Some of the things that make Seahunt fun.

[Harold Meyer]

Just thought I'd make a list of some of the things that make Seahunt particularly amusing to me.

1) The deadpan narration. "I'm Mike Nelson, professional diver. I've done a lot of dangerous things, but the most dangerous..." He had a new most dangerous experience every week.

2) The semi-hot chicks. There were a few smokin' hot chicks on SH, but for the most part they weren't quite A-list material. They cast them in almost every episode though and 75% of them were completely infatuated with Mike Nelson.
I was watching an episode with my daughter a few weeks ago where Mike Nelson was supposed to meet a covert operative. While the narration was going on about how he had no idea who the operative was, I told my daughter, "It'll be the hot chick!" Sure enough, it was.

3) MN's shorts. Those things look like they were intended for the pride parade. Then they repeatedly film him in them from an angle looking up.

4) The underwater currents. This has to be my favorite. You hear the narration talk about the ferocious currents while you see a diver going into what looks like a grand mal seizure. The bubbles however and the plants all clearly show that there is no current whatsoever.

5) The obvious stunt double switches. It's always amusing how the old overweight diver suddenly transforms into an athletic 20 something as soon as he submerges.

6) The clearly visible surface 10 or 15 feet above them. It doesn't matter how deep they say they are, half the time you can see the surface right above their heads.

7) The cold war atmosphere. Good thing we won it, otherwise we'd all have to be on the lookout for communist spies intent on cutting our exhaust hoses every time we went out.

You gotta remember that back then there were very few divers that really understood how deep or the current or aid bubles etc--and then also who knew that one hose was an exhaust---the total amount of divers during that period you could probably put on a CTA bus and still have a few seats left over-----another thing is that Sea Hunt sure did get a awful lot of people interested in SCUBA

 

[Luis H]

I was going to say some of the same things Luis did, but he beat me to it. The only thing I have to add is that somewhere deep down in my reserve memory I think DESCO stands for Diver's Equipment Supply Company. Can anyone verify that?

SeaRat

Diving Equipment and Salvage Co.

Here is a bit of the history:
Company History

 

[Luis H]

The Jack Browne mask was used at the beginning of the “Sixty Feet Below”. The show starts were Mike Nelson is hand feeding a shark in an aquarium.

The “Sixty Feet Below” is generally accepted as the first Sea Hunt episode, but I have heard conflicting reports that the “Mark of the Octopus” was actually aired first. But, I am not sure that is correct.

The link below has a list of all the Sea Hunt episodes with the dates they were supposedly aired. From the equipment used and the starting scenes it does seem that “Sixty Feet Below” has to have been the first episode, or at least the first one filmed.


Here are many of the Sea Hunt episodes
"Sea Hunt" (1958) - Episode list


Here is Sea Hunt: Sixty Feet Below
YouTube - Sixty Feet Below

 

[SwimJim]

I have seen it refered to as Divers Equipment and Supply Co. But the company history proves me wrong. It has been based in Milwaukee forever. I've lost track of the clipping, but I used to have the newspaper article about Max Nohl's 420 foot dip in Lake Michigan using a Helium Oxygen back in about '37. For me an interesting home town hero.

 

[james croft]

I liked that whenever someone was trappped underwater they always said "he only has 30 minutes of air left". Since the show was only a half-hour long they were always saved at the last minute just as the show ended. I always would check my watch to keep track.

 

[elmer fudd]

You gotta remember that back then there were very few divers that really understood how deep or the current or aid bubles etc--and then also who knew that one hose was an exhaust---the total amount of divers during that period you could probably put on a CTA bus and still have a few seats left over-----another thing is that Sea Hunt sure did get a awful lot of people interested in SCUBA

I remember watching reruns when I was a kid. I liked them then, and despite the cheesiness, or more likely because of it, I still like them now.

One thing I forgot to include on that list though was the underwater crawl stroke swimming technique.

 

[duckbill]

I liked that whenever someone was trappped underwater they always said "he only has 30 minutes of air left". Since the show was only a half-hour long they were always saved at the last minute just as the show ended. I always would check my watch to keep track.

Had I been around to watch Sea Hunt on the boob tube, I would have always been worried what I was missing while the commercials were airing!

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Sea Hunt came up again last week on PBS' American Masters series on "Jeff Bridges, the Dude Abides." It had references to his upbringing by Lloyd and his wife, his work on the set of Sea Hunt (he was in several of the episodes), and family diving vacations, amongst many other things.

SeaRat

 

[JamesBon92007]

I think they need to make the movie "Sea Hunt".
A full length modern action thriller. All modern high tech gear, sensational situations, lot's of explosions and underwater action, killing those enemy terrorist divers that are trying to kill us.
They could cast Jeff Bridges as the son of Mike Nelson to continue the legacy.

I actually wrote a letter to Jeff Bridges suggesting that a few years before Mike Nelson went to Davy Jones' Locker. What we DO have is a brief moment in the movie Hot Shots Part Deux with Lloyd Bridges underwater along with the theme song from Sea Hunt and a humorous parody of his SH narration. I never did hear back from Jeff and then it turns out (later) that my sister was dating his cousin and if I'd know that... Small world.

 

[Couv]

Lloyd, Beau, Jeff and their kids all diving at the same time. Now that would be (rim shot)... "a lot of Bridges under the water."