WEST CHESTER, Pa. - Jerry Springer is in the midst of a college tour. Which is ironic because the whole purpose of going to college is to decrease your chances of ever appearing on Springer's syndicated sleazefest.

On this brittle February night, the P.T. Barnum of talk-show hosts is in Asplundh Concert Hall on the campus of West Chester University, addressing the student body.

The kids, who occasionally erupt into the familiar battle cry - "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" - are getting the full dog and pony show. Literally.

One of the episodes shown is "I Married a Horse," during which a Shetland pony is led out onto the stage of Springer's Chicago studio to kiss a decrepit man in visored sunglasses. The host's on-air introduction: "Today we have a love story."

Earlier in the day at his hotel in Philadelphia, Springer, 64, sardonically distanced himself from this particular spectacle. "The guy who slept with his horse? I came out against it. I said it was wrong," he says with a smirk. "So let it never be said that I don't have a moral compass."

That's Jerry's shtick: He watches with amused astonishment his show's sick pageant of midgets, trannies and crackpots but he never steps into the slime pit himself.

"One of the reasons I work (in this role) is that people see me as a regular guy in the midst of the chaos," he says at the hotel. "My role is purely reactive. I don't know anything about the guests beforehand. All I have is a card with their name on it. Every segment always opens with me saying, 'So what's going on?' Then they tell me their story. And I ask them questions and make jokes."

That disingenuous blend of shock and mock has kept "The Jerry Springer Show" on the air for 16 seasons.

"If you aim a show at high school and college kids you can be on forever because there's always new kids coming along to watch," he says. "If you aim a show at a 30-year-old, by the time they're 33, they're bored with the show. But you always get new kids.

"I really think that explains our longevity," Springer says. "Because the show is mindless. It serves no purpose. But it stays on because of the giggle factor."

Later in West Chester, the students are shown a prepackaged clip reel, narrated by Matt Lombardo, the sports editor of the campus newspaper, who has been drafted as moderator.

It traces the arc of Springer's talk-show career, starting in 1991 when he was an earnest news anchor in Cincinnati trying to assume the mantle of Phil Donahue.

Another highlight is the 1997 episode "Klanfrontation," when militant members of the Jewish Defense League were brought on to "debate" robed and hooded Ku Klux Klan members.

To no one's surprise, a full-scale, chair-throwing riot broke out in the studio. The attendant controversy and ratings spike marked a turning point for the show.

After the clips, there's a brief Q&A session with the audience ("What keeps you interested?" "My bills"). Then Springer asks the crowd's forbearance for "four minutes to talk about what's going on in the world right now."

He delivers an impassioned case for universal health care, advising the kids to hold all the presidential candidates accountable. "You say to them, 'If we don't have national health insurance by the next election, you who I voted for will never get my vote again as long as I live."'

Then comes the part of the evening that everyone came for, as Jerry moves to a side table and the kids line up to have their pictures taken with him by their friends with cell phones.

It's a perfectly modern moment, made peculiar only because Springer himself is something of a Luddite. "We've become subservient to the technology," he said at the hotel. "My staff always makes fun of me because I don't use a computer. It's not a world that I want to participate in. I have no e-mail. I have a cell phone with no numbers (programmed) on it."

That Jerry. He's all about irony. He insists that his goofy, outrageous program has, almost unwittingly, made the culture more tolerant. "The intent of the show is pure entertainment," he says. "But the effect is that we're more accepting, more open as a society."

Wait, are you trying to tell us that in a few years marriages between people and ponies will be commonplace?

Springer laughs. "We did a follow-up show," he says. "The horse left him. It's not as open as you think. Horses are so judgmental."