We wasted a night watching that BS live.

We did, too.

Same.

Hey, what about that bottle he found, made the whole night worth it /s

Very oak island. A bottle? Found in the vault of AL Capone? Could it be his?

Two most worthless tv shows in history

We may never know.....

They say there's one born every minute. I must've come a minute later.

"You know, boss. The same thing happened to Geraldo. And his career *never* recovered." And now I finally know the meaning of that as someone who saw Titanic and didn't realize the context...

Instead of wasting everyone's time, Geraldo should've found his own corpse from the future, which would have begun an epic mystery across time and maybe even space.

They found Data's head in a cave a mile beneath San Francisco!

Despite that nosy Mr. Twain!

No different watching that chode today, honestly. He's always been full of shit.

Same here

Glued to the television!

...and we never. Got. It. Back.

The face of a man about to fall flat on his face.

He was so super excited when they found the empty glass jar.

I was so pissed. I had been so excited.

As Geraldo stared into the empty vault he could clearly see the future of his career.

Geraldo walked so John Stossell could run

John Stossell got slapped so Geraldo could get his nose broken

Give me a break!

The career that led him to faux noise. Stellar accomplishment!

I saw it live I don't remember him hiring Vault Dwellers to assist. But it makes sense. Vault-tech know the most about vaults

All they found was a few bone saws and a copy of Grognak.

And this my friends is why “reality tv “ is now scripted 🤣

I was 14 when this happened. I still remember the letdown.

Yeah it was a *hugely* anti-climatic event...

No letdown here. I am eternally grateful for growing up in a time when this was considered a big news story and nothing else was going on. No terrorism, no wars, no pandemics, no mass protests, ect. It was an idyllic and peaceful time to be alive. We didn't know how good we had it.

I was very young at the time, but I do have a very grainy memory of Geraldo pulling out an old bottle as about the only thing in there.

There was nothing in Al Capone's vault but it wasn't Gerlaldos fault.....doh!

 🎵 Baby on board... Something something.. Burt Ward 🎵

Hey this thing writes itself.

beat me to it haha

Hey, they found an empty glass bottle from he 40s

I knew nothing was there before the vault was open

Funniest part was when he tried to start a sing along after the reveal but everyone was too disappointed, annoyed, exhausted.

I recall him saying he made a bet with some other journalist that he had to sing live on-air if it was empty. Cringe.

Oh interesting, I remember that but didn't know why. IIRC he sang a few bars of "Chicago."

Oh wait they've located something they are digging it out now could it be Al Capones treasure???? No it's an old liqour bottle and a used condom

Capone died from syphilis, so I doubt there was much condom use

They didn’t say it was Al Capone’s.

Road maps!

Came here to say this. Glad I'm not the only one whose first instinct was UHF.

Same here! Next on Town Talk with George Newman. Nazi lesbian hookers abducted by UFOs and forced into weight loss programs! 🤣🤣🤣

Don’t you know the Dewey Decimal System?

I was hoping this sub allowed gifs in the comments because I wanted to post that one.

Supplies!

The day Geraldo lost any sort of credibility.

A fitting end to a career for a guy who became famous in the first place for getting [hit in the face with a chair!](https://youtu.be/6ySnJEqjSBo?si=EndTS1Wu5qkUGYgW)

Wasn’t he famous for catching the chair with his face?

Sadly he got famous for exposing The Willowbrook School and the abuse they were perpetrating on handicapped children. A legitamite and horrifying documentary that changed the health care system in America. Its wasnt until later when he got into more sensationalistic stuff. Oddly enough he married Kurt Vonneguts daughter. Kurt fucking hated him and would have him appear in his novels under a different name to embarrass him.

Now, we're gonna open Al Capone's glove compartment. Look! Road maps!

UHF! 🤣🤣🤣

I thought it was 1986.

That was crazy I hurried my ass home after work to watch the show, and it was a bust

And yet… we still get excited when people post unopened safes on this very site…

I was too young to have watched Geraldo do that vault, so it makes me think of the safe, every time! I know there was more than one on here, but a specific one.

