Ricki Lake

Ricki Lake premiered September 13, 1993, and ran until May 21, 2004 — 11 seasons and roughly 2,000 episodes. Conceived in 1992 by Garth Ancier and Gail Steinberg, who wanted a young host with enough worldview to carry a range of topics, the show made Lake the youngest person to host a syndicated talk show at the time. She was already a cult figure for her role as Tracy Turnblad in John Waters' Hairspray (1988), a credential that lent the project instant credibility with exactly the audience it was chasing.

That audience was the innovation. Instead of courting the 25-and-up demographic like every other daytime talk program, Ricki Lake aimed squarely at teenagers, college students, and young urban Gen-X viewers — and inverted the traditional talk-show family dynamic to match. Where Oprah would frame an episode as "My teen daughter is driving me crazy," Ricki framed hers as "My mom doesn't understand me." The studio audience answered with the "Go Ricki! Go Ricki!" chant that became the show's signature, equal parts pep rally and generational rallying cry.

The show was cancelled in February 2004. Lake later said that after watching the September 11 attacks from her New York apartment, she knew she wanted out of both her marriage and the show. A second, Oprah-styled Ricki Lake talk show arrived in 2012, but the scrappy 90s original — the one with the chant — is the version people miss.