What did you buy me for Shark Week?

Of all the strange bullshit that television has shoveled on top of us over the years SHARK WEEK confuses me the most. Pseudo-scientific mockumentaries about fabled giant sharks and other fictitious sea life mixed in with shows demonstrating the real horror of shark encounters. Amusingly bad B-movies about double-headed sharks, shark and octopus mutations, or windstorms containing sharks are breathlessly hyped as if they’re Oscar-worthy. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE B Movies, the cheapness that comes with an actor in a wet suit and fish mask grabbing people’s ankles underwater is high art to me. But this new breed of Sci-fi is too blatant in it’s Cult Film wanna-be aspirations, like any company that plasters a giant “COLLECTOR’S EDITION” on some piece of yard-sale-destined crap. True B-movies take themselves DEADLY serious, and that’s where all the fun comes from. Tor Johansson stiffly pulling back the drapes and intoning “the spaceship entrance” without the tiniest hint of the smirk I see on the hero of “Sharknado 2” as he recites his bad puns.

Strangest of all though is that there’s no products, the lifeblood of TV. A friend of mine greatly treasures his “Creature from The Black Lagoon” lunchbox (it’s worth quite a few $$, but he’ll never sell) All they are producing is cable content – filler, time-wasting nonsense, the  TV equivalent of cardboard packing material. Where is the entrepreneurship, that famous American-anything-for-a-buck hucksterism?

Let’s make this a REAL holiday. Greeting cards, an FTD special flower arrangement for the missus, rubber shark heads for the kiddies!! Instead of casual dress Friday in the offices, let’s make it Bite-a-Co-Worker-Under-Their-Desk Day;  I’ll bet that will be a better tension relief than paintball. I can see a sideline in hiring cello players to have your attack announced in true “Jaws” fashion. Children going door-to-door for seal-shaped treats, and “chumming” the houses of those who refuse to play along (think of how great their lawns will grow after, and all the happy stray cats). The seafood restaurants can take advantage of this holiday the way Bakeries exploit Christmas! Parades of previous year’s victims displaying their scars, with Denturists handing out business cards! Richard Kiel look-alikes employed by aquarium stores in malls, having children line up to tell him their fishy wish list….. Let’s sink our teeth into this idea everyone!