Goodbye, Phil Donahue.

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TV talk show host extraordinaire, Phil Donahue, has recently left us. While other TV talk shows had become a sewer, he had maintained class.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/opr ... 55533.html

I remember watching his show many years ago. He was a good guy. And he is at least in part responsible for Oprah's success, since she started out her famous show by imitating his show.

I liked Phil, and yes, he was classy compared to Geraldo, Springer and Ricky

I don't think I've ever seen his show. But I've heard about it on TV and saw it being parodied at least once, and Weird Al's song "Talk Soup", which makes fun of talk shows, mentions Phil Donahue.

I've been checking out Phil Donahue on wiki. It said that there once a fainting hoax on his show, where several people in the audience appeared to collapse. Phil was worried it was due to anxiety from being on TV combined with the studio being too hot, but it turned out to be faked by a media hoaxer who thought his show was poor quality television.

I found that part pretty interesting. I wonder if I can find old episodes of the show on YouTube.

I remember watching him in the 90s when talk shows were my special interest.