Gimorozo has the world-exclusive first ever interview with Bruce the Shark, best known for his role in 1975’s Jaws.

Gimorozo: Good morning, Bruce.  This is your first ever interview, if I’m not mistaken.

Bruce:  Um, yes, that is correct.  I’ve always been, uh, shy about my English.  I’ve been practicing for years, but have only now developed any sort of confidence–I’ve been using Rosetta Stone.  And, besides, I really need the money.

Gimorozo:  There isn’t any money.  We actually don’t make money here, so we can’t pay you anything for this interview.

Bruce:  Huh…that’s unfortunate.  Well, I probably should be going then.

Gimorozo:  No, wait!  I can pay for your lunch, how’s that?

Bruce:  Well…ok.

Gimorozo:  Great!  Ok, so you started off as the shark in Jaws, right?  What was the audition process for that?  How did you get that job?

Bruce:  I didn’t eat the director.

Gimorozo:  What do you mean?

Bruce:  Well, Spielberg was like the 3rd or 4th choice to direct that film, but every time a shark came in to interview for the part of Lenny [ed note: Lenny is the name of the character], they’d end up eating the director.  I mean, I can understand why.  You’re in a room there with easy prey, the temptation is almost irresistable.

So, after each time a director was eaten, the producers would have to find a new shark.  People just can’t work under the pressure of possibly getting eaten by one of your main actors, besides, it would have been some sort of liability I think.

Gimorozo:  So, were you ever tempted to eat the director or other actors you were working with?

Bruce:  Oh, yeah.  It was a daily struggle!  But Spielberg made a deal with me: as long as I didn’t eat any of the principle actors, I could have all the extras and grips that I wanted–they’re pretty cheap and easy to replace.  So, it worked out ok.

Gimorozo:  Wow, so did you get a whole lot of recognition after that film?

Bruce:  Nah, Hollywood has a very distinct bias against, well, animals in general.  I was actually nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor, but it was ruled that those awards are only for humans.  I tried to sue the Academy, but what lawyer’s going to take the case of a shark that can’t even speak good English, y’know?  The only other films I did after that were Jaws 2 and Jaws 3-D.

Gimorozo:  What about Jaws: The Revenge?

Bruce:  No way, man!  Even I wasn’t about to be in that pile of crap!  That’s actually a chick they replaced me with, I think her name was Alice, maybe?  I don’t know, something like that.  It’s one of those things, you humans can’t even tell us apart.

Gimorozo:  I’m sorry…

Bruce:  It’s cool, man.  I can’t tell you guys apart either.  Like, during the first Jaws, I was always attacking the wrong actors–I couldn’t tell who was who!  Then Steven [Spielberg] got an idea.  One day I’m swimming around, doing my stretches, ok?  Big action scene coming up.  And I get a whiff of this, this just awful smell.  It’s Richard [Dreyfuss].  He had agreed to smear cat urine all over himself so that I could smell the difference–we sharks have an excellent sense of smell.  But, Richard, you know, he’s a real actor, so he just goes above and beyond the call, right?  So, he actually ate cat litter so that even his breath smelled!  He said the taste wasn’t so bad, it’s just the texture that kinda grossed him out.  So, what he would do is put it in with his Cap’n Crunch in the morning–he still does that to this day, the man just loves that stuff!  Like, my wife, she has a cat, right?  And every once in a while, I’ll catch a whiff of the cat litter and get flashbacks or whatever.  Good times, man, good times.

Gimorozo:  I did not know that…

Bruce:  I’ll bet not!  It’s not a really publicized part of the film.  But by the end, everyone was wearing these funky smells to help me differentiate between people!  I remember we actually got fined like a ton of money because Robert [Shaw] would bathe in baby seal blood to get that distinct aroma and I guess the local authorities realized that, hey, where are all the seals?  Right?  So, somehow they linked it back to production.  So after that, Steven would have the seal blood shipped in from Canada or something.  I don’t know, somewhere where they just don’t care about that kind of stuff.  It was a fun movie to shoot…

Gimorozo:  So, since getting out of acting, what have you been up to?

Bruce:  Um, not a whole lot, really.  I got married in the early 80’s.  My wife’s a lawyer, go figure.  While on set of Jaws 2, the guys would always make jokes about sharks being lawyers or something, and I never got it.  But, I guess they just knew that I was destined to marry a lawyer.  Weird.  Like, ok, this one they would always ask is “How is a lawyer like a shark?”

Gimorozo:  …I don’t know, how?

Bruce:  Um….I don’t remember.  I don’t know, I never really thought it was that funny, anyway.  But, yeah, I love my wife.  She’s a good lawyer too, I think.

Gimorozo:  I hear that you’re planning a come-back.

Bruce:  Yeah, my agent tells me that the kids are into this hip-hop thing.  So, I’ve got a record coming out soon and then I’ll try to do a cross-over movie about my life as a gangsta, y’know?

Gimorozo:  I didn’t know you grew up on the streets.

Bruce:  Well, I didn’t say it was a documentary or anything.  It’s like, um, fictional biography, or something.

Gimorozo:  Well, I hope you have success with that, thanks for taking the time with me today.