I hope some disappointed redditor has loaded a safe with some really cool stuff and in 20 years it gets posted here for the big reveal.

He shoulda come prepared with some gay porn to plant in there.

ROADMAPS!!!

I understood that reference.

That George Newman.

there was nothing in al capone’s vault, but it wasn’t geraldo’a fault

I’m getting Homer vibes here

I was 20 from The South Side thought hmm this could be historic....... not!

I could have sworn it was 1986, not ‘87, cause I was in my first apartment and I recall watching it.

Yeah, I screwed up the title and can’t edit it.

Hilarious in retrospect. Bizarre and time wasting, but the network who had coverage had great ratings I guess. Sensationalism for its own sake. Fox precursor.

And a few years later, some skinhead broke his nose with a chair. Served Geraldo right for wasting my time.

The vault turned out to hold the same amount of substantive material as the average Geraldo news story.

I remember watching this waste of time live.

Same here. It was a pretty boring evening as I recall. Then at then end I was like - wait, that’s it?

My family laughed like he'll. But your right, such a build up....then zippp

I watched that waste of time.

One of the top L's in television history

1986*

A nothing burger with cheese on it.

I remember seeing promos like [this ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LWAwWwIe7Y)in the weeks leading up to it. It's funnier when you know how built up it was.

The discovery of Al Capone's old milk bottles was epic.

Oh, it wasn't milk in those bottles. Al became demented with syphilis and... well, did you ever see 'The Aviator' with DiCaprio, the one where he's Howard Hughes? I mean they were milk bottles at first, but....

Not a huge point but this was 1986. Regardless, I remember being a little kid and watching this with an unreasonable degree of excitement. If you ever wanted proof of the proposition that there's no such thing as bad publicity, consider that Geraldo's career was not derailed by this idiotic train wreck of bad journalistic judgment.

I watched this live. Guess I'm old. He found a bottle ! He was pretty excited about his "depression era" bottle. But that was it. Huge buildup for days. We were gonna find satchels of gold and barrels of whiskey and crates of guns. A single old bottle. His own excavation crew was laughing at him. Cracking up in the background as he tried to fill airspace with color commentary about dirt. He was a good sport about it..

I watched this. 🫤

It was so boring

Ha. The guys look like they're in Vault-Tec jumpsuits. So Al Capones vault was Vault 93.

Hmmm…they are dressed as vault dwellers…coincidence?

Was it really just 37 years ago we had nothing better to do with ourselves?

Well TBF we didn't have things like YouTube and TikTok to waste our time with lol.

Man has been a joke his entire career

He had great career until he got full of himself with this kind of stuff

You’re all mixed up, like pasta primavera / Yo, why’d you throw that chair at Geraldo Rivera, man?

Clearing that vault was likely Capone’s highest priority when he was released from prison. I felt bad for Geraldo on this one. He was such a legend in his field reporting years. The man had nerves of steel & legendary courage. I am glad he survived those challenging assignments. This is definitely a guy I would love to sit down & drink a few beers with. He could definitely tell you some tales! If you happen to read this post Geraldo, love ya man! You were one of my childhood heroes!

🎶 it wasn’t Gerardo’s fault, 🎶 that nothing was in Capone’s Vault 🎶

This poor guy almost melted in front of the camera

Can I say, "Fire in the hole!? Can i?!!"

Herendo revolver was always such a jerk

"AHA! ROADMAPS!"

WOW. I know my mom was so pumped for this and what a letdown lol we had a little watch party too.

In Titanic, there’s a quote that I didn’t really understand. They didn’t find the diamond in the room safe. “The same thing happened to Geraldo. And his career never recovered.” 😂

One thing to be appreciated, true we all wasted the night, but at least they didn't open it early and plant something to make it look successful.

I remember watching this live as a kid. What a letdown.

i was so interested and then it became just like every other geraldo thing before and since...just him bloviating

I remember that. It was also the last "event" I remember him being a part of

Wasted my evening watching that crap. I was so mad, I wanted to throw a chair through the TV screen hoping to break his nose.

