I'm not going to tell you very much about this episode, because I'd rather that you would see it for the first time as I did with no clue re: how it would end.

But I will say that it teaches a lesson about how prejudice and being too quick to assume the worst about somebody might prove to be more costly than what you think--while, had you accepted the person, what might have been would have been wonderful.

I find that, no matter how many times I watch this episode (or even think about it), I always end up in tears.

You probably will, too--but this isn't really a bad thing if it means that your heart has been softened to accept so-called "unacceptable" people: People who aren't doing anything wrong but, instead, simply being judged because they don't come from your country, are of a different social class, etc.

I rated this show a perfect ten--based on the way it was during the time that Mother Love was in charge.

If there had been two options:

Hosted by Mother Love

and

Hosted by Robin Givens

I would have given the Mother Love version a 10 and wished that I could have rated higher, and I would have given the Robin Givens version a 1--giving her the benefit of the doubt that she just didn't know how to control her audience.

Without that benefit of the doubt, Robin's version of the show would have been a ZERO!!!

This was a wonderful idea for a show--bringing people back together who'd had some kind of misunderstanding/falling-out in the past.

Mother Love came across--and, I believe, accurately--as someone who really wanted to see people reconcile.

If the door opened to show someone standing there ready to forgive, she rejoiced.

If the door opened to nobody, she was there to give comfort to the one standing before the open door--as well as trying to open up the possibility of another chance for reconciliation.

She got people into counseling and promised to stay in touch.

AND she had ZERO TOLERANCE when it came to any meanspiritedness coming from the audience.

"Don't make me come up there!" was one of her best-known lines--one aimed at audience members who attempted to turn this kindhearted show into another piece of Trash TV.

Then--for the sake of ratings--Mother Love got fired from her own show and replaced with Robin Givens.

Robin--for whatever reason (whether she agreed with them or just didn't know quite how to control them--or was given orders from the producers not to control them if she didn't want to get into the unemployment line with Mother Love)--allowed the audience to say hurtful things to the guests.

The show lost its original purpose of helping people and went into having a purpose of being "entertaining" at the expense of others.

When I saw the direction that the show was taking, I quit watching!

Since--to my knowledge--this show is no longer on, I would say that this change worked against instead of for the sponsors.

What I think made it fall so fast after that was that this show had, originally, had such a wonderful purpose.

This purpose might not have gathered the largest viewing audience, but it gathered a certain kind of viewing audience of which I was a member.

When the show changed so drastically, it, likely, lost every single one of us, and there just weren't enough bitey cynics drawn in after that to give it any kind of viewership at all.

Shame on bottom-line-obsessed powers-that-be for turning a real treasure into a piece of mindless trash!!!

I don't know what there was exactly about this show, but it just didn't set right with me.

There were many times when I suspected that it was part of a sinister conspiracy--that the brains behind it were, likely, the inventors and promoters of the drug, Ritalin.

Here's the agenda:

This spooky-looking, white-faced, oversized kid would send the message to little viewers that it was okay--in fact, it was very natural and acceptable--to be so hyperactive that you couldn't even finish watching an entire kiddie-cartoon.

He would jump around all over the place like a cat on a hot griddle, and the entire playhouse would go nutzo with an annoying buzzer going off everytime the word of the day was said and every inanimate object in the place acting as if it were on steroids.

I saw nothing redeemable about this (and only gave it any points at all for any good intentions that anyone might have had in making such a bunch of widdle-waddle).

There's nothing wrong with a children's show being energetic and lively--Sesame Street is energetic and lively--but this seemed to have no direction and a lot of confusion.

This hyperactivity had a way of making its way out of TVs and into rooms where kiddies were watching--a kind of "goofy gas" that would turn the kiddies into hysterical, shrieking, hyperactive problem children.

Once they were in school, teachers from all over would be teaming up with social-workers to bully parents into putting their kiddies into the Ritalin program.

And the makers and sellers of these little pills would be laughing all the way to the bank!

PeeWee's Playhouse would have done its "secret" job!

Change the channel!!!

If I were a cusser, I would be even more specific and say, "Change the damn channel!!!"

Actually...if I were to compromise my personal values and come up with the kind of language that would fully describe what I think of this show, Maury and Jerry would be trying to outbid each other in their attempts to be the first one to have me as a guest on their sucky shows because whoever got me would be able to produce a 60 minute "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep" (think test-pattern sound-effect) that would last for the entire show just by asking what I thought of Maury's show.

But, of course, I don't resort to profanity when it comes to describing things, so let me do the best that I can without it.

From now on, I'm going to be addressing Maury...

Do you want me to tell you why I no longer watch your show--or, at best, watch it when the moon is blue and you're back to your old ways again?

Your show has jumped the shark so high that it jumped all the way over the moon on its way to the other side of the shark!

