I mentioned previously that I dug ABC’s Shark Tank. What I liked about it wasn’t that the “sharks” picked on the people who presented, it was that I got a sense of how people tend to pitch their ideas in a somewhat closed setting and, ultimately, what ideas seem to sell. This was all before I got to watch BBC’s Dragons’ Den, which is definitely what Shark Tank was based on, but it’s a much different feel and one that caters more to helping out the entrepreneur.
As part of my whole addiction to listening about ideas and how they are presented, I started downloading the This Week in Startups podcast, hosted by my former boss at TV Squad, Jason Calacanis. The show actually airs live on UStream every Friday afternoon at 1 PM, but I grab it for the road the next day. As part of the show, Jason does his own form of Shark Tank, allowing a caller 60 second to pitch their idea to him, while he gives his advice.
In the October 24th show, Jason mentioned that, before Shark Tank made it on the air, he was approached by producer Mark Burnett‘s people as possibly being one of the four (or perhaps, then, five?) sharks on Shark Tank. After Jason’s assistant attempted to contact Burnett’s people for more details, with no call-back, he gave up. Jason’s response now is: “Mark Burnett, kiss my ass.” You can hear his brief story on TWiST show #24 at the 25:40 mark, and then his little Shark Tank parody video at 36:40.
Also mentioned in that exchange was guest Gary Vaynerchuck saying that he had confirmation that Shark Tank was canceled and not returning for a second season on ABC. However, if you look at one of Shark Tank co-host Robert Herjavec’s recent Twitter posts, he says ABC ordered more episodes (and, then, Jason’s reply to that post by Herjavec, saying “Shark Tank is lame.”) So, I’d probably go with the co-host’s news over what Gary Vee says, but who the hell knows.
What do you think of the idea of Jason C. on Shark Tank? Would it make you watch or tune you out even more than you already do? I don’t disagree with Jason’s opinion of the show, mind you, but it will be interesting if his feedback or that from anyone else will change the show into being more helpful than rude.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on Nov 02, 2009 @ 15:00 EST5EDT
Shark Tank is the ultimate exemple of how to screw up a great tv show. There’s no reason that Dragon’s den wouldn’t be a hit. But no, ABC wanted to make an hybrid of “feel good reality” and “freak show reality”.
It was way too edited to be belivable.
I enjoyed Shark Tank, and I really would have had no idea who Jason was at first. However, I used to be an avid reader of TV Squad but switched over to CliqueClack after the attitudes of the writers and readers began to go from conversational to “you’re an idiot if you don’t agree with me” in their comments. I got tired of adding a comment and getting an abusive response so I left the site behind. Therefore, I probably would not have continued watching Shark Tank once I found out who Jason was if he had been one of the sharks.
I watched 2 episodes of shark tank and HATED it!! All i could think was these poor people getting ripped off of their good ideas by these money hungry vultures. I hated it really badly.
Dragon’s Den is not a BBC show – it is actually a Canadian production from CBC
I agree with Jason… I also like watching Shark Tank because I am eager how they will pitch it and what products are going to sell. It’s really nice to see that people helping entrepreneurs are growing in number Jason talks to people by phone and I also saw a website, doing what Jason does. It’s https://www.SharkTankTVShow.com. More people are getting the help they need because of the popularity of the show. Good Job!