User reviews

whenever it is on and I'm not working, I'm compelled to watch it for a half hour or so, only to be revolted at myself for watching this trash.

Like all the other reviews have said, there are basically three types of shows. The first is the show that's on every other episode, the one that tries to find out who is the father of the poor kid fathered by some nasty whore. It always starts out the same, where the woman is angry that the father would deny he's the kid's father. The father will then call her every nasty name in the book on a minute video or so, to get the crowd against him. It really feels scripted, to be quite honest. The guy will come out, get booed, and the two will exchange words that you can't hear because have of them are beeped out. Povich will give the results, and half the time the guy is the father, and half the time he isn't. If he is, the woman will berate him for a minute and he will make some half hearted comment about how he will be a real father, when you know this poor kid will grow up to be a criminal or a stripper, never really given a good chance in life. If he's not the father, he will do a little dance, berate the woman for a minute who has gone backstage crying, while Povich will make a vain attempt to console her. The subset of this show is whores who have cheated on their boyfriend of the week, and want to take a test to make sure the child they had together is really his. Another subset of this show is 'cheating' boyfriends, which usually involves a 'sexy decoy' (read: some whore Maury paid off to flirt with the guy) flirting with a guy caught on camera, much to the girlfriend's chagrin. The 'sexy decoy' whore will come out and berate the guy, probably for violating her high moral standards or something. The girlfriend will then leave the guy, only probably to go back to him when she can't make her trailer home payment or when the project she lives in kicks her out of her house.

The second show is sending kids to boot camps. South Park make a perfect parody of it already. The most amusing part of this is seeing this angry black guy, Dee West, come out and scream for five minutes or so. The kids go to boot camp or juvi or whatever, and are all magically reformed and all go to thank the glorious Povich for his sage wisdom. A subset of this show is the abusive husbands who also get yelled at by West or whoever and are sent to jail and amend their ways, all nicely in an hour.

The third show is kind of a grab bag, usually either animals, overweight babies (which is the one that truly disgusts me), people afraid of condiments, guessing whether a tranny is a man or a woman, and tall fat people who are dating short skinny people, because that's just funny.

I'll confess, maybe I watch this show to make my pathetic self feel better compared to the wastes of humanity that are on this show. That being said, I wonder how much of the show is scripted because it all sounds the same. Still, it brings out the worst stereotypes of all their guests. Then again, it brings them out in blacks, whites, and latinos, so I guess Povich is an equal opportunity basher. No Asians though, I wonder if Connie put the nix on that.

Povich himself is absolute slime. Say what you want about Jerry Springer, but that guy knows and admits he is scum. Povich portrays the attitude like he's actually doing humanity some sort of service, which is bizarre. That being said, I'm watching the show right now and listening to that Dee West guy berate a bunch of husbands who proudly proclaim they beat up their low self esteem wives, so I can't say the show is horrible. Still, like I said before, I watch it partially due to the train wreck factor, and partially due to the fact that I feel better about myself after watching it.

Review re-written October 13th, 2024.

Lie detector tests. Paternity testing. Sending bad kids to boot camp or prison. This show had a formula that worked for many, many decades alongside the many other trashy daytime talk shows of it's time, focusing on social drama and shock value. And if it ain't broken, don't fix it. Maury kept doing the same stuff over & over but it became harmonious with American culture. Millennials like myself have such fond memories of watching Maury when we were home sick, or if we didn't have school. The way the working class heroes on the show acted and reacted was downright hilarious, and after a while, felt exploitive, but we didn't care. We enjoyed it for what it was worth.

In the earlier days, Maury's show was more or less focused on competing with characters like Sally Jessy Raphael, Phil Donahue or Oprah Winfrey, but by the late 90's had a corner on the market for what it was most famous for - phrases like "You are the father!" or "you are not the father!" and who can forget "The lie detector test determined...." those phrases are what made Maury so famous, because from about the mid-90s to the end of the show's run, Maury's main focus was paternity test results or lie detector test results, with the occasional intervention episode involving bad kids or abusive boyfriends or episode aimed at kids with educational content about zoo animals.

Maury has since gone off the air but his legacy lives on through meme culture and YouTube.

Until next time, America.

Back in the 00s Maury for me was a fun and entertaining show.

