Ultimate Guide To Jaws Easter Eggs
Don't worry, 'Bruce' hasn't taken over from the Easter bunny or chomped all your chocolates - he can't stay down with three Lindor bunnies in him! When we say Easter eggs we mean of the film variety, those little in jokes and references waiting to be hunted done. That's a relief as all of those yellow chicks would have been harbingers of dorsal fin-related doom.And the colour yellow is exactly where we start...
Yellow In Jaws
The usual sunny colour signifies the presence of the shark, think about it, featuring on everything from Alex Kintner's lilo, those yellow barrels, the shirt that Pippet's owner is wearing, yellow chord featured on the boat that the estuary victim is rowing. M. NightShyamalan did a similar thing with the colour red = death in The Sixth Sense.
Peter Benchley Cameo
The Jaws author used to be a reporter on the Washington Post and turned reporter again, this timein front of TV cameras, as the news reporter on he beach. Benchley of course penned the first draft, receiving a co-credit with Carl Gotlieb who played, that's right a reporter. Harry Meadows.
Death Roar
Spielberg may have initially been a bit worried about the similarities of a monster truck Vs Mann (David Mann played by Dennis Weaver) in Duel with a monster of the deep Vs man. However, that didn't stop both the truck and shark sharing the very same death cry - when the first launches off the cliff and when the second is floating to the bottom of the ocean. Both noises are one and the same, which just happen to be the death knell from The Creature From The Black Lagoon. One Universal monster nod to another.
Spielberg's Dog
Thankfully not Pippet, Spielberg's pooch at the time - Elmer - was one of the Brody dogs. He also appeared in Spielberg's earlier Sugarland Express and his next two features after Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941.
Who knows, had that beach conversation between Lucas and Spielberg that saw the creation of Indiana Jones ended differently, Lucas's dog was named Indiana, then perhaps Harrison Ford may have been playing intrepid archaeologist Elmer Jones?
Shooting Star
According to the 1995 documentary 'The Making of Jaws' in was a sheer fluke that the crew picked up a shooting star as Brody was busy loading his pistol. A stroke of fate it my have been but such shooting stars have featured in several other Spielberg films, from Close Encounters to Temple of Doom and Tin Tin.
It's recurrence perhaps stemming from when his dad woke him in the night as a child to show him his first meteor shower. You could say that a shooting (in the directorial sense) star was born that very moment.
Number Plate
The license plate that Hooper and Brody pull out of the Mako shark has been mooted to have been a James Bond reference. During the time of production the most recent Bond film was 1973's Live and Let Die, set in Louisiana in part as is mentioned in the plate. The first three letters of the plate are 007. A coincidence?
Well, we know Spielberg had always hankered after shooting a Bond film, having been turned down twice. We also know he created his own 'Bond' in the form of Indiana Jones.
Jaws As The Easter Egg
That very same licence plate also turns up in Deep Blue Sea, Sharknado 3 and even in season five of The Walking Dead, as admitted by executive producer and makeup supervisor Greg Nicotero. Greg also sealed Ben Gardener's head into one episode of TWD....
Diagon Alley - Universal Studios, Florida
Famously replacing the Jaws ride there are still echoes of Jaws tombs found on its original site, including a familiar sounding album in the record store near the Diagon Alley entrance. The LP in question is entitled 'Here's to swimmin' with bow legged women' by The Quint Trio.
Jurassic Park
If there was ever a Spielberg film that echoed Jaws then it was this, what better place then to have a blink and you'll miss it cameo by Chief Brody? He can be fleetingly seen on one of Nedry's screens.
Can you think of any other Jaws Easter Eggs? Like to prove that and get your name in the National Geographic? Not quite, but please post your comments below.
By Dean Newman
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