7/30/08 Shark Week!

I don't know about you, but I'm totally stoked about shark week on the Discovery channel. I love Shark Week! When else can you watch shows with names like, "Air Jaws", (which I first thought was another stupid Disney movie about a basketball playing shark, but in fact turned out to be about jumping sharks in an area of water known most impressively as the "Ring of Death!") I mean, it sounds like WWE wrestling, nature style. The shark swims in wearing a silk robe, with 5 scantily clad female sharks behind him, holding up giant gold belts. There's a New Zealand fur seal in the other corner, talking smack. The shark body slams the seal! The seal retaliates with a folding chair to the snout! That McMahon guy gets in the middle of it for no apparent reason! It's the fight of the century in the Ring! Of! Death! Only on pay-per-view. Check your local listings for details.

Last night I watched "Surviving Sharks!" (another reason I love shark week? The unapologetic overuse of exclamation points! Surviving Sharks! Ring of Death! What was my agent thinking when he booked me on this stupid show! All classics). Anyway, you'd think Surviving Sharks! would be about ways to...I don't know...Survive Sharks!, but from what I could tell, it was mostly just unscientific experiments on what makes sharks go crazy. Answer: A Rubbermaid trashcan full of frozen bloody fish parts known as a "chumcicle". (Go ahead, say Chumcicle. It's fun! ChumcicleChumcicleChumcicle! Yummy!). The question of the evening was whether sharks would attack you more during the day or at night. Our host, Les, started by putting a chumcicle in the water during the day, which quickly resulted in a Feeding Frenzy! Of Sharks! In the Ring! Of! Death! Then Les put a chumcicle out at night, which shockingly resulted in...a Feeding Frenzy! Of Sharks! In the Ring! Of! Death! Les is ecstatic! Sharks eat frozen fish bits day AND night! Amazing! After an hour of this, Les has proved without a doubt that the best way to survive sharks is to not swim with a chumcicle.

On another show, the camera crew is out cruising for sharks when they come across...a bloated whale carcass! Score! Despite the gag-inducing stench, the camera crew immediately anchor themselves to the carcass to get never before seen footage of...a Feeding Frenzy! Of Sharks! In the Ring! Of! Death! (Apparently they missed Les's show). A bazillion sharks are gorging themselves on the whale carcass. It stinks, it's rapidly shrinking, and is slippery with whale guts. Hey! The camera crews says, let's sit on it! One guy draws the winning straw and they toss him onto the whale carcass to get video footage from the food's point of view. (I'm guessing he's not the most popular guy on the boat). The sharks are like, "Oh goody! Free toppings!" I'm all, Dude, even if you do survive the sharks, you ain't never gonna get that stank off of you. There's no way you fellow crew members are going to let you back in the boat after you've been rolling on whale carcass.

This is classic entertainment! Who doesn't love watching sharks eat bloated whale? And for a whole week too! Tonight I'm racing home for Air Sharks III- This Time We Dress the Camera Man In A Sea Lion Suit And Drag Him Behind The Boat! I've got my money on the sharks.

And a real hankerin' for some chumcicle.