I had suspicions that the show was scripted but I still kept watching from time to time.

Years later seeing that this show is still on doing the same baby mama drama bids. I'm an certain that the Maury show is a big skit.

Everyone has seen or has heard of Maury. So if you find yourself sitting next to Maury expect your wife and girlfriend to either tell you the child is not yours or that she is a an innocent cheater.

"The Maury Povich Show" can be considered quite odd, even for a talk show. While it isn't as down-and-out sleazy and exploitive as many other talk shows, it is by no means wholesome entertainment. For example have B&W reenactments (ooh, arty!) of people naked and/or having sex that can't be there for any other reason than to titilate, since the guests and/or Maury could EASILY just SAY what happened with just a few words!

Of course, the topics that are chosen for the show can be considered exploitation. Even when it's about a real and serious problem (overweight babies), it comes off as exploitive. For example, whenever they do overweight toddlers, they are almost always brought into the show just in a diaper to emphasize their weight. The "I have a secret" episodes (which almost all the guests are there to confess to a loved one they cheated on him/her), even though they give guests a way to reveal their secret, still get you irked that Maury is showing, in front of millions, hearts being ripped apart.

And then, of course, we have the paternity tests. OVER AND OVER AND OVER! It seems like every other episode focuses on paternity tests! As others have pointed out, there seems to be an anti-male vibe to these particular episodes (as well as some other non-paternity episodes), with the men made to look like scum whether they are the fathers or not. In fairness, some men right from the start come off as decent (and the audience does show their approval to them), and the men who insult the women certainly aren't being forced to do so. Still, you sense a lot of bias. For one thing, during the lie detector shows, how come it's ALWAYS the MAN who is accused of cheating and is being tested - why doesn't Maury ever do any shows when it's the WOMAN who is being accused of cheating by the man?

What really makes the show odd, however, is the way Maury reacts to what he covers. We see him comforting upset guests, he offers various kinds of help to his guests, he tells rude guests they can't act that way, and he regards just about everything with utter seriousness. The way he acts is indeed warm and likable, but you cannot tell if Maury REALLY cares for his audience or not (unlikely, give this IS a talk show!) In fact, I would say that this attitude of Maury's - phony or not - is probably one of the big reasons for its success and long run.

I was a big fan of Maury Povich when he hosted "A Current Affair" back in the late 80's. "A Current Affair" was tabloids TV at its best and Maury was the right guy to host. He kept your interest with these far out, non-six/eleven o'clock reported news stories. Maury as it's host, kicked butt.

So when he got a chance to host his own show, it seemed very promising. Over the years of the Maury show, 'promising' went the route of 'shocking-sensationalism'. That became too sad. In the back of my mind, I've always hoped that Maury Povich would have gone to CNN by the mid 90's and had the chance to shape himself into an anchor that would show the "real" side of news. Instead, he has shaped himself into a perpetrator of stereotypes.

Some viewers actually think Maury's show "helps" people. It only helps place folks deeper into stereotypical behaviors for the world to point at and see/think "I knew it!". It's 2006, and it's a sad commentary on the world.

The Maury Show has gotten into a bind. You know, like some famous old musicians who've been around longer than they should be -- and they try to do something new and the mass buying audience doesn't accept it -- so they get stuck doing the same thing over and over instead of just quitting. Well, this is the same thing that is going on with this show.

Maury has these shows:

1.) Is it a man or is it a woman audience contest show 2.) Disrespectful children to their parents show (boot camp impending!) 3.) Teenage Girls who want babies show 4). Hidden video show 5.) Teens on drugs show 6.) Who's the Daddy Show

The most popular is the "Who's the Daddy Show". At this point, I find that Maury and his producers are the most manipulative folks on this planet with that show. Sure, it provides great entertainment for viewers who want to see women degrade themselves by appearing on the Maury Show numerous times to find the one daddy for their child -- but I've noticed something about all of his shows over the years...

