Bruce Spolansky had tickets to see a taping of “The Jerry Springer Show” May 26, 1999. He had spent more than two hours calling the show to get the tickets, fighting through the constant busy signal to be one of the lucky ones to secure a seat at the show.

"I was looking forward to some fights," Spolansky says, "or strippers or Ku Klux Klan wars or something. Instead, there was nothing. No fight. No swearing. In fact, when one of the women on the show got out of her chair, they stopped the tape. They said 'We're not doing that anymore.'"

Spolansky attended the first tame taping of “The Jerry Springer Show,” a change caused by political pressure from Chicago City Council as well as parent company Studios USA.

Springer, notorious for promoting fights on his high-rated talk show, had gone clean.

And the fans were furious.

"We usually get about two or three hundred calls about every show," says an intern at the show who asked to remain anonymous for legal reasons. "The first day the fights stopped, we got over one thousand calls -- that's a record."

"Every single one was angry," she says. “They all said they were going to stop watching because we made the show bad."

The fans weren't lying. Within the next week, Springer's ratings dropped by almost an entire point, accounting for over one million households. Springer, said by some to be the '90s posterboy for what's wrong with television, has called his show "stupid" and fun, saying that the evening news and sitcoms contain violence and sex that influence people far more than his talk show. Like the movies, television continues to push the envelope. It contains a plethora of violence and sex, often on at times when children can watch. Watchdog groups decry it, parents worry about it, fans call for it, and producers create it -- but does it really influence children? What should concerned parents do?

"If steps are being taken [to tone down violence and sex]," says the Springer intern, "there's going to be a lot of pissed off people."

"Television is the raunchiest it has ever been," says L. Brent Bozell III, chairman of the Parents Television Council to CNN in May.

Besides Jerry Springer's daily dose of domestic fights, strippers, hate groups, sexual orientation scandals and family feuds, violence and sex can be found on plenty of other channels.

The news is a prime example. Over the past 10 years, the news philosophy of many local television news programs has been "if it bleeds, it leads." Critics say news has moved toward sensationalism, with murders and rapes often securing top billing.

In a survey in the early '90s, a University of Oklahoma professor found that more than half of the 101 news professionals questioned said they would rather air tape including a gunshot and death than no footage at all.

The evening news airs during traditional dinnertime, when children of families with the television on can absorb images of violence without parents thinking twice. According to American media critic Dale Kunkel's report in the Fall 1994 Media Studies Journal, "Forty-eight percent of all television news stories about children involved reports of crime and violence."

In addition, the Monica Lewinsky case brought words like "semen" and "penis" into the dining experience, as well as the issues of infidelity and debauchery.

Sitcoms and network dramas are further examples of television's increasing evocativeness.

Two out of three network prime time shows depict some sort of sexual situation, according to a study released in February 1999, by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Only 3 percent of sitcoms discussed any of the risks and responsibilities associated with sex.

Foul language has also increased on these shows. Words absent on television 10 years ago are now the common vernacular of characters on every network.

“NYPD Blue,” an Emmy-award-winning police drama on ABC, began to use increasingly "realistic" language in the early '90s. A new program called “Action,” which premiered on Fox in the fall of 1999, pushed the envelope even further.

Other types of programs have also drawn criticism.

“Monday Night Raw,” a professional wrestling program broadcast on the USA network, has been under fire recently for its increase in bloody violence and sexual degradation. Frequent child injuries and even a recent death that have occurred while emulating pro wrestling moves have sparked the nationwide criticism of the product.

“South Park,” an animated cartoon, portrays four children who swear at will and get involved in thousands of acts of violence. One character dies at the end of each episode, but is alive again the following week. This cartoon show follows in the footsteps of “Beavis and Butthead,” an MTV cartoon that popularized jokes about human bodily functions.

MTV has several additional programs that have been under fire. Music videos, filled with misogyny, violence, sex and drugs, are frequently cited in cases where children perform parallel acts.

“The Real World,” an MTV show featuring the real footage of seven strangers put in a house and taped constantly, often is accused of showing the immoral side of teenage life. Entertainment Weekly pulled out a quote, said by one college-age girl to a housemate: "I've only had sex with 11 people in my life, and the 12th isn't going to be you."

With television progressing at this rate and filling up with more violence, sex and language, what can parents do to ensure their children aren’t reaping negative effects?

"You have to be responsible," says Dale, who comments that he would promptly discuss violence on television with his children when they were growing up.

"I don't think that preventing them from watching shows is the answer. That just makes them more curious. You need to watch the shows with them."

"My son was always talking about ‘South Park,’" says Karen, mother of one 13-year-old child. "So I sat down and watched it with him. I was shocked, but we talked about real violence versus cartoon violence, and I think he got the picture."

"My parents never stopped me from watching anything," says Craig, an 18-year-old college student, "but when I would turn on something too sexual the looks on their faces would make me turn it off."

He adds, "I don't think that TV had any effect on me."

"I doubt that my son is picking up any of the language on TV," Karen says. "I'm sure that what they say on ‘South Park’ is nothing compared to what I overhear him and his friends talking about."

"I don't watch ‘Jerry Springer,’ it's dumb," says Katie, a sixth-grader. "None of my friends watch it. The people are all idiots on it." Springer airs at 3 p.m. in Katie's area, a time when children are home from school and parents are generally still at work.

"I don't think all children are that responsible," Dale says, after hearing Katie's comment. "I wish that show wasn't on at that time."

"The V-Chip was supposed to take care of that," Karen says. "What ever happened to that? Now there are these ratings in the corner before a show. But it's not like a movie theater. My son can watch shows that are [rated] TV-14 or TV-MA without any problem, because no one is selling tickets or anything like that."

In fact, some media watchdogs believe the ratings have made the job of vigilant parents even more difficult.

The ratings system has actually prompted some in the television industry to push the envelope even further, says Bozell, according to CNN.

"I believe that," Craig says. "I see things and hear things on TV that have never happened before. The ratings are being used as a justification."

The V-Chip may not be the answer, either. Many people consider the chip, inserted in televisions to shut off the screen if violent content comes onscreen, to be more of an annoyance than a cure.

Do violence and sex in television have an effect on children? Many government officials, watchdog groups and parents think so. Images and sounds from television have been analyzed in recent school shootings, often with unmistakable parallels.

The government is taking a hard-nosed approach to the onslaught of violence and sex on TV.

"It is in the public interest to know whether entertainment companies are making a killing off our kids," says Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas.

Pressure has caused some shows to tone down. “The Jerry Springer Show” is the key example, along with the delaying of the school-violence-filled “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season finale. However, television news, sitcoms, music videos, dramas, police shows, real TV shows and others continue to stream images into America's homes. And people respond.

"I used to watch ‘Springer’ all the time," Craig says. "America's appetite for violence and sex on TV isn't just going to go away."

"Just make sure that if your little brother is watching, you explain the difference between make believe and real life."