Shark Bytes

I actually miss this show. Entertainment Tonight may try to be like this show with their Anna Nicole obsession, but they don't even close to the scandalous goodness that was Hard Copy.

I wanted to say this show jumped during "Day One," but that would be incorrect. It was always what it set out to be: pure, salacious titillation and scandal mongering. My favorites where when they did week-long reenactment miniseries at the end of each episode like "The Last Days of Elvis." It was kind of like Hard Copy's version of the Bloodhound Gang. I toured Paramount studios while the show was still in production. While it was supposed to look like the show was shot in a massive newsroom, the set actually consisted simply of a desk in front of a blue screen. Somebody had placed a copy of the National Enquirer on the desk and the tour guide said, "Oh yeah, here's a copy of the script if anybody wants it."

Who would you say is funnier, Barry Nolan, Terry Murphy, and Doug Bruckner, or Laurel and Hardy? I would have to say Laurel and Hardy.

When they dumped that guy with the outragiously low voice! My mother could'nt stand that guy! As soon as he whent, the show simply wasn't as fun.

please. garbage.

I agree. Show was trashy.

I remember this piece of tabloid tripe from my college days. Jumped on day one. And, yes, they did take themselves WAY too seriously, like they were on the "McNeil-Lehrer Report." I would go further, but I've wasted more than enough time on this piece of trash.

This show jumped when they got their own news channel and changed the name to FOX NEWS.

In response to the fourth poster, I got a pretty good kick out of being essentially called a rube for missing HC. The show was a guilty pleasure of mine, but a pleasure nonetheless. I derived quite a few of laughs out of it, simply because it was so trashy and so sleazy, and that the only ones who could possibly take their stories seriously were those sorry inhabitants of trailer parks, munching on paint chips and swilling rotgut. There was nothing intellectual about it, and that was its charm. It gave you a chance just to sit down on your SpineMelter brand love seat and not think for a half hour. Yeah, I know you could probably say the same thing for about 90% of the shows out there, but HC was different. I can't say how, since you would have to watch the show to understand. Also, Entertainment Tonight, I feel, was well on its way to becoming broadcast toilet paper to the "stars" before HC was even conceived. God bless America.

Hard Copy jumped when it gave us OJ Simpson updates every single episode. "Today on Hard Copy, we'll talk to a guy that knew OJ's 2nd grade teacher!" They also started recycling stories....... old story on a new episode.

HC definitely jumped when Barry Nolan, Terry Murphy, and Doug Bruckner all left the show in 1998. They were the only reasons why I liked the show, though Jerry Penacoli stuck around till the end. By the way, Barry, Jerry, and Doug are now reporters on Extra.

when the producers sat around thinking, "Gee, A Current Affair is getting good ratings, and it really sucks!!! Let's see if we can come up with a show along the same lines but even more scream in your face and tawdry and stupid The first two posters are stupid beyond all hopes and dreams of ever getting a fingernail hold in reality. You two still think that WWF etall is real, right? Hard Copy helped to turn Entertainment Tonight from a mildly diverting show about music, movies, tv et al into the most vapid waste of tv currently on the air. I can still here Doug Bruckner screaming out, "COMING UP NEXT: TANYA'S PORN PAST!!!!!!!" (This in reference to Tanya Harding's honeymoon video that she made with her soon to be ex-jusband. But the worst part about Hard Copy was how seriously the "reporters" all took themselves. Please. this was a possible precursor to the Drudge report. I remember they did an entire month 20 shows in a row that consisted of NOTHING but bullshit, hype, speculation, screaming and more bullshit about "The Long Island Lolita." Take it away.

Oh how I miss "Hard Copy." You'd think there would be somewhere on cable where they could revive this show in all its glory.

You had to respect Hard Copy, because it never pretended to be anything but what it was...total sleaze.