Take a look at whom they choose to place on the shows. It's all stereotypical - no matter how difficult, heart wrenching or ... positive ... the outcome is you see this:

1.) The angry, horrid-slang speaking African American 2.) The trailer trash (or as close to it as they can get) 3.) The fiery Hispanics (usually with tattoos or in gangs)

While this may be harmless entertainment for some, this has been overall perpetrating stereotypes. There is one show he (presumably to show a "softer side") does that I've purposely did not list above and this is what made me think about what this show is doing. This show Maury does is called:

"The Most Talented Kids Show"

Who appears? The stereotypical singing and dancing African American child, yes. The amazing trailer trash child, yes. But only in this show, will you see...the most talented violin or piano playing Asian. Now, that's interesting to think about.

Maury Povich and his producers are seeking the most outrageous, volatile people to keep the show on air and they only have fallen into the groups above, under the themes above. That's tabloid showbiz. But understand that is also viewer manipulation and part of television's contribution to the decline of western civilization. The Jerry Springer Show makes no bones about what they are and whom they appeal to. Maury Povich tries to categorize themselves as "better" but they aren't.

If you watch and are entertained by this, understand it IS only entertainment at the expense of promoting stereotypes - and the Maury Show does NOTHING to counteract that. It's all very one-sided. If you are looking for a program that may give you a view on other's lives...this is the program that shows the disturbing parts of those lives, a small percentage, and are not indicative of these folks as a whole.

"The Maury Povich Show" (1991)

Review: I'm not too much into TV reviews, but this one I will.

Let me make a point. I hate this show. It's the same thing every time. It's either about, Boot camp for brats, He's Cheating, and Who's the dad. One thing for sure is that this show is mostly driven to hate men. Like the who's the daddy episodes are making the women seem like the innocent victims and the men are pure evil at least 95% of the time. First off, you are at fault for not using birth control and did not consent to safe sex. Second, you are a whore if you do not know who the father is, by means who have to point a finger and administer a paternity test to find out. Just how many guys did you sleep with? Unprotected nonetheless. Stupidity. The dads are also idiots too for not paying 3 dollars to purchase condoms to make sure that a pregnancy does not happen. As far as I'm concerned, both of em got themselves into this situation themselves. The only "victim" here is the child.

This show is based too much on trying to be a glorified Jerry Springer wannabe instead of dealing with issues that need to be taken care of. From the loud crowd to the usual guest taunting the crowd to the unoriginal ideas, Maury Povich is trash TV.

The Last Word: Unoriginal and mean-spirited. At least Jerry Springer does not take themselves seriously. Maury Povich does. Total garbage.

Guys, stop hating on this show! its really good! I really like it when he says "you are not the father" and the guy goes "oh!!". Thats always funny! I watch this show with my goldfish, Swimmy, and my great dane, Mr. Maury! You see, I was inspired to name my dog after him i love this show so much. So, please no hate! Peace and love!

The Maury Povich show is hypocritical in its meaning. While the other shows that air alongside it (Jerry Springer and Steve Wilkos) are pretty clear in their intentions Maury's show is different. Basically it is a show that pretends to care when all it does it exploit its guests. Kind of like a cross between Jerry Springer and Steve Wilkos.

The Maury Povich show usually has the same topics. These topics are out of control teens, teen girls wanting kids, hidden videos, cheating spouses, and the most common topic is paternity tests.

No matter the topic Maury comes across as someone who is pretending to care but he is really doing nothing to improve the situation while profiting on the problems of these dysfunctional people. The only thing accomplished in the majority of his shows is someone finding out if there spouse has been cheating or who the father is of their child.

As if that wasn't bad enough there seems to be an Anti Male sentiment coming from the show. More often then not it is the males cheating and in the who's the daddy segment usually the male wants nothing to do with the kid. That is not always the case but more often then not it is.

So the Maury Povich show does not help people like Steve Wilkos and is not entertaining like the Jerry Springer show. It is a show that pretends to help people (like Steve Wilkos) while really exploiting their problems and making it into a circus (like Jerry). The Maury Povich show is not a quality television show and I would not recommend watching it.

This show is amazing for reasons the normal mind cannot comprehend. Does it exploit people's problem to get views? Yes. However when people watch this show they often think "wow these people are trash." But they often overlook the genius of this. This allows people to know a bottom line for what human evolution can produce, and because of this shapes more people to not be like them. Also it allows the people to get free DNA and Lie detector tests if they cannot afford one, only downside is you have to go on the show. Because of this I believe people underestimate the importance and genius behind Maury. I also made sure to do this in MLA format and cite my sources so my teacher won't get mad at me.

