The Morton Downey Jr. Show blazed like an incendiary comet for about two years on television in the late 1980's only to crash and burn due to the all-too-human flaws and foibles of its exceptionally crude, rude, and abrasive host Morton Downey Jr. Notorious for the ruthless way he ferociously bullied and berated guests that he disagreed with, Downey Jr. played the role of the angry and abusive ultra-conservative right-wing wacko to the deliciously slimy hilt. Naturally, it was basically all a cunning and calculated act, but Downey Jr. still managed to achieve significant iconic status with a huge segment of the disenfranchised American public as a kind of say-it-like-you see it blue collar folk hero. Born to show business parents (his mother was a dancer and his father was a famous singer), Downey Jr. initially made an abortive attempt to become a singer like his much-despised father before going on to work for the Kennedy family as a liberal senator (!) in the 1960's prior to recreating himself as a hostile Republican loudmouth rabble rouser in the 1980's.Fortunately, this documentary neither glorifies nor vilifies Downey Jr; instead it presents him warts'n'all as an extremely angry and insecure man whose fragile ego and continual desire for acceptance caused him to self-destruct in the most excruciatingly painful manner possible (Downey Jr. infamously staged an incident claiming that he had been attacked and brutalized by skinheads in an airport bathroom, which this documentary states for the record was an outright hoax concocted by Downey Jr. to get one of his wives to feel sorry for him). The clips from The Morton Downey Jr. Show are every bit as outrageous and hilarious as one would expect -- obnoxious gadfly Al Sharpton was knocked flat on his then fat pompous keister on one legendary episode which made the news -- while the latter footage of habitual chain smoker Downey Jr. transforming into a staunch anti-smoking advocate in the wake of being diagnosed with lung cancer registers as remarkably poignant and heart-wrenching. Mort's daughter Kelli Downey Cornwell and his best friend Lloyd Schoonmaker offer touching insights into the more human side of Mort while Chris Elliot, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Pat Buchanan discuss Downey Jr.'s legacy as a true trash TV pioneer who kicked politeness and civility out the door and replaced it with roaring rage and fury. Moreover, producer Bob Pittman admits he feels guilty about providing Mort with an ideal forum in which to bring about his own ruination while writer Jim Langan and bodyguard David Giegold tell some colorful stories about their wild ride working for Downey Jr. Although not without its flaws (for example, this documentary completely ignores the fact that Mort was a gay baiter who had a homosexual brother with AIDS who appeared as a guest on his show as well as glosses over Mort's subsequent career as an actor after his show went down the tubes), this documentary still overall sizes up as a fascinating chronicle of a singular 80's icon.

"The Mouth" (Morton Downey Jr.), a Nickname that His Fans and Detractors Hung on the Controversial TV Personality, Aptly Described this Poser. A Self Proclaimed Spokesman for the "Little Guy", the Guy Without a Voice. His Right Wing Posing was Most Likely 90% Act and 10% Real.But What You Discover in this Documentary About the Two Year Rise and Fall of a "Personality" that Hosted a TV Talk Show that Went From Obscurity to a Highly Popular Syndication and then as Quickly as it Arrived was Snuffed Out by its Own Inertia.Downey, it Seems, was One of those Pop Culture Icons that Started to Believe His Own Hype and the Illusion Became the Man's Reality. His Off Screen Antics that were Absent Before He was On Magazine Covers and a Household Name, Became Part of the Man's Personality. He Embraced the On Air Shenanigans and Started Living His Life Like His "Character". The End, in Retrospect was Inevitable. After He was Discovered Hoaxing an Attack by Skinheads, it was All Over. His Sincerity was Now in Question and No One Could Take Him Seriously. Not Even His Devoted Audience Nicknamed "The Beast". The Show Devolved Into Circus Acts with Freaks and Strippers. He and the Show Never Recovered. It was a Two Year Pop Culture Comet that Crashed and Burned and Unlike it's Celestial Counterpart, was Not a Pretty Sight.He Must be Given Credit (if that is the term) for Unleashing a Television Format of Divisiveness. Political and Social TV Shows of Varying Personalities and Style that Remain with Us Today. From Reality Shows to Fox News, and Right Wing Talk Radio, it was Mort that Made it All OK. It Sells. Taking a Cue from Joe Pyne a TV Pundit that Came Before Downey, The Mouth just Amped it Up a Notch, Roamed the Studio Instead of Staying Seated, and Cursed, Spit, and Insulted His Guests Ad Nauseum.Overall, the Documentary is a Good Chronicle of the Man and His Show and its Influence and is a Necessary Distillation of a Pop Culture Zeitgeist. The Residue Remains and this is a Good Place to Find Out Where to Put the Thanks or the Blame.