Bruce:  It was fun, man!  Oh, yeah: “to get to the other side,” that’s it!

So concludes our interview.  Incidentally, “To get to the other side” actually is not the punchline to the joke “How is a lawyer like a shark?”

Welcome to Day 2 of the first annual Week of Bruce.  Today we will focus on the butts that Bruce Lee has kicked.  Now, we’re not talking about average joe butts, cuz everyone knows he could kick those.  No, we’re talking about hard core butts.

First butt on the list to be kicked?  How about Kareem Abdul-Jabar.  Yeah, the Kareem Abdul-Jabar.  7′2″.  38,387 points scored during his 20 years in the NBA.  This is one serious manly man.  But guess what?  No match for Bruce Lee.

What we have here is a scene from Game of Death.  This movie came out about a year after Bruce had died.  Yeah, you read that right, Bruce Lee kicked Kareem Abdul-Jabar’s butt after he was already dead…now that’s freakin’ hard-core.

Next on the celebrity butt-kickin’ list?  How about Jackie Chan?  Here we have Chinese Connection/Fist of Fury (yeah, it had two English names, take your pick).  So Jackie Chan is the world’s best stunt man at this time, but he’s no celebrity yet.  In fact, in this 1972 flick, you don’t even get to see Jackie’s face.  But, check out 7:32 through 7:36, you get to see Jackie do what he does best.  That samurai dude who Bruce is beating with his nunchucks ain’t man enough to get kicked out of a window, so ol’ Jackie steps in and goes flying out the window and lands on the concrete in his stead.  Ouch.

Ok, so who’s next on the list, you ask.  Well, how about Jackie Chan again!  Yeah, last fight wasn’t totally fair.  After all, Jackie only got called in after the samurai’s butt was already kicked anyway.  He didn’t have a fighting chance.  I’ll bet if he snuck up behind Bruce and had the upper hand he’d win.  Right?  How about wrong, buck-o!  Just check out the 1:20 mark, that’s Jackie giving Bruce a bear hug.  That snap at 1:29?  Jackie’s neck.  Yeah, he lasted 9 seconds against Bruce.

No fair, you say, Kareem is a basketball player, not a martial artist; Jackie was just a kid, he wasn’t on top of his game yet.  You want a challenge?

How about the Professional Middleweight Karate Champion for six years running?  How’s that for a challenge?  Not enough?

Then how about the winner of the Karate Triple Crown?  Huh?  Want more?

Well, how about Black Belt Magazine’s fighter of the year?

Yeah, how about all of the above in a crazy little package we all know as CHUCK FREAKIN’ NORRIS!  Yeah, that’s right, Bruce Lee kicked a clean-shaven Chuck Norris’ butt in 1972’s Way of the Dragon/Return of the Dragon (yeah, it’s another double-named movie…whatever).  Apparently, back in the day, Chuck’s beard liked to hang out on his shoulders!  Behold the manly ballet that is Bruce vs. Chuck:

When talking about manly names, a few obvious choices pop up in any conversation: Arnold, Dolph, Keanu.  But rarely mentioned is the name Bruce.  Why is that?  As we shall reveal throughout this week, Bruce may well be the manliest of names.  Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the kick off of the first annual Week of Bruce!

But, first, we must prove to you that Bruce is indeed the manliest of names.  A quick round of trivia.

Who is the manliest singer?  Bruce Springsteen.
Manliest martial artist?  Bruce Lee.
Manliest person to ever marry Demi Moore?  Bruce Willis.
Manliest zombie fighter?  Bruce Campbell.
Manliest shark?  Bruce.
Manliest superhero?  Bruce Wayne.
Manliest monster?  Bruce Banner.

Bruce is such a manly name, that Monty Python made an entire sketch based on men named Bruce.  Australian men at that!  Australians are some of the manliest men on the planet.  When God granted his powers to someone in the 2003 documentary Bruce Almighty, who did he give them to?  Bruce.

So, what makes Bruces so manly?  Vitamins for starters, but it’s more than just that.  Throughout the course of our scientific research, we noticed a trend in the births of Bruces.  As you can see from the below timeline, the Bruces we love were all born (or created) during times of turmoil.  Turmoil breeds manliness and manliness was surely permeating the atmosphere during these times (click to enlarge).

From this timeline, you can see that there were great amounts of Bruceliness in the second and third quarters of the 20th century.  Scientists are still trying to determine why this was such a fertile period for the birthing of such manliness.  The prevailing theory is that the start of World War II forced humanity to man up whether they wanted to or not and start popping out more manly men.  And this manliness came in the form of Bruces. 

This manliness continued throughout the 50’s, most likely due to the manliness necessary to fight the Commies during the onslaught of the Cold War.  The sixties were turbulent times and required many a manly man.  The trend of Brucely manliness seems to taper out in the seventies and there are absolutely no instances of Bruceliness after that decade.  Most leading experts agree that the fall of Bruceliness can be directly correlated to the rise of disco.

Regardless as to why it started or why it ended, we are all thankful for the rise of Bruce and we now officially declare the first full week of December to be the Week of Bruce.