Geraldo (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Geraldo is an American daytime television
Daytime television
Daytime television is the general term for television shows produced that are intended to air during the daytime hours on weekdays. This article is about American daytime television, for information about international daytime television see Daytime television....

 talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....

 hosted by Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera
Geraldo Rivera is an American attorney, journalist, author, reporter, and former talk show host...

 that aired in syndication from September 7, 1987, to June 12, 1998. On the last two seasons, it was known as The Geraldo Rivera Show. Both titles were produced by Investigative News Group in association with Tribune Entertainment
Tribune Entertainment
Tribune Entertainment was a television production and syndication company owned and operated by Tribune Broadcasting in the mid-1980s. Many programs offered from Tribune Entertainment have been broadcast on the company's television stations....

.

As Geraldo

The title Geraldo was used on the first 9 seasons. It led to Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

s characterization as "Trash TV". The show had many guests during its long run including Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....

, Tonya Harding
Tonya Harding
Tonya Maxine Harding is an American figure skating champion. In 1991 she won the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and placed second in the World Championships. She was the second woman, and the first American woman, to complete a triple axel jump in competition...

, Gary Coleman
Gary Coleman
Gary Wayne Coleman was an American actor, known for his childhood role as Arnold Jackson in the American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes and for his small stature as an adult. He was described in the 1980s as "one of television's most promising stars". After a successful childhood acting career, Coleman...

, Bern Nadette Stanis
Bern Nadette Stanis
Bern Nadette Stanis is an American actress best known for her role as the strong-willed Thelma Evans on the CBS sitcom, Good Times.-Career:...

, Jeanne White Ginder (mother of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 activist Ryan White
Ryan White
Ryan Wayne White was an American teenager from Kokomo, Indiana, who became a national poster child for HIV/AIDS in the United States, after being expelled from middle school because of his infection. A hemophiliac, he became infected with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment and, when diagnosed...

), Kathy Garver
Kathy Garver
Kathleen Marie "Kathy" Garver is an American film, television, voice-over and character actress of stage, most widely known for playing Uncle Bill Davis's teenaged niece, Catherine "Cissy" Davis, on the popular 1960s sitcom, Family Affair. Before that, she played a slave in The Ten Commandments...

, Diandra Newlin
Diandra Newlin
Diandra Newlin is an American actress, singer, and fashion model.-Personal life:Born in Richmond, Virginia in 1991 to Jim and Donna Newlin, Diandra Newlin grew up in Richmond. Her father is the senior product manager for ChemTreat/Danaher Inc., and her mother is a registered nurse and SAG actress....

, Peter Tork
Peter Tork
Peter Tork is an American musician and actor, best known as a member of The Monkees.-Early life:Tork was born Peter Halsten Thorkelson in Washington, D.C.. Although he was born in 1942, many news articles report him as born in 1944 in New York City as this was the date and place given on early...

, Howard Stern
Howard Stern
Howard Allan Stern is an American radio personality, television host, author, and actor best known for his radio show, which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style...

, Alison Stern, Margaux Hemingway
Margaux Hemingway
Margaux Hemingway was an American fashion model and actress.- Early life :Margot Louise Hemingway was born in Portland, Oregon, and was the older sister of actress Mariel Hemingway and the granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway...

 among many others.

Brawl


Although public perceptions in the show's first season were leading to this dubious title, the episode that solidified Geraldo as "Trash TV" was the November 3, 1988, episode involving white supremacists
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...

, anti-racist skinheads
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice are anti-racist skinheads who oppose neo-Nazis and other political racists, particularly if those racists identify themselves as skinheads....

, black activists, and Jewish activists. A confrontation between John Metzger (the son of Tom Metzger
Tom Metzger
Thomas Metzger is an American white nationalist who founded White Aryan Resistance . His far-right activist groups, including WAR, have been monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an American organization that tracks hate groups...

) and Roy Innis
Roy Innis
Roy Emile Alfredo Innis is an African American civil rights activist. He has been National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality since his election to the position in 1968....

 (in which Metzger goaded Innis by referring to him as "Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom is a derogatory term for a person who perceives themselves to be of low status, and is excessively subservient to perceived authority figures; particularly a black person who behaves in a subservient manner to white people....

") led to a full-out brawl with chairs hurled and punches thrown. Audience members, several stage hands and Rivera himself got involved, with Rivera throwing a few punches at a white supremacist. In the process, Rivera was struck in the face and wound up with a broken nose. He did not press charges, saying he did not wish to be "tied up with the roaches" (meaning white supremacists).

The ratings for this show went through the roof as news of the fight attracted attention to the episode even before it aired.

From that point on, the less graceful side of society's issues, and juicy celebrity exposes were the norm, but no other future incident matched the heated fist-fight of season two. Geraldos symbol in the grand scale of talk shows became typified by what opened each show: the image of a generic tabloid magazine cover displaying images of the day's subject with a screaming headline accompanied by the show's scripted logo (Geraldo's handwritten signature). This practice paved the way for later talk shows using creative and somewhat drawn-out titles for their show topics (The Jerry Springer Show
The Jerry Springer Show
The Jerry Springer Show is a syndicated television tabloid talk show hosted by Jerry Springer, a former politician, broadcast in the United States and other countries...

, Jenny Jones
The Jenny Jones Show
The Jenny Jones Show is an American syndicated daytime tabloid talk show that was hosted by comedian/actress/singer Jenny Jones. It was produced by Telepictures and was distributed by Warner Bros. Television Distribution...

and Ricki Lake
Ricki Lake (talk show)
Ricki Lake was the first daytime tabloid talk show hosted by American actress Ricki Lake.The show specialized in sensationalist topics involving invited guests and incorporated questions and comments from a studio audience...

were among the programs to jump on this bandwagon).

As The Geraldo Rivera Show

From 1996 to 1998, it was known as The Geraldo Rivera Show, and changed from the established tabloid format to a more stubbed, serious show. Gone was the opening checkout-counter tabloid graphic, replaced with a full opening sequence that played up Rivera's caring and sensitive nature (in one shot, he is locking lips passionately with his then-wife). Summer 1996 promos for the new season showed Rivera also playing with his two young daughters. He was seen in a 1997 PSA
Public service announcement
A public service announcement or public service ad is a type of advertisement featured on television, radio, print or other media...

 about children. It was similar to the old Geraldo title.

In 1998, David John Oates starred on the show, playing reversals on Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...


Parodies

The 1989 film UHF
UHF (film)
UHF is a 1989 American comedy film starring "Weird Al" Yankovic, David Bowe, Fran Drescher, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards, Gedde Watanabe, Billy Barty, Anthony Geary, Emo Philips and Trinidad Silva, in whose memory the film is dedicated.The title refers to Ultra High Frequency...

parodies Geraldo, including the famous 1988 brawl. (clip)
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