! They always accused us of being tabloid, and they were as tabloid as we were...

First of all, it's raw emotion, and it's all true, it's all real, nothing is staged.

These are people that are part of the American fabric. And it runs through the socio-economic ladder. The New York Times, many years ago, wrote a huge article, and they quoted a survey, where 10% of all kids in this country are with the wrong father.

smiles

So... I consider that part of the American fabric.

Boy, anything between two pieces of bread. My favorite sandwich? Let's see. First of all, I just... I love any meat there is. I'm a big corned beef, pastrami, you name it, I'm a deli guy. I love delis. I love salami, I love bologna, I loved old-time bologna on white bread with lettuce and miracle whip.

ANYTHING with miracle whip.

Well, they're unique.

And I mean, I've had people do front-flips, back-flips, I've had splits, I've had women do the splits when they proved the man was the father, I've had guys who could play on any gymnastics team, and I love it when they run through the audience, giving high fives for something that they didn't do!

Wow.

You know, it's very interesting you mention all those names, and they all bring memories to me. It's like 30 Sundays hit the calendar, all those names.

My producer had a great idea one time. We've never pursued it, but we should. And that is to bring out a book called "The Maury Book for Baby Names."

All I do is think about those kids.

I wanna tell you something - those women, who come here, searching for the fathers of their babies, they, in a way, demonstrate such courage. They don't do it for money. They just do it because they want - they know that their child has a better chance with two parents. And they are searching for this father. And despite their indiscretions, they still seek their child's father. So that the child will have a better life.

So I give them a lot of credit.

And I'm only hoping and praying that those kids have a good life, even if it's with a single mother.

Just give me a better one, and we'll be glad to use it.

When "Ralph" does that test - he doesn't do it one time, he does it three times. He asks those questions three times. And if he gets a different response - I guess, through his testing - he won't use the response for that question. So it has to be consistent. And so we have had those tests being given over again. But I don't know of any occasion where it was any different. If the guy claimed that he wasn't a cheater, and he took the test again, and it came out that he was a cheater.

Hahahahaha!

I like the fact that I still have the possibility of having goals, at this stage in my life.

Well, I don't have any more television goals.

One of my favorite people in television - I mean, I never had a mentor, I never had somebody I looked up to, somebody I wanted to be - but one of the people in television I admired greatly was Johnny Carson, because the day he left that show, he never appeared on tv again.

It was over. It was gone. He didn't try to hang on, or do something else. It was over, it was the end of the road.

And that's how I feel. When this show ends, I will go very quietly in to the rest of my life. I have been blessed by my success, and if you want to measure success by popularity, the fact that I've been on national television for - let's see how, 30 years? - I believe that that's just fine. And when this show ends - and I don't expect it to end anytime soon, I know it's going to be around for at least 3 more years - that's enough for me.

I never was "popular" in any national capacity until I was almost 50 years old. So it took me 50 years to get to the point of where I could be on the national stage. It took a long time. And I worked a LOT of places. And there were times that I was fired, or there were times that i left. So all of that is part of my summing up. And I am a product of all those experiences.

HAHAHHAHAA! It evolved. Because we would put the picture of the baby up, or the young child, and the potential father, and it would just sit there, and then all of a sudden, at one point, one of the guests would say "NOW LOOK!" and point out these features, and now, I can tell you by my live audience, they almost DEMAND it. And as soon as the guest GOES to the screen, there's HUGE applause - as if it's now a part of the show! I am so dumbfounded because I've had the lightest children come out of the darkest parents, I've had the darkest of children come out of the darkest of parents, I've had every nationality in the world being thrown at me about what that baby looked like.

I'm going to guess it's a call in? And we have a lot of people manning the phones here. And people say "Where do you get these guests?" well, guess what - the country provides them!

I have no secrets. I have no secret. I just... I don't know? All I can tell you is there's never been any cosmetic work done. As my mother said when I was in my twenties, when I asked her "Should I get a nose job?" She would say "You get your nose job, you lose me! Your nose is part of your character, live with it."

Oh GREAT! That's very important. I'm very happy, because not many talk shows mix in tape the way we do? And it's an integral part of the show, because it's absolutely part of the storytelling, and it gives the audience an idea of what the story is all about, and an idea of the personalities involved. That's a great observation, because it costs a lot of money to do those field segments. And it's well-worth it.

Well, I can tell you that I have appeared on Saturday Night Live once. And it was - gosh, maybe 25 years ago? And Ed O'Neill, who's on Modern Family, was the star of a show called "Married with Children," years and years ago. And he was one of FOX's first hits. And because he was the star, he was asked to host SNL. And he was supposed to come out, and be very excited because he was the first FOX hit. And I kind of interrupted his monologue, because i was doing A Current Affair, which was a FOX show, which started before "Married with Children," and was really the show which paved the way (in terms of money) for the FOX network, and I pushed him out of the way, and talked about a Current Affair.

So that was my only appearance on SNL. According to Lorne Michaels, it went well, and I've never been asked back since.

But they reference me a LOT in Weekend Update!