TVSquad

When I first heard about a reality show called The Shark Tank, I thought, oh great. They've taken things too far and are planning to throw people into tanks with sharks. It's not quite that insane, but budding entrepreneurs might want to tune in for some pointers.

Helmed by Mr. Reality himself, Mark Burnett, The Shark Tank has been ordered to pilot by ABC. As I understand it, the unscripted project is adapted from a Japanese show called Money Tiger, which aired on Nippon Television from 2001 to 2004. The show has since been produced in Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Canada, the Netherlands, Finland, Nigeria, and the U.K.

The premise is interesting: aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to moguls, a.k.a. "Sharks," in hopes of landing investment funds.

Last night, this summer's winner of ABC's American Inventor was crowned. Firefighter Greg Chavez's invention, Guardian Angel, was voted by Americans as the best invention out of the Top 3 selected by the judges.

When Chavez presented his idea to the judges during the auditions, he hadn't won them all over (Pat Croce voted no) because he didn't have a working model; actually, his brilliant idea was only put on paper. But thanks to his passion and the fact that his idea could save lives if it worked, he got enough votes to not only become a San Francisco finalist but to end up in the Top 6.

Looks like they're shaking things up for the second season of ABC's American Inventor (after the first season, they'd almost have to, right?).

Former boxer and grill impresario George Foreman is going to be one of the judges for the contest this season. He joins Peter Jones (returning for another season), Pat Croce, a former NBA exec, and Sara Blakely, who is described as an "undergarments entrepreneur" and "creator of Spanx." That sounds like something that could have been invented on this show, yet really dirty. The second season will also see a new host, Nick Smith.

What, no Doug Hall this year? He was the Simon Cowell of the group! And no Mary Lou Quinlan? She was the...well, Paula Abdul of the group.

The show returns on June 6 at 9pm.

One of America's lamest reality shows has just announced the audition schedule for the second season of the show, which airs on ABC.

The first audition venue is in Los Angeles on March 18. The other dates and places are as follows: San Francisco, March 25; Chicago, March 31; New York City, April 4; Orlando, April 9; and Houston on April 13. Inventors have to be at the venue no later than 8am, so it's good that someone invented the alarm clock.

And I say this is one of the lamest show not because some of the inventions weren't good (the winner of the first season, who came up with a new baby car seat, is working with Evenflo, and that's great to hear), it's the fact that the judges are kind of hard to take, and some of the inventions they let get through to later rounds were...gah. Let's hope the second season is a little more satisfying (and please, editors, let's cut way down on all of the weepy stories and people talking about their DREAMS. Please?)