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Cartoon
Jabberjaw

Animal
Shark

Outfit: fin / deadly teeth / drumsticks

Tagline: "I don't get no respect!"

Plot summary: In the year 2076 the band "The Neptunes" (four teenagers and a great white shark) drive a car around underwater, play bad bubblegum pop music, and get mixed up with criminals. Yes, they had a shark in their band, pictured above. He played drums. And considering that he didn't have opposable thumbs or an ass to sit on he did a damn fine job. Jabberjaw was one of my favorite cartoons growing up and holds the honor of being my very favorite Hanna-Barbera cartoon character of all time, despite him never just snapping and devouring somebody hardcore.

And yes, this cartoon came out in 1976 and featured a band called "The Neptunes." And yes, there is a rapper with a CD in your local record store who calls himself "Birdman." This lends credence to my theory that black people think they can convince mainstream white America that they are creative by assuming that nobody in mainstream white America watches Cartoon Network. Shit, even the network "Black Entertainment Television" is called "BET," the name of the big machine Cobra was trying to steal in the G.I. Joe movie. How far are we from "GIRL U THUGGIN" by "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles f/Lloyd Banks?"

Eventually they're going to run out of cartoons to name themselves after, and the big Billboard hit will be a duet between Ashanti and MC F. Scott Fitzgurrld. (more)

User Comments: Jabberjaw is a huge shark, so he wins acclaim for not being a huge shark in a Hawaiian shirt, or a huge shark in a knit cap, or whatever. I am worried about the thought process involved in creating the character, not so much because he is a shark that plays drums but because he is a caricature of not one but TWO completely different pop culture icons.

Y'see, Jabberjaw talks like Curly Howard from the "Three Stooges." When he's pleased with a joke he's made he says NYUK NYUK NYUK, and when he wants a cracker but can't scoop it up before an oyster snags it he says WOO WOO WOO. But his catchphrase isn't Stooge: "I don't get no respect" is, of course, the signature schtick of comedian Rodney Dangerfield. So these are currently the things Jabberjaw is:

1) A shark
2) playing drums
3) with humans
4) in a band called "The Neptunes" 20 years before there was a band called "The Neptunes"
5) underwater
6) while solving crimes
7) in Three Stooges voice
8) with Rodney Dangerfield material
9) in the future.

I DARE you to find something more avant-garde than that. Jabberjaw rules.

User Rating: 10/10 (my vote)