My passion for shark movies outweighed my distrust of basic-cable talking-head clip shows and I agreed to appear on SyFy channel’s SHARKMANIA: THE TOP 15 BIGGEST, BADDEST, BLOODIEST BITES. 

Here are some jokes that did not appear during the broadcast, but are good enough to blog. 

(In the TV business, we call these “web exclusives!”) 

FUN FACT: Killing a shark with a chainsaw was first seen in 2009’s MALIBU SHARK ATTACK. 

CGI sharks can do things that would normally be impossible, like caring about the characters in SHARK NIGHT. 

SHARKS IN VENICE was actually filmed in Bulgaria. But who’s gonna see a movie called SHARKS IN BULGARIA? 

The lead shark in SHARKS IN VENICE was played by Gary Busey. 

Humans kills 30 – 70 sharks per year in worldwide fisheries, so it makes sense that GHOST SHARK wants revenge. 

GHOST SHARK can appear wherever there’s water, so I guess some nerd has written some GHOST SHARK/WATERWORLD fan fiction. 

GHOST SHARK can appear wherever there’s water, so I guess the only safe place is Dune. Arrakis. Desert Planet. 

The makers of the TV-movie SHARK KILL would like you to know that OPEN WATER is a rip-off of their JAWS knock-off. 

OPEN WATER was based on a true story where all the character die. And yet, there is a sequel. 

Downer movie OPEN WATER doesn’t rely on the standard ending of blowing up the shark. You can see why so many filmmakers stick to that formula. 

A true JAWS rip-off, SWAMP SHARK features a small town that won’t let a killer shark cancel their local event. “I’m not canceling Gator Fest!”

The closing credits of BAIT say that no sharks were harmed in the making of the movie. That’s because all the sharks were CGI. 

Sand Sharks have been around since that Huey Lewis & the News video “If This Is It.” 



Sand-dwelling creatures were also the villains in the 1980 film BLOOD BEACH. 


Odd that in these shark movies characters never mention the movie JAWS. Do they live in a world where JAWS was never released? Or no one saw it?

People forget that JAWS is a PG movie. The 70’s were a different time. 

JAWS 2 is the only JAWS film to be adapted as a children’s coloring book. 

The first JAWS featured complicated men going to sea to hunt a shark, but JAWS 2 is like “the cast of MEATBALLS goes sailing.” 

JAWS 3 is so bad it makes JAWS 2 look like JAWS 1. 

JAWS 4 is so bad it makes JAWS 3 look like JAWS 2. 

I don’t want to sound like an imdb message board, but in MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS, there’s just NOT ENOUGH MEGA SHARK!!

I hope Sam Jackson’s monologue in DEEP BLUE SEA is being used by high school drama students. 

I hope Sam Jackson has a long life, but when he passes, I want DEEP BLUE SEA to be his clip at the Academy Awards. 

SHARKTOPUS is the 2nd movie to feature a tentacled, mutant shark. The first is 1984’s DEVIL FISH, made popular by MST3K. 

In 1975 the New York Times called JAWS “a big-budget Roger Corman film.” Since then Roger Corman’s made a number of low-budget JAWS films. 

Corman is responsible for: 

UP FROM THE DEPTHS
PIRANHA
HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP
DINOSHARK
PIRANACONDA
SHARKTOPUS
SHARKTOPUS VS. PTEROCUDA
SHARKTOPUS VS. MERMANTULA

Shark movies are like Tyler Perry movies, even when they’re terrible they still make money.