Everyone’s gonna talk about CAPONE EMPTY VAULT, but I prefer AFGHANISTAN FAKE HILLTOP:
It was early in Afghanistan and Geraldo had just gone out there to get footage.
They wanted a hilltop that was visibly SHELLED, right..? With tattered TREES.
That’s actually REALLLY rare in Afghanistan, but the audience concept is there, and they feel they have to shoot to fit that narrative.
So some poor producer spends days or maybe WEEKS trying to find that PERFECT hilltop, and after some creative modification they FINALLY have it.
Geraldo gets up there in his flack-jacket, broadcasting and then HITS THE DIRTY cuz there’s a SCARRRRY INCOMINB MORTAR..!!!
And they show him diving, and the cameraman jerks the camera, and somehow they had a whooshing sound, and everything.
And it was a scandal cuz there had been NO mortar —it was just Geraldo manufacturing news. It was FAKE.
And until about a year ago, it would have been simple for me to link that silly photo in there, cuz the photo was out there. I know it cuz EVERY time Geraldo hit the news in some smaller scandal, I would tell the whole story —just like now— and show you guys the photo.
But they caught on, and spent some cash, and alas, I can find it NOWHERE.
But there’s the story, yup.
I still have a special place in my heart for him running up Mill street to the Greyhound Bus station chasing Judge Barbuto (I think it was Barbuto we have had so many notorious crooks in Akron). It was on 20/20.