Maury Povich has gone full 2010 James Franco lately, revisiting his 1990’s on-air paternity-test days with Ricki Lake on his new podcast a few weeks ago and then one-upping the meta-ness with an appearance last week as himself — serving up a lie-director test to settle a Pinky-Phaedra argument — on The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Now he’s taking the cheeky reflexiveness to a new level, dropping a 15-minute three-segment parody that doubles as an ad for a creative-backoffice AI company called Air. Povich shot the sendup last month on a soundstage in midtown Manhattan, where a crew rebuilt the set from his longrunning syndicated staple Maury (rebranded here as On Air With Maury), marking a return of sorts after four years off the air. “I haven’t opened up an envelope in four years,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter, referring to his infamous on-air paternity reveals. “So it’s good.”
All three segments make thematic use of AI, but it’s the first that leans in hardest. In the spot, one man accuses his business partner (they run a trampoline company, so this is hardly meant seriously) of sleeping with his girlfriend and even impregnating her. The girlfriend, of course, turns out to be synthetic.
The friend fails a lie detector test, proving he has slept with the AI avatar, but the paternity test shows he is not the father of the fetus inside her. (Don’t ask too many questions.)
The sketch was written by human writers and all the characters are played by actors, save for the AI girlfriend who is — yes — synthetic herself. Which means the man who practically invented ginned-up drama just acted opposite against a ginned-up human. “It was my first time with an avatar. It was intimate,” he says.
Air execs are hoping that the spot demonstrates how preproduction can be expedited and made cheaper even for traditional shoots (the spot went from development to completion in a matter of weeks). They might have chosen the right subject in Povich: despite being born back in the 1930’s, Povich has a remarkable amount of social media traction, with the Facebook page for his syndicated show still clocking in at more than 6.5 million followers.
Povich decided to do the spot because Air’s co-founder is Tyler Strand, son of a marketing executive from The Montel Williams Show he knew back in the day. Povich says he was mainly having fun with the concept but was compelled by a vision of human-machine collaboration.
“If this was classically just an AI company I don’t think I would have been involved,” he says. “But the fact that it combines AI and human creativity — that kind of sucked me in.”
Watching the segment one wonders if in fact Povich has been de-aged, as he looks a solid 15 years younger than his 87. But a Zoom interview confirms he has not (unless he used the tech there too).
One AI project Povich is not involved in is the deepfake last month of him conducting a faux paternity test with Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and sports journalist Dianna Russini to mock the scandal over the pair’s insinuating photos. The host was as taken aback by it as anyone, and it caused more than a few misunderstandings. “It was so real my sister called me up and said ‘don’t you think you oughta go on Instagram and make an apology?’” he says. “I said ‘it’s AI! They know that.’”
Whether because of this incident or others, Povich sounds a slightly concerned note about AI’s use in Hollywood. “If a scriptwriter wins an Oscar or Emmy and I find out it’s AI it would bother the shit out of me,” he says. He similarly would not want his own likeness used to re-create a version of his show, now or after he’s gone.
One perhaps shouldn’t worry too much about AI being prompted to resurrect a talk-show host, what with the whole format dying anyway. Then again, a 2026 reunion of Donahue, Springer and Morton Downey Jr., would probably pull some ratings.
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