Hot dogs, horses, vending machines and Black Friday stampedes cause more deaths per year than sharks do, but those haven’t held the nation’s attention for 25 years. The Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, a five-day frenzy of shark-related prime time programming, celebrated its 25th anniversary last week.  The annual series also garnered distinction as cable’s longest-running programming event. Situated in a month devoid of holidays, Shark Week is August’s best celebratory occasion. The program was especially well-timed this year, as it helped ease the disappointment of the fleeting Olympic games. Sharks still fascinate audiences after a quarter-century’s study because of their abilities to evoke a range of responses from viewers. How can these animals simultaneously channel notions of fear, beauty, mystery and power? One of this year’s shows, “How ‘Jaws’ Changed the World,” explains how sharks captured a generation’s attention. Steven Spielberg debuted his blockbuster, “Jaws,” in 1975. His tale of a rogue great white shark hunting human prey off the Atlantic Coast was a runaway hit. “Jaws” is beloved for its now-hackneyed chase scene anthem and surprisingly realistic carnage. I’ve never felt more vulnerable than when I watched the film’s seemingly defenseless human swimmers get gobbled up. The film not only inspired terror, but also scientific intrigue, which was parlayed into perilous research and eventually the whale of a series that is Shark Week. Documentaries have since debunked “Jaws” themes such as sharks’ reputed dietary preference for human flesh and interest in the apex predators persists. With many areas of research for contemporary sharks exhausted over the years, “Sharkzilla” took viewers back to the age of giant prehistoric sharks called megalodons. The “Mythbusters” team built Sharkzilla, a fearsome replica of the shark’s Jurassic predecessor, to test various bone-crunching hypotheses. Shark Week also branched out to include more social media involvement this year. Twitter and Facebook fans voted nightly in the Shark Week Chompdown to have their say into which object Sharkzilla would sink his seven-inch steel teeth. A foosball table was the best item to hit the chomping block. Sharkzilla snapped through the table as effortlessly as a person biting a tortilla chip. While Shark Week programmers exercised their imaginations in recreating an extinct species, no imagination was needed to view the crisp details of a Shark Week staple – gore. The carnage was best exemplified with shark encounter reenactments and tales of survivors. “Adrift: 47 Days With Sharks” told the tale of two war veterans who crash into a shark-infested portion of the Pacific during WWII. The two survive attacks from sharks and Japanese fighter pilots while staving off thirst and hunger to eventually persevere. With decades of programming, Shark Week has built a solid fan base. Many twenty-somethings like myself grew up with the shark programming and have a loyal dedication to the series. Shark Week’s imaginative fans and indoctrination into pop culture have yielded a drinking game, a seemingly inevitable development. Similarities in TV specials over the years have lent themselves to game rules like “every time a person is declared a ‘shark expert,’ drink.” Cheers to Shark Week – the booziest, bloodiest good time on television.
 
____ Contact Josh Naquin at [email protected].