This show is the most despicable piece of TV trash I have ever seen. I've been to almost 40 countries, and whenever I can I try to watch some of the local TV programmes. I've seen lots of low quality material. When I was in the US recently, I had the dubious pleasure of enjoying a few Maury shows. How anyone can voluntarily appear on this show is beyond me. From the moment the guest appears on stage it is absolutely clear he will either

a) make an ass out of himself b) be ridiculed by the audience c) will receive faked sympathy and compassion by Mr Povich

or rather all of the above.

The show seems to be all about paternity tests. Apparently there is a choreography to this charade. The couples will abuse each other, the male will insist on not having fathered the baby, the mother will protest against the male's inability to care for the child and so on. Upon hearing the result of the paternity test, the male will either dance and scream in joy or start cursing.

The guests on the show seem to be very well aware of the mechanisms of this program, probably being frequent consumers of the show themselves. So being part of this circus freak show seems to be a kind of acknowledgment or even gratification to those people.

And amidst this puddle of low social class tragedy sits, like a king dressed in beggars' clothes, Mr. Maury Povich and pretends to have compassion towards these poor sods. Mr. Povich must be a very clever businessman to have run the show for such a long period. Respect to that! But anyone who is to believe he actually cares about what is happening to the people on his show is a dimwit.

Bottomline: inhuman charade

If it wasn't for the fact that I'm way too lazy to change the channel when I leave the TV on FOX late at night while doing homework, I'd probably have never been exposed to this awful dreck. This show never once strays from one of three premises: Paternity Tests, Rebellious Teens Sent to Boot Camp, and Men Who Beat Their Wives. While this is a little more varied than the "Yet Another Potentially Explosive Love Triangle" theme of every Springer show, this show is a lot less fun because it actually takes itself seriously. Maury tries really hard to look like a sensitive host who cares about his guests, but he's extremely sneaky and manipulative as are his producers/editors who set every scene up to automatically put the blame on one individual and make a saint out of the other one. What a joke!

I've had friends that would appear on these shows and it's almost insane how much of the content is either faked by the individual or invented by the producers. It's impossible to take this sort of show seriously, yet it really tries to go for the gut punch with its seedy manipulation shady and attempts at sentimentality. It makes you wonder what audience they were looking for.

I don't see how they get guests, much less audiences to appear on this show. The one thing I can think that would be more embarrassing than appearing as a guest on this show, would be to have someone recognize you sitting in the audience of booing, easily manipulated morons. If you're a guy and you spontaneously get a free ticket in the mail one day to New York to appear on this show, either rip it up or expect to be completely humiliated for several minutes on nationally syndicated TV.

The Maury Show is the most awful show on TV to watch. A talk show is about engaging topics that plaque the world today, like the war in Iraq or the lack of employment, right? Well, The Maury Show isn't about any of those things. The Maury Show consists of women trying to find their baby's daddy, women or men sleeping around, caught on tape, people that just survived, or people that scared of the silliest and stupidest things like mustard or balloons. The Maury Show comes on at 4pm time and again at 4am. Of course, at 4pm and 4am is when there isn't nothing worth watching on TV. But half of The Maury Show consists of women trying to find their baby daddy. "I am 1000 percent sure, Maury, that DaShawn is my baby's daddy! He was the only person that I slept with! (usually, start with the bawling like babies or getting angry.). Whoopidity freaking do, who cares? Then the guy explains his side of the story about Dalesha being such a slut and sleeping around with the whole NBA. Then the woman would tell Maury, "Bring him out!" He comes out and the audience would boo or catcalls him, Maury doesn't let the guy fully explain his story because of the audience which consists of nothing but lazy, good-for-nothing imbeciles that should be at work, not on talk shows feeling sorry for people that air their dirty laundry on national TV.

