As I’m sure you all know, last night marked the beginning of Shark Week on Discovery — a solid seven days of ocean-based terror and excitement. This year, Discovery tapped Andy Samberg of “Saturday Night Live” and The Lonely Island as host, which I think is a pretty cool idea. Hopefully he’ll be able to add a little levity to the proceedings, because HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS this clip gave me like a zillion panic attacks. In it, some shark scientist* paddleboards in shallow water with a great white swimming below him. On purpose. From EW:
“He relies on his expertise, 20 years of working with [great] white sharks, and was extremely confident about it — he knew the sharks wouldn’t knock him off the board. That’s what I was hoping for, ” Kurr jokes. “We did some serious last-minute training on that paddleboard to make that scene come off. But it was with a point, it wasn’t to be a stunt. It was for him to again show that the white sharks are not these crazy killing machines that are gonna attack everything. People are paddleboarding with them all the time and they don’t even know it. We saw that from helicopters looking down along the coastline. Just fly over the beach in Malibu any July day and look down, and you’re gonna see white sharks with the people. People are happily paddleboarding and white sharks are going right under their boards. If white sharks wanted to come in close to shore and kill us all, they could do it very easily because they’re there, and they’re there in increasing numbers. But they don’t.
Oh, ok then. There are tons of sharks swimming underneath us in the ocean that could murder the crap out of us anytime they want, but they totally don’t. Except when they do. Got it. I hate it when people do this. “Sharks don’t mean to kill humans. Sometimes they just mistake surfboards and paddleboards for seals. That’s why they attack.” Oh, that makes me feel better. My life is in the fins of a giant dinosaur with razor-sharp teeth who is too stupid to tell the difference between its favorite food and a piece of fiberglass. That would be like choosing to work as an assistant for a knife-thrower who routinely eats wax fruit by mistake. No thank you to all of that, sir or madam.
Video and bonus TV pitch after the jump.
*TV Idea: “Shark Scientist.” World famous Miami shark expert Dr. Troy Dangerfield teaches a marine biology class by day, and tracks an infamous 30-foot maneater named “Razormouth” in his spare time with his sexy assistant, local zoologist Amber Bamber. Coming to Syfy this Fall.
