Geraldo Rivera has one of the longest careers in television that I can think of. It seems like he’s been around forever. From his eponymous talk show that dominated the 90’s to his current slightly more legitimate career as a reporter for Fox News (among other places), the man with one of the more famous mustaches in news history has been around forever. While he looked bad opening Al Capone’s empty vault, he’s never looked as bad as when he got wiped out by a wave covering Hurricane Ike.
Geraldo is more than just a newscaster these days. He’s always been more of a personality than a news guy, that’s why he’s been one of the most spoofed reporters in history and why he has a Snopes entry. He’s been spoofed on South Park, was a fixture in Hasbro’s 80’s cartoon lines (Hector Ramirez was a pretty bald-faced Geraldo clone that I recognized instantly as a kid), he’s been featured in several Kurt Vonnegut novels, and he was even the inspiration for the Robert Downey Jr. character Wayne Gale in Natural Born Killers.
I don’t dislike the guy, though I do think his shtick is getting old. Watching him bite it thanks to that wave was hilarious. I just wish I had been watching live when he took a bath in the Gulf overflow.
Image: Geraldo’s Fox News Bio
Tags: Geraldo Rivera, Hurricane Ike, Fox News, Galveston, Texas, knocked over by a wave, TV news bloopers, funny videos