What Happened On ‘Shark Tank’ Made Barbara Corcoran Sit Silent For An Hour – And She Still Has Dreams About It
Shark Tank looked a bit different when it premiered this season. There were six sharks crammed onto the panel, instead of the usual five. One of those sharks, Barbara Corcoran recently spoke at a media event along with her co-stars. According to Observer, Corcoran discussed what was new about Season 8, including an upcoming pitch that stopped her in her leather chair.
“With some of the stuff that’s going to be shown on the show, I don’t know how they got it through the attorneys. I can’t tell you more about that, but there was one pitch that I didn’t say a word for a full hour. I was just so shocked at what I was looking at. And just remember this because you’ll identify it, and I’ll say to you ‘and I’ve been dreaming about that ever since.”
While Corcoran didn’t give much other detail, she did say the new season was “shocking.” One new element to the show, according to Yahoo TV, is individual profiles of the sharks. It’s long been an established part of the program that entrepreneurs are profiled both during their pitches and in update segments. This year, viewers will learn a little bit more about the investors beyond their net worth a few details about how they achieved success.
First up will be Kevin O’Leary, and Corcoran told Yahoo she’s looking forward to the segment. It will show the notoriously crusty O’Leary in a more sensitive light, displaying some on-set emotion.
“I understand that he actually cries on set. I hear that his story is so touching. And I can’t believe he’d touch me on anything!”
O’Leary made news in the Shark Tank world last year, when he uttered an expletive to the entrepreneur behind Pavlok, who said he would accept a deal with anyone on the panel except O’Leary. After the pitch was over, O’Leary’s former co-star on Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank panelist Robert Herjavec told him not to feel bad – a rare moment of human connection between the investors.
Clay Newbill, a Shark Tank producer, said they are always looking for ways to add new and interesting elements to the show to keep things interesting. The set-up of the program has changed little over the first seven seasons, and indeed closely resembles the show’s predecessors, including the British and Canadian versions of Dragon’s Den. The powers that be behind the American version of Shark Tank have considered live shows, shows with interactive elements, even having kids on the panel as investors – an option that, according to Observer, Mark Cuban is firmly against.
Cuban told Yahoo, however, that the reach of Shark Tank goes to all age groups.
“The reason I do the show is ‘Shark Tank’ tells everybody the American Dream is alive and well. Like everybody was saying — 6-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 90-year-olds — we give them confidence that if we can do it, they can do it. It’s hard to impact that many people any other way.”
Shark Tank will have a total of $100 million invested by the end of Season 8. Some of those businesses have done well, others have faltered. Not every deal shown on the program came to fruition in real life, but each entrepreneur left with a story to tell. Last year the companion series Beyond the Tank gave insight into what happened to the businesses that made deals, lost deals, or ended up doing deals with different sharks. Plated, the food delivery service, made a deal with Mark Cuban on Shark Tank. The deal never closed, however, and O’Leary later joined the company as an investor, as Inc.reported.
Shark Tank airs Friday nights on ABC.
[Featured Image by Brian Ach/Getty Images]
