It’s Shaq Week! Sorry, SHARK week. Shaquille O’Neal, aka Shaq to millions of fans, doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into in this new promo for Discovery’s iconic summer fin-fest.
Watch the clip as he finds out the hard way what he’s been hired to do. O’Neal gamely suits up as he realizes his “week” is actually Shark Week. The summer swimathon starts Sunday, July 22 at 8pm, but Discovery is chomping at the bit to get the buzz going for their landmark toothy anniversary.
Shark Week celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2018, meaning it’s older than many of the viewers who tune in! It comes as Discovery celebrates all sorts of milestones this year including Deadliest Catch, which returns tonight, featuring its historical 200th episode this season.
Did you know…
Shark Week premiered in July, 1988, with the first show called Caged in Fear.
Who has hosted Shark Week?
A lot of people! Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, Jaws author Peter Benchley, the cast of American Chopper, Craig Ferguson, Andy Samberg, Josh Wolf, Philip Defranco, Eli Roth, and Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs.
Stephen Colbert called Shark Week “the holiest of holidays”, saying on his now wrapped Colbert Report: “It is so easy to forget that the week after Christmas is one of the two holiest of holidays…the other being, of course, Shark Week.”
In 2007, the 20th Anniversary was hosted by Les Stroud, host of Survivorman.
Shark Week 2018 begins July 22 on Discovery.