Memory Bank: Jaws Mania (1975 - 1976)

Following Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster adaptation of Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel Jaws in 1975, "Jaws-Mania" hit America hard.  The film was rated PG -- which is hard to believe today -- but this fact made the (bloody) horror movie fair game in terms of merchandising and toys.  Soon, toy stores added Jaws-inspired items to their racks, and kids could relive the thrills and screams of the movie.

Prime among these toys was Ideal’s The Game of Jaws, which I’ve featured here before. 

Designed for 2 to 4 players (ages 6 and up), the game box noted: "It's you against the great white shark...One wrong move, and the JAWS go snap!"  

The goal of this game was to utilize a probe to fish out contents from the shark's stomach without those fierce jaws snapping closed.   Some of those stomach contents included a human skull, a fish skeleton, a tire, a camera, a pistol, a glove, a boot, a walkie-talkie, and a wagon wheel (!).  In the version of the game I own today, these delicacies are all molded in white or blue plastic, but the game box shows different colored items.

Addar, a model kit company, featured Jaws in its “super scenes” product line in 1975 as well.  Here, young modelers could create a detailed diorama from the movie...in a bottle.  Addar described this kit as an “exciting replica from the movie Jaws.”  It featured a miniature oceanographer, a diving cage, the great white shark and a full-color background.

I also remember a Jaws-Mania collectible that I found at the school Book-Mobile when I was in kindergarten, and promptly purchased.  It is a book from author Phil Hirsch titled 101 Shark Jokes: Biting Humor From Our Funny, Finny Friends (1976).  This book featured page after page of ridiculous, terrible shark-related puns and jokes like: What makes an ideal shark breakfast?

Captain Crunch.

I can’t stress enough how much I absolutely loved this book as a six year-old kid, and I must have read the darn book a dozen times.  For a spell, I took 101 Shark Jokes with me everywhere, especially when my Mom went shopping at the Fabric Ville store in Cedar Grove, NJ, which always seemed to take forever.  

The funny thing about the book, looking back on it, is that it featured a lot of pop culture references that, at six, I couldn’t possibly have recognized.  For instance, one joke included a reference to a shark game show, Tooth or Consequences, which would have been an allusion to Truth or Consequences(1950)…which I never saw.

I also remember with envy that my friend Stephen who lived on Ridgewood Avenue wore a custom-made Jaws Halloween costume to kindergarten that year. I don’t remember what I wore for Halloween in Kindergarten, but I absolutely remember every detail of that huge, canvas, toothy shark head costume to this day.  Also, Collegeville released a standard plastic costume of the Shark from Jaws for those kids without the wherewithal to create their own.

The mid-1970s also brought the Jaws knock-off movie by the veritable boatload.  There were sea-based movies such as Orca(1976), Tentacles (1977), Tintorera: Tiger Shark (1977), Barracuda(1978), Piranha (1978), and Killer Fish (1979).  There were also land-based knock-offs, including William Girdler’s Grizzly (1976) and Day of the Animals (1977).

Television programming wanted a piece of the profitble Jaws action as well.  Chevy Chase memorably appeared in a Saturday Night Live skit during its first season in 1975 as a “land shark,” an “urban predator” capable of “disguising its voice”(!) and striking at any time or place.  On a more serious note, a 1977 episode of The Six-Million Dollar Man featured the Bionic Steve Austin (Lee Majors) tangling with sharks.

By 1978 and the franchise sequel, Jaws 2, the shark-based merchandising effort was at full steam ahead with photo-novels, trading cards, a novelization and the like, but by then, the manic moment had passed.  Today, I recall this spell of my youth with tremendous fondness, especially as Jaws-Mania occurred pre-Star Wars, and  shared the pop-culture with Bicentennial Fever, Space: 1999, and Logan's Run.

Below, a few videos that reflect 1975 and 1976, the great age of Jaws-Mania.

 

My Week in Movies - July; Week 1

As if you cared...My Week In Movies returns in all it's full glory! The main reason I started this feature was to write about movies, and lately I've just been listing what I've seen instead of doing any writing with them, so I thought it was time to get back to basics.

