Depending on who you ask, Maury Povich is either one of the greatest hosts on television or a despicable exploiter of other people’s life problems. Earlier in his career, he was public enemy number one to some television critics, so it’s kind of surprising that his show has evolved into a long-running American institution akin to The Today Show or Sesame Street. Maury doesn’t shock us the way that he did in the 1990s; instead, he’s become a sort of television comfort food to millions of viewers.

When it debuted in September of 1991, The Maury Povich Show (now simply called Maury) was a modest daytime talk show hosted by a not very well-known former news anchor. Nearly twenty-eight years later, Maury Povich is one of the biggest names on the small screen and his show is a slickly produced juggernaut with a tried and true formula that took years to cultivate. As Maury’s loyal fans know, the show can get a touch crazy at times – primarily due to its highly emotional guests – but the lesser known behind the scenes facts about the show can be just as outrageous.

The show and the path that Maury Povich took to become its host involves everything from some of the most revered figures in Western society (William Shakespeare, Martin Luther King Jr.) to a private investigator to an influential but long defunct news program known as A Current Affair. Believe it or not, paternity tests play a large role on Maury as well. We are counting down 25 Bizarre Behind The Scenes Facts About Maury.

Maury Began As A Sports Columnist

Believe it or not, Maury’s original career plan was not to become the host of a sensational talk show. One might assume that he originally wanted to be an actor, and that hosting his show was an alternative path to show biz success, or that he was a therapist, like one of his most notable peers – Dr. Phil. Actually, Maury was a sports columnist for The Washington Post just like his father before him. Life has an endless array of bizarre twists and turns; luckily for Maury, life’s twisted path led to a hit TV Show.

Maury Hosted A Show Called A Current Affair

Maury was so lucky, in fact, that his current show wasn’t even his first small-screen success. His first big TV show, A Current Affair, was a program which Maury hosted from 1986 to 1990. While A Current Affair often focused on celebrity news rather than the personal lives of ordinary people, it shared a significant amount of its DNA with Maury – both were entertaining shows filled with juicy drama that weren’t exactly “high art.” A Current Affair served as the perfect warm-up to the show that would make Maury Povich television royalty.

Maury Has A Two-Day Work Week

In the mid-20th century, some prominent sociologists opined that in the 21st century the average person would have to work very little to get by. That future has come – at least for the fabulously wealthy Maury Povich. He tapes three shows each Thursday and two shows each Friday, working from around 6:45 AM to around 2:30-3: 00 PM. In regards to his light work schedule, Maury has said: “At my age, I’m working enough.”

Maury Feels That His Workload Is Heavy

There’s a common conception that rich people, particularly rich and famous people, live lives that are just a touch disconnected from the concerns of the average person. Maury may have leaned into this stereotype when he told Business Insider that he actually believes that his two-day 7 AM-3: 00 PM work week is a significant workload. We all love Maury, and in all fairness, he’s putting in more work hours than the vast majority of people in their eighties.

Maury Feels Like He Is Part Of The Viewer’s Family

In the same interview with Business Insider, Maury says “I’m proud [that] … either through instinct or just basic human considerations, my guests and my viewers have kind of felt that I was part of their family even though they know and I know that my experience in life is probably nothing [like what] they’ve gone through.” It’s unknown how many Maury fans do see him as a phantom family member but there is at least a grain of truth in what Maury said in that interview. On his show, Maury does come across as paternalistic.

Maury Is Proud Of His Diverse Guests And Audience

Diverse guests have been a major part of Maury since its premiere back in 1991, and that has been reciprocated in a way – the viewer base of Maury is very diverse as well. While Maury may not be as ground-breaking in its depictions of matters as earlier television programs like Star Trek, The Mod Squad, or I Spy, Maury has gone on record to say that he is “very proud that my audience is built of a rainbow coalition.”

Maury Has No Plan To Retire

Maury is eighty years old. He has more money than he (0r anyone) could ever need and he has made some comments disparaging his oh-so-demanding work schedule. Yet, without a detailed explanation, he has said that he has no plans to retire. Perhaps he’s one of the rare rich people who believe that retirement will be incredibly boring. Perhaps, as a man who has been in the public eye for over thirty years, he doesn’t like the idea of leaving it. Or perhaps he is cognizant of the fact that the many people involved in the production of the show depend on him for their livelihood.

Maury Learns The Personal Details Of 30 To 40 Guests Per Week

Most young Americans probably wouldn’t be able to name all of this country’s presidents or state capitols if they were asked to, yet the octogenarian Maury Povich is nearly miraculously able to learn the personal details of between 30 and 40 guests per week! Maury probably never forgets a birthday or an anniversary. Maury sees his weekly memorizations as proactive beyond his job as a television host – he has called them his “Alzheimer’s check.”

Maury, Jerry Springer, and Steve Wilkos All Use The Same Stage

Maury, The Jerry Springer Show, and The Steve Wilkos Show are like three peas in a pod – they’re all similarly formatted daytime talk shows that have been on TV for many years and will probably continue their initial runs until their hosts go to the big television station in the sky. They also have one other major thing in common – they are all shot on the same stage – the Stamford Center for the Arts. While Maury works a grueling two-day work week, his peers Jerry Springer and Steve Wilkos work an even more enviable one-day a week.