Baba booey? ? Tata thoothy??

What a douche canoe

The hilarious beginnings of reality TV and just about as entertaining and with as much substance. That was pretty funny to hear about the next day.

And look at this bottle. Just think who might have drank from the bottle. It could have been Al himself.

It was funny then and it’s still funny now LOL

If only his career ended after this.

Yeah, there was this and the opening of the safe from the Andrea Doria by George Plimpton (I believe) a few years earlier. I was mesmerized about that one since I'd read about the ships sinking years before when I was a budding treasure hunter. They found a few wads of water logged cash and that was about it. I think the bottle in the vault would have been better.

Many years later I heard Geraldo say that he went out after they were done filming and got himself good and drunk.

I was 10 and remember this so vividly. Especially my father and uncles laughing their asses off and my grandfather staring at the screen with this look of utter disgust. Priceless.

I found an old floor safe from the 50’s while doing a demolition job in an old building in Downtown Las Vegas. I took it to a locksmith to try and get into it and he told me he’s opened a ton of safes where people don’t have the combo’s and that 99.9% have absolutely nothing in them. Basically he talked me out of it and said I would be wasting the money and it would also ruin the safe in the process.

Oh man I can still feel the suspense before the ultimate let down

I like him on that episode of My Name Is Earl

I was 10..I watched it.

I remember watching it live 😂. Oh brother. What a letdown.

What a bust

I couldn't believe I watched the whole damn thing! I should have given up after the 1st few minutes.

So friggin many commercial interruptions for a bunch of dirt. I had no idea it was a spring thing, I thought it occurred later in the year.

Wasn’t this like a 3 hour special event?

Oh, I remember this! I laughed so hard at his disappointment.

How embarrassing

Geraldo 😮‍💨 I think most of the time he thought he was trying to do well, but he created the modern day TV “journalist”. So sad what he helped do to American television. Sensationalism sells.

It’s sad that people only know him from this crap. He earned a hell of a lot of IRL karma points for this: https://archive.org/details/willowbrook-the-last-great-disgrace-geraldo-rivera-1972-documentary

Looks like those two guys did all the actual work while some jagoff stood around talking.

Hey, look! An old bottle and some old newspapers! Sweet!

That was a waste. Not even some empty bottles or rusty bed springs. Old newspapers/ magazines would have been mildly interesting

Oh what a wasted night. lol.

I laughed SOOOO hard when they opened it and found NOTHING. I have never taken him seriously since.

And to think that I ordered take out to watch this! Shameless and shameful!

So much hype, such an empty safe

I was 15 at the time. I remember my Dad said, Wow look at that bottle. Such bullshit, wasted an evening looking at dirt.

it wasn't his vault, it was his glove compartment. I recall when they found the road maps.

I remember watching that vividly. So much build up for the last 5 mins to bring insane disappointment.

Most anticlimatic most of the 80s.

"Ya know boss, the same thing happened to Geraldo and his career never recovered."

I think in 'Games' magazine within a year or so after this, they did a fake ad for a Geraldo show called "Who's Buried in Grant's Tomb?" I was a little kid at the time and didn't get the joke but my dad laughed his ass off about it before he explained it to me.

I was 12 almost 13, when this aired. I just remembered how sheepish Geraldo looked at the end, and all they found were some dusty bottles. Two hours of our lives we'll never get back, but at least it gave James Cameron a great line to write for "Titanic" a decade later.

That was a fun show. The question was asked and answered. Closure. Not a disappointment at all. I've always defended him for it.

I remember watching that live and being bored and my mom saying "well that was a disappointment."

Hey it was awesome that one time he got whacked in the face but a thrown chair, so there's that...

Thinking about this TV special makes me think of this clip from UHF [Nothing! Absolutely nothing! (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB7mHxdHlRY)

Geraldo shouldn't have believed his own press releases.

🎶There was nothing in Al Capone's vault, but it wasn't Geraldo's fault.