Wild Things 3: Diamonds in the Rough (2005) There's really no good reason why I watched this movie except that I just seem to love crappy made-for-DVD sequels to real films. I enjoyed the original Wild Things and thought I'd give this goofy follow up a try. It is actually pretty good, about a gal who frames her stepfather for rape in the hopes of swindling some money out of him. Her scheme involves several people and as in the original flick, everybody is backstabbing everyone else and the twists and turns are fast and frequent. Any movie with stolen diamonds as a central plot device can't be that bad. The production values are top rate for a direct-to-video cheapie and the cast is all having fun.  From reading up on the other two films in the series, apparently lesbianism is also a theme that runs through the four Wild Things films, and chapter 3 also has no shortage of that. So, you got that going for ya!

Good Eats!

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) You've probably heard how bad this third sequel is. And whatever you've heard is right. This is a bad movie! It's not scary or intense in the least bit. It involves the mom from the first two films traveling from New England to the Bahamas where the shark (Jaws or Bruce, which ever you choose to call him!) has followed her! Jaws somehow knew that Mrs. Brody was booking a flight to the Bahamas and then followed her from the water as she flew 80,000 ft. above it. With a ridiculous set up like that, and then nothing scary to follow...this really is a horrible movie. (It's probably about the 5th or 6th time I've seen it.)

Best 10 Films of Steven Spielberg

Spielberg has directed 49 films, but produced a total of 125 projects in all, including television, making him one of the most influential in film history.
Schindler's List (1993) No. 6 on the IMDB 250, 7 Oscars®, including best picture, director 72 awards overall
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)  Two Oscars®, cinematography and sound effects 12 awards overall
Minority Report (2002) 2

My Week In Movies - They Don't Make `em Like They Used To

Fletch (1985)[PG] What a great movie! It's been a while since I'd watched this classic comedy and it was so much fun to see Chevy Chase in his prime. The one-liners are so quick in this movie as Chevy dons disguises and alter-egos to get to the bottom of two intertwining stories. There's a great supporting cast here including Joe Don Baker, M. Emmet Walsh, Tim Matheson, George Wendt and Geena Davis. This was probably the 30th time I've seen this film but only the first time that I actually was able to follow the plot.

Jaws 3 (1983)[PG] One of my all-time favorite movies! First off, it was filmed at Sea World in Orlando...any movie that takes place at an amusement park automatically has something going for it. It's nice to have a record of early 80's Sea World, even if it's not a park I'm particularly fond of. The best thing about this movie is that it was released theatrically in 3-D, as so of course there are tons of unnecessary 3-D shots just to utilize the 3-D gimmick. The film probably played for a few months in theatres and then has spent the last 27 years on television and home video where it is not in 3-D. (In fact, the actual name of the movie is Jaws 3-D, when it's on TV or video the title card says Jaws III.) Anywho, the absence of 3-D makes this one goofy movie because there are so many odd shots that linger on for no reason at all, except that in theatres it was a 3-D shot. In the opening, Jaws attacks a school of fish and in the aftermath a large fish head floats by the screen for at least 30 seconds. In 3-D I can only assume the fish head was floating about the audience, but in a living room the fish head scene is just puzzling. There's another shot later in the movie where I guess it's supposed to look like Jaws is coming right at ya, but in 2-D it just looks like one of the world's worst special effects. The story here is pretty silly too, as Bess Armstrong (what ever happened to her?), Dennis Quaid, Louis Gossett Jr. and a very young Lea Thompson all scramble to save Sea World from one angry, two dimensional mommy shark.

Seems Like Old Times (1980)[PG] One thing is for sure, they certainly don't make them like this anymore. This type of "epic sitcom" or farce used to be standard fare from the likes of Neil Simon and Blake Edwards, but you just don't see this kind of situational comedy on the big screen anymore. This is also one of Chevy Chase's early under appreciated roles. Chevy gets framed for a bank robbery, he seeks the help of his ex-wife, Goldie Hawn. Hawn is now married to Charles Grodin who happens to be up for District Attorney. Then the comedy ensues! There is a stellar supporting cast including Harold Gould, Robert Guillaume (Benson!), and T.K. Carter. I watched it on a DVD I recorded a while back, but it's currently playing on Encore and TCM often shows the letterboxed version.

Top Ranked Horror Films on the Net

Top ranked horror films from our internet survey, listed from over 1280 film, 43 horror films were mentioned, with 35 making the top 1000. This is probably my least favorite genre, as its like cooking hamburgers, there's only so many ways to kill people, and the best of these go beyond that. Unfortunately directors and filmgoers do NOT, preferring the simple slasher films over anything creative.