On the next Jerry Springer: The secret lives of hedge-fund billionaires

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Connecticut may have great tax breaks, but do they have enough freaks and geeks?

NBC Universal will find out soon enough. The company is in the process of moving a bunch of its talk and game shows to the hedge-fund capital, including Jerry Springer (coming from Chicago) and New York-based Maury Povich raunchfests and, just announced this week, Howie Mandel’s Los Angeles-based game show ‘Deal or No Deal.’

The savings may be substantial, but the question is whether tony Connecticut can provide the, uh, right caliber of person to be a participant or audience member of the Springer or Povich shows.

A quick check of the Visit Connecticut website should be enough to make the bookers for those two programs a little nervous about next season. While Gov. Jodi Rell uses the word ‘fun’ no fewer than six times in the opening paragraph of her letter to tourists, it’s clear that her idea of fun is not the same as Springer’s and Povich’s.

Rell touts antiquing, waterfalls, art galleries, hikes and, best of all, ‘serious museum and opera fun.’ That sounds nice, but that doesn’t really compare to recent Springer episodes including this week’s gems -- ‘when the baby-sitter takes care of your man’ and ‘cousins collide over the woman they are both sharing.’ Povich, meanwhile, is looking for people who want their partners to take lie detector tests to see if they are cheating.

A spokesman for Rell dismissed concerns the shows may have about finding their kind of people among the upper crust. Waterford, where NBC Universal is leasing a studio, has two aquariums, the spokesman noted.

All kidding aside, having three talk shows and a game show in a state with a population of just 3.5 million may be just a bit of overkill. There is a reason talk shows and game shows are produced in big cities that draw lots of tourists. While the ‘Historic Downtown Mystic May Day Parade & Festival’ sounds lovely and does promise a performance that sounds like it would be up Springer’s ally -- the Garland Dancers working the ‘May Pole,’ NBC Universal may ultimately find that the headaches of producing in small towns cancel out the tax breaks.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: Talk show host Jerry Springer. Credit: Al Behrman / Associated Press