214 Sharks: The Animal Answer Guide
eats just about anything but truly enjoys “hairless beach apes” (and poodles,
“the other white meat”). The strip is peopled (animaled?) with a bewil-
dering array of sea critters, many with quirky, forceful personalities. The
humor in the strip can be offbeat, but we find it extremely entertaining.
The action takes place chiefly in Kapupu Lagoon, west of the Rock Islands
of Palau, Western Caroline Islands, one of our favorite places to dive and
watch sharks (although White Sharks are admittedly rare in this part of the
tropical Pacific). Earlier, Gary Larson’s The Far Side set the standard for
elasmotoons, including one of our favorites, entitled “The Heartbreak of
Remoras,” showing a shark bearing several attached hitchhikers.
Music. Probably the best-known musical composition involving sharks
(at least metaphorically) is the song “Mack the Knife.” Originally part of a
German production, “Mack the Knife” became the opening number in the
popular musical The Threepenny Opera. Mack (MacHeath in the opera) is a
robber and murderer whose knife attacks are likened to those of a shark:
“When that shark bites, with his teeth, babe / Scarlet billows start to spread.”
Translated and reworded repeatedly, the most popular version of “Mack
the Knife” was recorded by Bobby Darin in 1959, but it has also been re-
corded or performed by Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald,
Tony Bennett, Kevin Spacey, Bill Haley & His Comets, Tito Puente, The
Doors, and Sting. Darin’s version earned him a Grammy Award, was num-
ber 3 on Billboard’s “All Time Top 100,” and was ranked as number 251
on Rolling Stone magazine’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” Although
the BBC quickly censored it for air play because of its “lyrics about knives,
dead bodies and blood,” tastes changed, and it was performed at the Dia-
mond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II in 2012. On the other side of
the musical spectrum, Frank Zappa’s “Mud Shark” is a cult classic.
A few popular bands have had sharky names—for example, the bands
Great White, and Sharks. Great White plays hard rock and heavy metal
songs. Formed in 1977 and featuring a shifting cast of musicians, Great
White is probably best known outside its musical genre for having been
onstage during the tragic The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island in
which 100 people, including one band member, died. Sharks is an English
punk rock band that formed in 2007 and had recorded four albums as of
2012.
Video Games. Many video games, designed for various formats and
platforms, have had shark themes. Examples are Jaws: Ultimate Predator,
Jaws Unleashed, Jaws Revenge, Hungry Shark, Shark or Die, Paranormal
Shark Activity, Shark Attack 2, Far Cry 3—Shark Hunting + Giant Manta
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