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Editor’s Note: The following is the third in MovieFanFare’s “Fin-tastic Friday” articles marking the 50th anniversary of the release of Jaws. Click here to see our piece on the film’s 1975 theatrical trailer and here for a look at pre-Jaws shark films.
If the adage “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” is indeed true, then few Hollywood companies in the ’70s were more sincere than the Hanna-Barbera and DePatie-Freleng animation houses. By the decade’s midpoint Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s outfit was adapting live-action sitcoms (The Addams Family, Jeannie, Partridge Family 2200 A.D.) and cannibalizing its own concepts (moving The Jetsons back a few millennia for The Roman Holidays). Meanwhile, DFE–co-founded by Warner Bros. animation icon Friz Freleng–was turning Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple into a dog-cat duo called The Oddball Couple and spotlighting a canine crime boss in The Dogfather.
Given the lack of creativity in Saturday morning animated fare at the time, it’s no surprise that in September of 1976 both studios debuted cartoons featuring sharks to cash in on the popularity of the previous year’s biggest movie, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. How, you might be asking, did they manage to pull this off when network censors at the time would veto anything that even hinted at violence? Let’s dive in and find out…
Jabberjaw – One of many H-B outings to borrow from the Scooby-Doo trope (“gang of teens defeats crooks with help from a non-human comedy relief”), this show was “high concept” in the extreme. Jabberjaw was a friendly and somewhat cowardly 15-foot-long great white who preferred playing the drums to eating people. As part of The Neptunes, a rock band comprised of humans Biff, Bubbles, Clamhead, and Shelley, Jabber travelled to various undersea locales in an unspecified future. Each stop pitted them against would-be world conquerors, mad scientists, and other foes.
Jabber’s behavior and vocalisms were similar to The Three Stooges’ Curly Howard (Frank Welker voiced both Jabberjaw and Curly on 1977’s The Robonic Stooges). He also made frequent use of Rodney Dangerfield’s tagline, “I don’t get no respect!” As for his Neptunes bandmates, Biff and Clamhead were variations on Scooby-Doo’s buddies Fred and Shaggy, while Josie and the Pussycats’ Melody and Alexandra were the inspiration for Bubbles and Shelley. Jabberjaw’s 16 episodes ran on ABC from 1976-77 and were rerun on Sundays in 1977-78.
Misterjaw – If Jabberjaw’s joy in life was making nice with people, DFE’s Misterjaw got his kicks by scaring them. The top hat-wearing, vest-clad carnivore (with a Borscht Belt comedian’s voice supplied by Laugh-In alum Arte Johnson) liked to sneak up behind unwary swimmers and yell “Gotcha!,” laughing maniacally as they took off in fright. Accompanied by his derby-adorned right-hand…er, right-fin sidekick Catfish (vocals by Top Cat himself, Arnold Stang), Misterjaw was always on the lookout for his next meal. His prey of choice was one Harry Halibut, who always managed to elude him. Meanwhile, Misterjaw himself was occasionally the target of shark hunter Fearless Freddy (voiced by Paul Winchell).
There were 34 six-minute Misterjaw cartoons produced by DFE, all co-directed by Freleng’s “Termite Terrace” colleague Robert McKimson. They were aired by NBC in 1976-77 as part of The Pink Panther Laugh and a Half, Hour and a Half Show (what a title!) and in 1977-78 on The Think Pink Panther Show.
As animated “homages” tied to a specific pop culture craze, Jabberjaw and Misterjaw were both mere blips on the Saturday morning cartoon landscape. Jabber managed to live on longer than his more ornery counterpart, however. He appeared sans his Neptunes pals in Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics and Yogi’s Space Race and with them in everything from Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law to Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated. With his toothsome image turning up in comic books as well as on puzzles, lunchboxes, bobbleheads, and other memorabilia, it sure looks at though Jabberjaw, if not Misterjaw, got more than a little respect.