Jabberjaw (TV series)
- This article is about the TV series. For other uses, see Jabberjaw.
| Jabberjaw | |
|---|---|
 On-screen title card. | |
| Created by | Joe Ruby Ken Spears |
| Network | ABC |
| Production company | Hanna-Barbera |
| Original release | September 11―December 18, 1976 |
| Starring | Frank Welker Tommy Cook Julie McWhirter Pat Parris Barry Gordon |
| Producer(s) | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Music composed by | Hoyt Curtin |
| Writer(s) | George Atkins Haskell Barkin John Bates Larz Bourne Tom Dagenais Robert Fisher Ray Parker |
| Director(s) | Charles A. Nichols |
Jabberjaw is an American animated mystery comedy television series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera (H-B) for ABC's Saturday morning children's programming. It ran in 1976, airing 16 episodes that spanned one season. It was the ninth Scooby-Doo "clone" series.
The series centers on Jabberjaw, a 15-foot amphibious great white shark and the drummer for The Neptunes, a rock group made up of four teenagers: Biff, Shelly, Bubbles and Clamhead. They live in an underwater civilization in the year 2076, and travel to various underwater cities where they encounter and deal with assorted megalomaniacs and supervillains who want to conquer the undersea world.
The entire series has been released on DVD.
Production
Development
As with the majority of Hanna-Barbera cartoons in the 1970s, the format of the series is similar to shows such as Scooby-Doo, Josie and the Pussycats, and Speed Buggy, the latter two of which are also similar to Scooby-Doo. The series is also inspired by the overall shark mania of the 1970s[1] caused by the then-recent success of the 1975 film Jaws.
Jabberjaw was originally presented as Jabber Jaws or Jabberjaws.
Music
The music was composed by Hoyt Curtin.
Episodes
| Title | Original air date |
|---|---|
| 1x01 | September 11, 1976 |
| 1x02 | September 18, 1976 |
| 1x03 | September 25, 1976 |
| 1x04 | October 2, 1976 |
| 1x05 | October 9, 1976 |
| 1x06 | October 16, 1976 |
| 1x07 | October 23, 1976 |
| 1x08 | October 30, 1976 |
| 1x09 | November 6, 1976 |
| 1x10 | November 13, 1976 |
| 1x11 | November 20, 1976 |
| 1x12 | November 25, 1976 |
| 1x13 | November 27, 1976 |
| 1x14 | December 4, 1976 |
| 1x15 | December 11, 1976 |
| 1x16 | December 18, 1976 |
Cast
- Frank Welker as Jabberjaw
- Tommy Cook as Biff
- Pat Parris as Shelly
- Julie McWhirter Dees as Bubbles
- Barry Gordon as Clamhead
Legacy
Although the series was considered to be a cash-in to Scooby-Doo, the title character of Jabberjaw would make another appearance in 1977's Laff-a-Lympics, where he is one of the show's guest announcers and referee in some episodes.
In 1999, Pain released a song titled "Jabberjaw (Running Underwater)", which was commissioned as an animated music video for Cartoon Network Groovies, where Jabberjaw and the Neptunes are reimagined as a late-90s ska band set in tune to the song.
In 2021, the main cast of Jabberjaw appear in the Jellystone! series on HBO Max (later rebranded as Max), in which Jabberjaw is female in the show's continuity, working as a sales clerk at Magilla's. The Neptunes make non-speaking cameos in "Must Be Jelly," "Ice Ice Daddy," and "The Floodgates of Love."
In popular culture
- In the Robot Chicken skit "JJ's Summer Vacation" of the episode "Things Look Bad for the Streepster," the Neptunes suggest Jabberjaw to go on a vacation to relax. Although Jabberjaw assumes the gang is using it as an excuse to replace him, he obliges and ventures into the sea. After encountering a not so friendly shark and a "go go dancer" (which is a diver in a cage), Jabberjaw runs into the cast of Jaws, accidentally giving one of the cast a "Shark BJ" trying to get on the boat. He is then killed the same way the shark is killed in Jaws, having a helium tank blown up in his face. The Neptunes are worried about Jabberjaw but are happy with their new drummer; the not so friendly shark Jabberjaw ran into earlier.
Merchandise
Home media
In 1988, Worldvision Home Video released one Jabberjaw VHS which contained four episodes.
On February 25, 2011, the Warner Archive Collection released the series on DVD as Jabberjaw: The Complete Series.