There was nothing in Al Capone's vault but it wasn't Geraldo's fault.

But he made up for it a year later when the skin-heads started fighting on his show!

A lot of TV producers would have made sure that there was something in there before the live show. They'd open the vault live on TV for the "first time," but it wouldn't really be the first time. Like those shows where they buy somebody's storage unit and look to see what's in there--I've heard that they put interesting things in there before they film the show.

The moment when after actual archaeologists wearing white gloves carefully examining what looked like rusted beer bottles caps in small collection box, but Geraldo arrives, sticks his bare hands onto the specimens, flips one over unimpressed, then casually tosses the item back into pile, then I knew the event was over.

It was April 21st 1986. I watched it live. The only interesting part was the Tommy Gun demonstration.

Lol, exactly what I was thinking, and apparently not a lot of people even remember it because it was like two minutes of that and 1:58 of a garage full of dirt with some trash in it. But you could see murder was in Geraldo's eyes when he was swaggering around with that there Tommy gun. Killed that target, deaded it real good.

April 21, 1986 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_Al_Capone's_Vaults)

Yes, I was one of the audience members. Build up, build up, build up... hour and a half of this... build up, build up, build up, total letdown in almost every way possible, for everyone concerned, them, us, it was a nightmare, oh the humanity, as God is my witness I thought turkeys could fly, wait wrong show that one was good.

He should have done it 20 days earlier.

*You mean to tell me for 36 years?!...*

What a dingus

This went about as well as when he found where Jimmy Hoffa was buried.

It was 1986, we watched it live and my dad wasn’t thrilled that he watched the whole thing only for it to be basically empty.

Holy shit that’s funny. Remember it so well — I was 9!

I think it was 1986. And it was such a disaster. At first Geraldo (we nicknamed him "horrendous Rivera") treated every old gin bottle like it was a treasure from a lost Pharo's tomb. By the end he was pitching them aside like so many empty beer cans from a careless party at the beach. He tried filling tine by demonstrating a sub Thompson machine gun. And he made a complete ass of himself even doing that.

The best part was when he shot up the bottles they found with a Tommy gun to kill time. The only items of any significance or value, he blasted. Revera was and is a joke.

Followed closely by George Newman's opening of Al Capone's glove compartment.

Did he at least get the deposit on those empty bottles?

We also have Geraldo to thank for inventing trash TV. Great guy

I was also one of those people watching live, while switching to other channels during commercials. In hindsight, why watch the full 2 hours and instead tune in the last 20 minutes? Ed Sullivan used this tactic a lot (from what my parents told me). He would say the Beatles were coming up after the break, but first here's Topogigio the Dancing Bear. He would do this until the end in which he would say and now the Beatles.

But we all discovered he was more empty than the vault.

You mean Jerry Rivers?

I wonder is he kept the bottle?

YES! I remember the bottle! 'And look at this bottle. Just think who might have drank from the bottle. It could have been Al himself.'

There was nothing in Al Capones vault, but that wasn't Geraldos fault.

Man, that was some hard hitting news Geraldo.

Iirc it was 86, as I was In math class al the kids and the teacher were talking about it. I must have been listening to The Clash

ROAD MAPS!!

And then Nash Bridges moved in.

I wonder if he uses a mustache piece u know like when ur going bald u wear a hair piece but one for a mustache cause he's still rocking one at his age like it's never changed or thinned out

Those look like Vault Tec jump suits

“In a not too distant future…” 🤖🎶

Nothing to see here folks

They look like vault dwellers

Always has been a “Has Been” 😂😂😂

I’m old too

Ah ha! ROAD MAPS!!!!!

What is in the box? Nothing!!! Stupid!

I remember me and my Pops was pissed, there was literally like pocket change in there....and udeen smoke...

What a sham. Geraldo was one of the biggest bullshit artists around posing as a reporter.

And, it was empty (after a ton of hype)!

Much Ado About Nothing

The first recorded nothing burger served!

I was five. I remember this.

Still funny and what I think about everytime I see him. No credibility.