I stumbled onto this at Netflix. WOW! It's not only totally nostalgic seeing the crazy opening credits to the show - apple pies, flags, Ayatollahs, Castro, American icons of all kinds, with MDJ's face in various expressions in stop motion animation, culminating in the open toothy mouth - but it's fascinating seeing the start of the obnoxious style of political commentary we have in the media today.I was not very politically aware when I was younger, so I missed most of the importance of his show when it was first on.The Morton Downey Jr. show at its peak was a bold experiment in audience participation - the one criteria for the show's production seemed to be to get the audience to actively participate in the harshest and loudest way possible.I didn't realize how patrician MDJ's background was - he was a neighbor of Teddy Kennedy's family at Hyannis Port, Mass and his father was a well known Irish singing star from the 1920s and 30s. I thought he had come out of nowhere to speak the truth as he saw it - since I was younger I had no clue about the dad's singing career. But the truth is that he stumbled into the MDJ Show format after stumbling earlier into some talk radio shows and after doing some right-to-life activism that taught him that outrageousness and populism sells.The MDJ Show pioneered the basic idea of the ideologically combative, very one sided talk format that we see today. And leveraged audience participation at an extremely populist level, which we don't see so much. Hannity, The Ed Show, Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow, and to a lesser extent Bill O'Reilly are all basically the MDJ Show in spirit, but each with a very pure ideological tilt and no live studio audience. And, really, the modern shows make a lot more coherent sense than MDJ ever did.That is another key difference with MDJ and our current popular media left and right wing ideologues: MDJ was not pure in any way ideologically: he usually went to the right but would often adopt leftist or liberal points of view which he liked. The basic idea seemed to be that he postured for "obvious" decency (obvious to the studio audience, anyway) and simple answers to complex questions. For instance, while he usually draped himself in the flag (quite literally), he also backed Al Sharpton in the Tawana Brawley incident.This documentary is not only about the MDJ Show's life cycle but also the rise and the fall of MDJ himself. Watching this film, I was quite sad for him toward the end of his tenure as a public figure. He was quite obviously extremely insecure as a person, and just drank up the publicity, groupies and attention that the show gave him. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1996 and passed away in 2001. It's probably too much to say that he was a broken man after the MDJ show but the show caused him to burn himself out with his worst tendencies and appetites.The film never mentioned drug use. I find it difficult to believe that his frenzied attacks on the show were *him*. But apparently they were.I also got the answer to the question as to why the MDJ Show was canceled, since I didn't pay a lot of attention to it in its heyday. Essentially, the format drove away all substantial guests, since they knew that any dissenting opinion would cause them to be crucified by the audience mob and by MDJ himself. So at the end, the show had a lot of novelty acts, like the amputee lady who played patriotic anthems with her tongue on a keyboard, or transsexuals arguing their lifestyles.The life cycle of this show was a great warning to anyone who believes that populism and direct rule by the public is the answer to all complex social issues and debates ... such as current political movements (Tea Party, "Occupy") that are tied directly to anger and outrage. The MDJ Show started with a "high concept" that eventually dissolved because the show lost any credibility it had at the outset. This is a warning to both sides of the aisle to understand that mobs don't have answers, they just have emotions. The things that made the MDJ Show popular for a time were the same things that eventually buried it.In terms of production and the documentary itself - I thought the presentation was exceptionally effective. Several commentaries from Pat Buchanan lend credibility and gravitas throughout the film, and he did a great job of tying MDJ to today's political climate. The weird graphic novel style animations which have been mentioned by other reviewers as distracting - I found them perfectly complementary to the movie. A recurring meme in the animations was the ghostly image of MDJ's father's face, grimly nodding "no" in disapproval to junior. The animations were impressionistic - a reflection of Downey's id and internal obsessions.

