ANSWERS
1. 1987
2. c. Henderson revealed his long-time fear of sharks to interviewer Anderson Cooper.
3. SyFy’s “Sharknado.” A sequel has just been announced.
4. “Malibu Shark Attack,” “Sharktopus,” and “Jersey Shore Shark Attack” have all aired on the network. The latter starred Paul Sorvino and former ’N Sync heartthrob Joey Fatone. Syfy’s marketing phrase for the film? “Albino bull sharks are no match for attitude, fist pumps and spray tans.”
5. The character Tracy Jordan on “30 Rock” gives this advice to naive NBC page Kenneth Parcell.
6. “Friday Night Lights” star Kyle Chandler and his daughter, Sawyer, met with Texas lawmakers to support HB 852/SB 572, a bill that would prohibit the sale, trade, purchase and transportation of shark fins in the state (they are harvested and sold for human consumption). The bill was passed by the Texas House but died on the Senate floor after Republican Sen. Troy Fraser raised objections and inspired enough opposition to deny a vote. Shark finning is federally prohibited but can be lucrative.
7. A 15-year-old swimmer was bitten on the left leg and hand in June at Surfside Beach, about 65 miles south of Houston in Brazoria County. His injuries were not life-threatening. The county has seen two attacks in the past four years, according to CNN. The Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, which records global shark attacks, shows that the creatures have caused only a pair of fatalities in Texas since 1911.
8. In a 1977 episode of the sitcom “Happy Days,” Henry Winkler’s leather-jacketed character Fonzie — on water skis — jumped over a shark. The stunt is widely regarded to mark the moment when the series began a steep creative decline (though it continued to air for another seven years).
9. Four. “Jaws,” “Jaws 2,” “Jaws 3-D” and “Jaws: The Revenge.”
10. “Fish are friends, not food.”
11. Sandwich. We’ll spare you the family-newspaper-inappropriate two-word review of that album.
12. c. Leading shark researcher Dr. Samuel “Sonny” Gruber of the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science told PBS’ “Nova” that while some shark species including hammerheads and great whites have to swim in order for water to pass over their gills, most sharks have mouth pumps and others have holes at the tops of their heads which pass water to their gill chambers.
We’re gonna need a bigger DVR.
“Shark Week” returned to the Discovery Channel this week with the most shark-related programming in the event’s history. In addition to three new specials (bringing the total count to 11), “Shark After Dark,” an hourlong talk show hosted by comic Josh Wolf, airs nightly at 10 p.m. The program features special guests, shark attack survivors, experts and “Shark Week” clips. That’s a lot of jawing.
Before your devour all of that programming, how about sinking your teeth into the dozen questions in our pop culture shark quiz? (FYI: The correct response is, “OK, I’ll bite.”)
1. In what year did the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” debut?
2. Among the following, who has never hosted “Shark Week”?
a. “Late Late Show” host Craig Ferguson
b. “Mythbusters” stars Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage
c. “Desperate Housewives” and “Dallas” star Josh Henderson
d. Former “Saturday Night Live” star Andy Samberg
3. Name the recent cable television movie that blew up Twitter and included the line “They took my grandfather … so I really hate sharks.”
4. Name another Syfy original movie based upon sharks.
5. What television character is widely credited with popularizing the phrase, “Live every week like it’s ‘Shark Week’?”
6. What film and television actor (and Austin-area resident) and his daughter met with Texas lawmakers in March to urge better animal welfare laws to protect sharks?
7. Where was the most recent shark attack in Texas?
8. Where did the idiom “jumping the shark,” used to describe something that has become irrelevant, or a parody of itself, originate?
9. How many films were produced in the “Jaws” series?
10. What was the five-word, behavior-changing mantra recited by the trio of former fish-eating sharks in Pixar’s animated film “Finding Nemo”?
11. What was the second word in the title of fictional heavy-metal band Spinal Tap’s two-word album that began with the word Shark?
12. Which of the following statements is false?
a. Sharks can locate prey without seeing or smelling it.
b. A shark can have up to 50,000 teeth in a lifetime.
c. Sharks must keep swimming to breathe.
d. The greatest enemy of sharks is man.
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