morton downey jr.ow host. for a few years in the late 1980s morton downey jr. was the king of the syndicated talk show world. the morton downey jr. show came barreling out of new york every friday night and barreling straight for the national id. morton downey jr. was the king of shock before america knew it wanted one of those. and he got just other-worldly guests. he got joey ramone, not sedated. he got kiss guitarist ace frehley without all the kiss makeup on. he got professional wrestlers, real ones, fighting over race and workers' rights in debates that i for one believe were just as real as their fighting in the ring. morton downey jr. even got jerry falwell, so you could watch on tv live the shock jock and the televangelist trying to outdo each other. like a snake eating its tail. viewer discretion is advised. sometimes, like when he needed to physically grab a wrestler for effect, morton downey jr. would walk around his set empty-handed. but that was an exception because most of the time in his

. >> reporter: in the past we could console ourselves that the morton downey jr.s of the world wouldg has changed and now according to a new study the ease of fame is masked with the difficulty of making the famous unfamous. university researchers found nowadays those 15 minutes of fame are going into triple overtime. >> my mom making these loud, crazy grunt noises. >> someone like kim kardashian who is famous mainly for being famous does not have to do much to remain famous. >> you are crazy. >> year after year after year after mind numbingly painful year. >> thank you. >> love you. how do the kardashians of the world pull it off? >> oh, you --! >> reporter: researchers say in the current media environment fame is self-reinforcing. once you're in the spotlight, attention begats attention and all the different forms of media from tv to magazines to gossip blogs end up competing with each other to fulfill the desires of a celebrity obsessed culture. of course there are exceptions to the rule. after all when is the last time you thought about this guy? but researchers say more often th