Springer Prefers Maury’s Show To His Own

In a candid interview to Grantland, Jerry Springer made a baffling admission – he prefers Maury to The Jerry Springer Show.  Springer said Maury “deals with serious issues where we’re a total circus. There’s no redeeming social values in our show other than craziness.” It’s awfully modest and kind of Jerry Springer to say something like that about Maury on record, especially since a comment like that could encourage the audience of The Jerry Springer Show to migrate to Maury. Regardless of Springer’s feelings, both Maury and The Jerry Springer Show are essential daytime viewing for millions across the globe.

Maury’s Producers Structure His Show Like A Three Act Play

While it entertains millions on a daily basis, Maury has garnered a reputation for being a tiny bit lowbrow.  As such, Maury’s critics might be a touch surprised that the structure of a Maury episode is modeled after three-act plays. Act I centers on someone venting their grievances about a loved one. Act II features the loved one coming on stage and confronting whomever has a problem with him or her. Act III is what Maury calls the “truth” and his producers call the “reveal.” It’s when the results of a lie detector test are revealed to the audience.

The Show’s Producers Believe That The Show Would Be Nothing Without A Lie Detector

Every good story needs a satisfying conclusion and a lie detector is a key component of a well made Maury conclusion, at least according to the show’s producers. One such producer said that without a lie detector, the show would be nothing but “stupidity.” In the words of Grantland writer Bryan Curtis, the show’s lie detector moments elevate “a segment from an unreasonable conflict to a highly resolvable point of fact.” At the very least, the show’s use of a lie detector has given YouTube and Vine a lot to work with, and has become the most iconic element of the show.

Maury Feels That The Show Brings Families Together

When discussing his fondness for the TV show that has made him a household name, Maury Povich has said that “I like to do [the show], I think we do some good. I think we bring families together.” It’s not clear if he was saying that the show brings families together in the sense that families like to watch the show together or in the sense that the show’s lie detector moments bring families together by revealing who is who’s father. Either way, Maury has done a great service to America’s families.

Many Episodes Of Maury Were Inspired By One Episode Of A Current Affair

The first “big break” that A Current Affair had was the story of Baby M. The bizarre case took the nation by storm in the late 1980s. A wealthy couple, the Steins, paid a woman named Mary Elizabeth Whitehead to serve as their surrogate mother. After delivering the child, Whitehead decided that Baby M (as the child was referred to in court documents) was hers, only for the Steins to steal the baby from her. In a weird twist of fate, a judge ruled that Mr. Stein should have custody of the baby. The episode of A Current Affair which highlighted this case inspired numerous Maury episodes about paternity.

Maury Is Genuinely Concerned For His Guests

In an article for Grantland, Brian Unger, who worked for Maury and later The Daily Show, had some interesting things to say about Povich: “He is very paternal. I think that quality comes through in his television personality. He’s going to get to the bottom of it. He’s going to do it in a fair way with a sense of humor.  And he’s not going to judge anyone. Maybe that’s what he is. He’s everybody’s daytime dad.” Such a description is fitting for a man who has made paternity tests a hallmark of his television show for over twenty seven years.

Paternity episodes have been the most iconic episodes of Maury for many years so it’s no surprise that those episodes are also the show’s most popular. After all, why would the show’s producers allow for so many episodes of the show to revolve around paternity tests? The show would have been cancelled several years ago if such episodes were not appealing to daytime television audiences And why wouldn’t they be? A paternity case can have all of the lies, drama and shock of an episode of Desperate Housewives or Peyton Place without the need for a script.

Maury Does Not Feel That The Show Is Exploitative

Like his contemporaries Steve Wilkos and Jerry Springer, Maury has occasionally been accused of exploiting the guests who choose to appear on his program. More specifically, critics of Maury feel that the show’s makers are exploiting their guest personal issues all while making their guests look like dysfunctional fools in the process. Maury Povich has responded to these claims in an interview where he said “I think we’ve made a difference in people’s lives some of the time. Not for all the guests…But for some. I’ll take that in trade in terms of being accused of exploitation.”

Maury Has Compared The Show To Shakespeare’s Plays

William Shakespeare remains the most revered writer in the history of the world, so it makes perfect sense that he has been a major source of inspiration for numerous artists who have come after him, from Charles Dickens to Oscar Wilde to Ingmar Bergman. Taking inspiration from the Bard is one thing, but it takes a lot of chutzpah to compare one’s work directly to Shakespeare’s. Maury Povich apparently has that amount of chutzpah. He has said that his show contains “all of the classic, Shakespearean themes including love, dislike, and pain; this, he says, gives his show “a chance at capturing an audience.”

The Producers Want The Show To Be Like A Billy Joel Concert

Critics of Maury’s show often claim that it is repetitive, and even its most ardent fans should admit that they have a point. A TV show can only have so many episodes about paternity before it starts to feel like it is repeating itself. What Maury’s critics may not know is that the show is designed by its producers to be repetitive. One of the producers even likened the show to a Billy Joel concert explaining: “No one wants to go to a  Billy Joel concert and hear all new songs. You want to hear the hits.”

Maury Is Proud Of The Show

Its large fanbase notwithstanding, Maury’s show has a bit of a negative reputation. In 2002, a writer for USA Today opined that “Povich’s talk show is without a doubt, the worst thing on television. Period.” Apparently, the show’s supposed Shakespearean elements haven’t convinced everybody that Maury qualifies as high art. Maury has said, “I’ve had so called legitimate news friends of mine say ‘You know – Maury, you were a great newsman, you could have gone back and done great stuff.”’ I say, ‘I am doing great stuff. I’m fine with myself.’”