After a while, the DNA test comes up. If Dashawn isn't the baby's daddy, Dalesha runs backstage crying like a baby. And the men usually jump up and down like a bunch of fools. We all know the woman fool around with another man, and the man that they're giving the DNA test to, isn't probably the baby's father since DNA tests don't lie. It doesn't take intellects to figure that one out. Then, there are women that have been on the show for five or six times, trying to find their baby's daddy. Or the guy that slept around with 25 women, his wife cheated on him once, he suddenly "quits" cheating and decided to stay with his wife. What a stupid, stupid talk show. Ah! Then there are one show which have out of control teen girls trying to get pregnant, or fail a lie detector test to end up figuring out that they're complete liars or sluts. This show consists of inconsiderable and unintelligent imbeciles, sluts, and goons that love "talking it up" and air their dirty laundry to millions of people that probably could care. I know that I don't care when somebody tried to find their baby's daddy, or the guy turns out NOT to be the baby's daddy. I really, really don't care and they shouldn't went on TV to air their dirty laundry in the first place. I feel like my IQ is draining from watching the Maury Show, that's why I stopped watching Maury last year. If I turn on Maury now, it's the same old topics over and over again. Week 1: "I can't find my baby daddy!" Two, three, or even ten days later, the same old topic pursues under a different name! Turn on PBS, Judge Judy, cartoons, Discovery, History, or anything better than this show. Unless you will be watching an otherwise, intelligent better TV program than Maury.

Maury Povich (or however you spell his name) is a hypocrite because his show sends opposing messages to women. On one show he'll be telling women that dressing like a slut and acting like a slut is wrong and try to reform their ways. Then in another show he'll be supporting former "bullied nerds" now "super skanks". These women have not changed since high school and still have low self esteem and I can't believe he supports them and then tells these other women on other shows that acting like that is wrong.

I also find his "are you a man or woman" shows as extremely insulting. Could you imagine be one of those women on that show and being accused by an audience of being a man. It doesn't matter how much you are paid, it still hurts.

And I also find his boot camp strategies as retarded since really bad treatment by drill sergeants does not automatically lead to new found respect for yourselves or your body. These people go back to their old ways since they know they are not coming back.

This man has no integrity and should be taken off air.

I mean - as with most talk shows on right now . Maury is just another dime a dozen piece of garbage. Just like with Springer, Geraldo , Jenny Jones etc. The same chair throwing, cussing garbage. Who's the father , who cheated on who. I mean whats the point. Anyone could produce and direct it. I used to watch Springer when it was new and laugh at the stupidity but after several years of that crap - I stopped watching. Oprah while it may seem a bit heavy at times is at least serious and doesn't have an audience that chants her name and guests who they get off the street. Even Ellen is a better show to watch. The trash talk TV shows with guests who look like streetwalkers ,total nobodys and themes of who did you and whos the father are just reaching for shock value. Total Garbage

I've always been aware that this show was on TV, but never saw it until today, as daytime talk is not really my thing.

I was shocked. I'm old enough to remember when Maury Povich was a serious TV presenter, not so different from an Ellen or Geraldo. What the heck happened to him?

This reminds me of a MTV or VH1 reality show with all the drama. They do the drama right and I know it's not staged.

I can't believe Maury has been on since 1991. The show started off like serious topics and guests like Jerry Springer had started off with before. Now, with Jerry having fights, chairs thrown and Steve and his security team, Maury is now the King of Trash. He has these dumb lie detector tests,paternity tests, cheating men and women and 12,13,and 14 year old want to have sex and get pregnant. I am so sick and tired of some of these trashy shows on television. Montel has Sylvia, Oprah has Dr. Oz and best friend Gayle, Tyra has Janice, Jerry has his Steve and what does Maury have, D. West. This show is a filthy piece of crap, women running away crying like babies and all these men running all over the stage celebrating that they are not the father of their child. Take this show off the air, please.

Nothing but Garbage!

I really enjoyed watching "The Maury Povich Show" as it was so entertaining to me & it was also really educational as it shows me how NOT to act on live national television. What I like most about this show is that Maury Povich was a nice man whom helped people find out whom is or whom is NOT the father of kids & I even like the way he reads the DNA results which is either "When it comes to {the child's age & name}, {male guest's name}, you are the father!" or "When it comes to {the child's age & name}, {male guest's name}, you are NOT the father!". I even like how he read the polygraph test results through saying "You're telling the truth." or "That was a lie!". Most people say this was trash TV but it really isn't, it was so entertaining & it was NOT staged like a lot of reality shows.

Maury has changed many people's lives for the better. Yes it can be exploitive...but the people calling others trash..are just showing how trashy they really are!