Shark Bytes

Geraldo Rivera is a terrible reporter, a pompous ass, and the most obvious phony to be given his own show since Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. And unlike Barbara Walters, he never had any credibility to start with. How this bad joke of a journalist is still working on television is beyond me.

I used to watch his show on and off, and I think I hated the constant obsessing over the OJ trial the most. Then he got on a tangent about JonBenet Ramsey. That was it for me.

who remembers this Geraldo getting bouced out of Iraq by the US Army after his map-in-the-sand FOX news report (here's the river, here's Najaf and here we are)less than a hour after they told him not to broadcast anything revealing troop locations. What a class-A jerk

As obnoxiously PC and sensitive as Donahue was, at least he was legit but Geraldo faked being O 'sensitive' on-camera to countless guests but is evidently a total pig offcamera. Hypocrite!

Please give him a break about Capone's vault. It's not his fault it was empty!!

It doesn't matter if the vault opening was, technically, before the show. That just makes the jump for this show the earliest jump, ever, because it clearly jumped long BEFORE the first episode, and you can nail the jump down to a very solid date and event. I remember watching that vault opening event with my dad. My word, who would have thought it would be empty? I mean, really, you'd think the producers would have considered that very real possibility and would have done something to make sure that wasn't the case...like some kind of wall-probing sonar, or maybe a fiber optic cable with a camera, something, anything, so they could be assured there was, at least, some STUFF in there. Of course, the vault wasn't entirely empty. I do seem to recall something about an empty whiskey bottle. But, really, that had to be in the top ten humiliating moments in television. I was vicariously mortified for Geraldo, but this was before I figured out the man, really, has no shame and so it's no sense wasting that kind of sympathy on him. Here's a neat idea: there should be a Worst of Geraldo DVD with all of these great moments. The time he was on 20/20 with Barbara Walters, talking about the running of the bulls, and he's all, like, look, there's ME, ME, MEEEE. Barbara was looking at him with, like, barely concealed contempt, and you could hear it in her voice. It was laugh aloud funny. That was when I first became conscious of Geraldo, and I have followed his career with delight ever since. Or how about the time he was crawling, pointlessly, over the stash of artillery shells in Tora Bora, and, at some point, revealed he was carrying a personal sidearm?Jay Leno put it best on the Tonight Show. The three most frightening words in television history: "eraldo is packing." Bring it on, I say, and be sure to mention the idea was first articulated on Jump The Shark. It's time for the Best Of/Worst of Geraldo DVD for yourself and a new generation to enjoy.

Any show with Geraldo Rivera in it is poison. He thinks he's some sort of social crusader, but he is not much better than Jerry Springer or the rest of that ilk that glamorizes society's misfits and losers. If there were any justice int he world, the skinhead that broke Geraldo's nose with a chair ought to be given an award.

Geraldo, grew up one town over from me out on Long Island. My Dad grew up in the same town as Geraldo and went to high school together Geraldo was a few years older then my dad, my dad was in the same grade as Geraldo's sister and cousin. My dad knew him went by the name of Jerry Rivers. I always hated his show, I always thought it was so sleazy. I remember one show that he did which was all about Madonna it was right after she released "Truth or Dare" and he had on people like Kurt Loder from MTV and these religious people who thought that Madonna was the anti christ. And Geraldo acted as if this topic was the most important topic in the whole world. I also remember that every friday he would have these gossip columnists who would debate about certain problems that stars were going through at the time. One of the funniest comments about Mr. Rivera came from his former father in law the author Kurt Vonnegut, Vonnegut came and spoke at my parents church when I was about 16 and his opening line was "The only connection that I have with this area is that a former son in law of mine grew up here, but I won't hold that against you people", I thought that was pretty funny.

I remember seeing Geraldo once doing a news segment on the Vietnamese boat people. This emaciated and starving wretch of a boatperson comes staggering out of the water and there on shore is Geraldo, decked out in an Abercrombie & Fitch safari coat. He sticks a microphone into the confused refugee's face and says, "How you doin', Buddy?"

After that flying chair broke Geraldo's nose it could do nothing quite as shocking. It did however set off a trend of horrendous shock TV shows, many of them bad comedies like Jerry Springer.

I was too young at the time to realize, as I do now, that Geraldo is a piss poor journalist that can't even manage sensationalism correctly. However, I lost all respect for him with the vault thing. Sure, he had no clue that there was nothing in the vault, but the hype and disappointment was just too much. The least he could have done was have it opened and then done a piece on it, empty or not. It would have still been interesting. But no... he had to go mugging for the camera for nothing. I sat there and watched this for nothing! Nothing, I tell you! OK...I'm calm now. Geraldo is a jackass.

Vicious lies were made by geraldo to me to get me on the show. It was an obvious setup to exploit a sad situation into something sadistic and evil to promote ratings. The consequences and aftermath of the series of shows regarding this episode along with the original show left in it's wake an endless lifetime of family destruction among all members to the point that mending possibilities are not possible. Attempted suicides, suicides, mother sleeping with daughters husband (living with), stealing husband from daughter, mother talking of suing for daughters children, father abandoned by all, sisters estranged, etc.etc.etc. Sick Sick Sick. Thank You geraldo -- you worm. How many other lives have you destroyed for you sick precious ratings???????

This guys the worst. I knew someone who was stationed in the Mideast when GR worked for ABC; the guy says Geraldo was a shameless spotlight whore even then. Does anyone remember a brief late night program ABC gave Geraldo in the early 70s. The program was an attempt to draw in young people. I think it was called "Good Night America." It was briefly popular because Geraldo got a little attention for running the Zapruder film after it had not been shown on TV since the early 60s. Anyway, I seem to recall Geraldo SINGING on the show. Maybe I'm nuts, but think he opened the program (at least once!) singing the chorus from "The City of New Orleans" to match the shows theme. Does anyone out there remember this or was it just a pizza-induced nightmare I had once?

Firstly, Geraldo opened Al Capone's vault as a special in 1985 or 86, BEFORE his show went on the air. Secondly, the infamous "chair throwing, nose breaking scene" was staged. If you watch the video very carefully, Geraldo is een just as the fight breaks out. The camera is still on the stage when charis are thrown, but guess what? No Geraldo! Suddenly when the chaos stops, you see Geraldo behind the seating area on the stage with his nose "bloodied" and still holding a microphone. A friend of mine worked on the show in its early days and told me how it was all a setup. Thirdly, he has always disputed the Gerry Rivers story, but has offered no proof. Apologies to the poster who says his real name is Geraldo Manuel RIvers, but I have never seen any shred of evidence that he has been named either. For all we know, he is really the ghost of Ted McGinley. Fourthly, in 1989 he had on Halloween the infamous "Manson Family Reunion" epsidoe where he had a bunch of choo-choo charlie's pals and associates on the show. One question asked to the "Family" was 'What do you think the relatives of the Tates and Lobiancos would do know if they met Charles Manson today?'. The answer: "Give him a hug!" What a jerk. He also claims he would never say OJ's name again after he was acquitted. And of course, there's his famous reporting of troop movements agains DoD orders in Iraq this year. He got the boot for that. Why does anyone hire this guy? This show jumped the shark when the network thought up the idea of it.

I am just posting in response to the poster who said, "When the real-life Jerry Rivers changed his name into Geraldo and became Hispanic." His birth name is Gerald Miguel Riviera.