User:BAGEL/creamcheese
Shark Week is a week on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet or something that is dedicated to sharks. All week long they tell stories about people being bitten by sharks, eaten alive by sharks, having their heads torn off by sharks, and how sharks are docile, gentle creatures of the world's oceans.
Premise[edit | edit source]
People are absolutely fascinated and terrified by sharks. Fear and fascination are a combination which are easily exploitable in entertainment, like how MonsterQuest searches for things which are terrifying, fascinating, and nonexistent. Sharks, however, are existent, and thus more scary and fascinating.
Shark Week began running in 1987 to replace the Discovery Channel's previous series, Ostrich Month, which was a commercial failure.
Programming[edit | edit source]
Shark Week mostly consists of several filler programs with a few informational segments about shark anatomy. One series, called Shark Teeth, discusses how easily the teeth of sharks can rip through human flesh and tungsten-enforced steel, how many teeth shark have, how sharks continually lose and replenish their teeth, and the effects of periodontal disease in sharks.
The most popular series though is an unnamed semi-documentary segment which details how likely you are to become shark shit. It's really a fascinating story, hearing about the slow digestive process of sharks and how sharks were once used by mobsters to dispose of human corpses.
This is all contrasted by the heart-warming semi-cartoon series Friends of the Ocean, which explains how sharks and humans coexist in the water. According to last year's program running, sharks will only attack if provoked. Things which provoke sharks range from pissing in the saline waters in which they reside to flopping around or looking like a helpless, delicious fish. All of this aside, sharks are friendly. Just watch Shark Week. You'll find out.