Shark Week still has teeth after 30 years

How many sharks does it take to change a light bulb?

I don't know. Yet. Because, I'd bet we'll find out in some future Discovery show in some upcoming year of the summer pop-culture spectacle that is Shark Week.

July 22-29 marks the 30th anniversary rollout of the cable TV stunt launched almost by happenstance by Discovery channel with a few shark shows in 1988. (Which makes 2018's event the 31st, but who's counting?) Shark Week has since featured celebrity hosts like "Jaws" author Peter Benchley (1994) and comic Craig Ferguson (2010). They've aired sharks in 3-D, mythical sharks and last year's "race" between swimmer Michael Phelps and a great white that turned out to be computer-generated. They even made this spring's news pages when alleged Donald Trump paramour/stripper Stormy Daniels told CBS' "60 Minutes" that the man who would become president "made me sit and watch" Shark Week with him.

Talk about a zeitgeist bull's-eye.

"We can't take our eyes off the prize of how big this is," says Scott Lewers, Discovery's Shark Week chief as executive vice president of multiplatform programming and digital media. (He's also a Holbrook native whose first job was Newsday paperboy.) "It's not just big for the network," Lewers boasts. "For viewers, it's like a national holiday."

I'd say, whoa, dude, chill — except the effusive Lewers may have something there. Why else would Walmart stores have Shark Week sections filled with stuffed sharks, toy sharks and Swedish Fish for them to "eat"? Why else would Southwest Airlines paint five of its planes with Shark Week themes? Why else would there be Build-A-Bear sharks, Shark Week fashion from Vineyard Vines (T-shirts, bikinis, trucker caps, neckties) and Shark Week slot machines in select casinos?

Maybe Shark Week is a kind of summer Christmas? Hmm. Discovery publicists sent TV critics their very own string of shark lights last month. (With three stuffed sharks to, what, wrap them around?) Lewers makes the case that Shark Week has become an all-consuming family celebration like that year-end ho-ho-holiday. He was still a kid when Shark Week launched, and Lewers, now 43, remembers "it was all people talked about, and you watched it and loved it with your family, and it was so exciting. It kind of brings back that old energy of what television was, just that communal family getting together to watch, back in the day of the '80 or '90s. That's the beauty of Shark Week."

And as with Christmas, anticipation of this summer thrill seems to start soon after the previous year's concludes. Shark Week 2018 went viral back in April, three months out, when NBA legend and TV pitchman Shaquille O'Neal was seen in Discovery promo spots "mistaking" the event to be Shaq week.

Then came the SharkWeek.com website, with comedian Jordan Carlos' Daily Bite short form tease. And Facebook with its own Shark Week page, plus one for The Shark Week Box, should you need to nab collectibles with which to play during your wait. There's also Shark Week on Snapchat and Instagram and Twitter and . . . (Hey, did you know it's Shark Week? Really!)

Famous faces are lined up, too. Shark Week's opening night Sunday features celebrities in three of this year's 22 premieres — outdoorsman Bear Grylls in "Bear vs. Shark" (8 p.m.); O'Neal in a shark cage for "Shaq Does Shark Week" (9 p.m.); and "Ronda Rousey Uncaged" (10 p.m.), where the UFC fighter swims alongside mako sharks. Later specials have skier Lindsay Vonn with footballers Aaron Rodgers and Rob Gronkowski ("Monster Tag," Monday at 8), foodie "Guy Fieri's Feeding Frenzy" (Tuesday at 8), TV business battlers in "Shark Tank Meets Shark Week" (Wednesday at 9) and this startling yet inevitable mashup: "Naked and Afraid of Sharks" (July 29 at 9).

All of which makes it easy for a competitor — say Nat Geo Wild, whose sixth annual SharkFest (launched last Sunday) continues through Friday — to tout its serious approach vs. Discovery's showbiz touch. "The way we approach this content and the kinds of stories we want to tell, the only celebrity is the shark," says Wild executive vice president and general manager Geoff Daniels. "We want to give the shark center stage, and put a scientific focus on storytelling, on what makes these sharks the ultimate survivor in our seas."

Lewers isn't fazed. "Front and center for us are the sharks," maintains the Shark Week chief. "Another big piece is the conservation message. A lot of our celebrities tie into that, as well. And the celebrity hooks give an extra added layer of fun to it."

That "fun" word keeps popping up, whether Lewers is discussing Shaq, returning late-night talk show "Shark After Dark" (going live Sunday-Thursday at 11) or social media, where "people send in pictures of their families watching together, or their Shark Week parties, or dressing up their pets." Dressed in what, he doesn't say. (Fins may be involved.) "The audience is part of the experience of Shark Week on the air," he says, especially with "After Dark" using "people's Snapchats from the day, their Shark Week parties, live Tweets and Instagrams -- a full-on blitz of interaction."

He could go on, and does, just as those shark shows sometimes seem to. But even though Nat Geo Wild stretched this year's SharkFest to two weeks (13 days, actually), Discovery's Shark Week isn't likely to go long(er). "This year we're going eight days," says Lewers, though Discovery cheated a bit, by scheduling last Sunday's "best of" special and Saturday movie "Jaws" to whet viewers' appetites. "But I think that's pushing the edges of it as far as it can go. Like Christmas, you look forward to it, then it's got to come and be fun, and then you've got to get out. So you can just enjoy the specialness of it."