I have to admit that ever since new of his death from lung cancer in 2001, I hadn't given much thought to Morton Downey, Jr. I'm not being mean, but truthfully, there wasn't much to think about. Downey's legacy in television history is so forgettable that the subsequent generation has no idea who he was. If you've ever seen "The Morton Downey, Jr. Show" you probably have an idea why.For 20 months from 1987 to 1989, Downey ran a self-titled TV talk show that was part-riot, part-circus, a little bit Jerry Springer, Rush Limbaugh and later Bill O'Reilly and Michael Moore. What would come of his show would be an example, not for others to follow, but for others to correct upon. His show was a loud, obnoxious and fairly monotonous platform of screaming and bullying. The format (he said) was to give a voice to the silent majority, but in reality it was a platform for propagating bad behavior. Downey screamed in the faces of a variety of guests from vegans to the gun nuts to the KKK and even celebrity guests like Ron Paul and Alan Dershowitz. Famously, he clashed with Al Sharpton. Downey's audience, comprised mostly of young college kids, behaved as if they were attending a hockey game.The new documentary "Évocateur: The Morton Downey, Jr. Movie" examines Downey's brief rise and quick demise from television. This is a professionally-made, talking-head documentary that features interviews with former colleagues, family and friends who try to help us get inside Downey's head to figure out what drew him to become the screaming meme of late-night television and what personal demons drew him to television and what led to his eventual downfall.We learn that he was a bitter man, the son of a celebrated Irish Tenor (whom his son loathed) who was a friend and neighbor of the Kennedys. The junior Downey grew up in the shadow of his old man, even attempting to launch a singing career of his own. His singing voice was competent but unremarkable. His looks weren't exactly top drawer either. He bore a strange resemblance to Don Knotts. Despite his familial legacy, Downey would become a walking irony. He would make his living destroying his voice, by screaming on television and chain-smoking four packs a day.Downey would prop himself up as the voice of the angry right-wing Republican, sort of an Archie Bunker with a lectern - even down to the smoking habit and the white collared shirts. His show wasn't exactly insightful. Fellow talk show host Sally Jesse Raphael remarks that his show was "that prurient excitement of not-nice people saying not-nice things." His show would turn talk shows on their heads. The common thread of talk shows in the mid-80s was the polite, conversational style of Phil Donahue, Merv Griffin and a newly minted Chicago-based neophyte named Oprah Winfrey.The difference between Downey and his contemporaries (even Springer) is that they stayed off-stage, letting the audience run the circus. Downey tried to play the role of the ringmaster, the lion-tamer and the lion, and so the show had nowhere to go. His singular quest was ratings and he got them, until the television audience grew tired of the act. The movie doesn't shy away from the facts of why the show – and Downey's career – came to an unflattering end.The movie finds some measure of pity for Downey, but it never backs down from the fact that he was the propagator of his own downfall, particularly with the infamous Tawana Brawly incident in 1988 in which a black woman claimed to have been raped by six white man - an incident that was later found to have been staged. Later Downey would try to become the propagator of his own headlines by claiming to have been beaten up by skinheads in an airport men's room, which he staged to get himself one more headline. The result of this documentary is the pitiful, but not unmoving, story of a man who build his house on sand and got caught in his own trap.*** (of four)