I remember a time when you actually used your show to help people and to showcase everyday heroes--as well as those heroes who weren't so "everyday" (the ones who were living full, wonderful, and productive lives in spite of, seemingly, being dealt a bad hand).

That fraction of a point I gave you (the one that kept your show from registering on my profile as an absolute zero) pays tribute to your earlier days and those rare times when you bring them back.

Most of the time these days, you keep having these tired paternity shows--bring hurting people into the arena to be put on display to be booed by your audience. Somehow, you seem to have managed to gather up a home-viewing audience that is large enough to keep you on the air--but I'm proud to say that I'm not part of it.

When I was a freshman in high school, I was in study hall with this guy who had been in a motorcycle accident--one who, unfortunately, was seated to where I had to look at him while trying to do my studies.

He had scabs forming on his arm, and he would pick at them to make the pus and blood start flowing.

Even though I found it fun (still do) to squeeze pimples and blackheads to pop and squiggle out their contents, what I was seeing on this guy's arm was way beyond what I wanted to see. It almost made me want to throw up.

When he heard me go, "Eeeeew!" he looked around, gave me a smirk, and began to REALLY pick away.

My desire to watch your show these days is right down there on the level of my desire back then (or now, for that matter) to watch this guy mutilate his mutilations.

Besides the paternity test shows, you have these fat baby shows.

I love the fat babies, but I hate how you and your RomanEmpirish audience are getting orgasms out of booing and belittling them and their parents (usually, mothers).

Do you have any idea what you're doing to these kids? Do you really CARE what you're doing to these kids!

Obviously not!!! It's all about ratings to you, isn't it!?!

Then, there's boot-camp!!!

Don't even get me started on THAT one!!!

Can't you see that these kids are hurting?

Is it fun for you to make them cry on TV?

I would go along with their crying on TV, if it were a healing kind of crying that they were doing.

These children obviously have--in the wise words of a so-called "retarded" mother in the movie "The Yarn Princess"--"tears locked up."

How did this woman--a woman who had to do all kinds of things to prove that she was a capable mother (and she proved it!)--approach one of her sons when he had "tears locked up?"

She held him close and gave him a shoulder to cry on.

I'm well aware that these kids are, for the most part, beyond their troubles being cured and their lives being turned around by a single act of being offered a shoulder to cry on.

But neither are they going to be turned around by having one or more officers getting in their faces and barking at them--then, making them clean filthy toilets inside and out in an up-close-and-personal way.

These horrible boot-camps--which your no-count show seems to try to sell to the public--have even proven fatal to kids on several occasions.

Are ratings so important to you that you would promote stuff like that show after show after show!?!

How high is your price-tag before you start doing shows praising LSD, crack, heroin, and meth!?!

Were you aware that there are alternatives to those boot-camps: places where you can send troubled kids where they learn respect by being respected?

People running these places could do so much more, if they had the funding--and so many more of these places would start being established, if people such as you would devote more of your shows to them and their positive results.

But that wouldn't bring in the ratings, would it!?!

Well--NEWSFLASH!--the way you operate currently isn't bringing you any ratings from me!

In fact, I'm very happy that this website has given me the chance to get on my soapbox to tell you that I've had enough of your pitiful crap!

Borrowing the words of Donald Trump...

YOU'RE FIRED!!!

The percentage point I gave it was for Jerry's wise words at the end of each show--which I don't even hear anymore, because I don't watch this ridiculous program (not often, anyway) as well as for a time long ago when it was actually having shows that were worth its use of airspace.

It seems to me that I can remember a time when Jerry reached out to morbidly-obese people in a kind and non-judgmental way to try to help them to lose weight. And I also seem to recall a show where he actually was able to add a mix to his show that ended up making a family of KKK members decide to shed their white, hooded robes and the prejudices those robes represented.

NO MORE!!!

Instead, it's a show that promotes animosity and free-for-alls while a crowd that seems to consist of the people of The Roman Empire reincarnated and still in their same bad karma cheers them on by repeatedly chanting the first name of the host and acting like a bunch of Nazis and/or fanatical Sadaam Hussein fans in their body-language.

Perhaps, I should have raised my rating for their ability to do a kind of "reality" sort of slapstick.

Since it doesn't seem as if the people on the show are really being hurt and might be exaggerating their angry ways, I might decide to raise the rating level a little--especially, when I'm going to be complaining about one of my favorite shows that has jumped the shark a mile high for how it has gone from being a totally-helpful show to one that seems to be boring and meanspirited.

Oh yes! That's another thing wrong with Jerry's little three-ring circus: Nothing new! Just the same old, same old tired plots that have only been slightly changed for each episode...

It's not that this is the worst talk-show on the air. It's just that I think I can find something better (more intelligent/constructive/meaningful)to do with my time--such as photographing poo-poo that has been placed on decorative paper plates!