In commemoration of another Shark Week in the books, I decided to write a few critical reviews rating my favorite Discovery Channel shark attack videos.
#1. “Nerd Rope: The Shark Tug of War”
Anchored some 2,000 miles off the coast of South Africa, the crew of the research vessel Discovery decided to take a day off and go waste some scientific grant money dicking around in the ocean.
It was all hi-fives and Weezer mash-ups until one of the researchers throws a wet piss-blanket of buzzkill on the fun by hand feeding one of her legs to a great white shark.
In her testimony of the event, researcher Heather Boswell recounts talking to her mother on the phone just before going swimming that day. Heather’s mother, a sane and rational person, asks her if that’s such a great idea considering the potential for a shark attack. Heather made sure to giggle, and presumably asked her mother to look into getting a Life Alert before hanging up and pulling a gainer off the side of the boat.
The video of the incident taken from the boat shows Heather about twenty minutes and a Miller Chill later, thrashing wildly in the water with a massive great white shark locked on her foot like a home-arrest anklet from Hell. Rest assured, everyone on the boat does their best to help out by screaming like they’re getting finger-blasted at a Jason Aldean concert.
First off, Heather’s number one mistake in this situation is readily apparent- She is wearing a one-piece bathing suit

Just cause for capital punishment.
Moving past the fact few people ever feel inclined to save chicks in one-piece bathing suits from anything in the first place, it’s scientifically significant to note that Heather is frumpy and pear-shaped. You pour that chick’s cottage cheese into a black one piece and you’ve got a dead-ringer for a seal. Yeah, it’s cold, it’s hard, but that is a fact. So wipe that judgment off your face because you learned something today.
Anyways, right about then the shark takes Heather and her saddlebags below deck to eat his meal in peace and Heather starts bullshitting about how “oddly beautiful” getting eaten underwater is. Right as she’s getting all Steel Magnolias—BOOM—Shark tug of war. That’s correct. Right as Heather is being pulled up into the boat the shark latches back onto her other leg.
The shark vs. nerd tug of war reenactment is spectacular, my only wishes would’ve been for five more minutes of it played over “You’re the Best Around” by Joe Esposito. But beggars can’t be choosers and the whole thing ends as quickly as it began when Heather suddenly comes free of the shark’s mouth and lands safely in the boat.
“There was a pop,” she says blankly, “and I look down and my leg is gone…”
“So…”
And that’s how you end that story- the best way.
Positives:
Negatives:
Best Moment:

"So..."
Rating:
B+
#2 “The Great White Three-Way”
Meet Shannon Ainsley- the only dude alive lucky enough to roll a double “dicks-in-your-ass” in the crapshoot of life and live to limp another day.

Looks like he rolled double dicks at Great Cuts too.
It was just another lazy afternoon in South Africa when Shannon and Brandon Ainsley decided to “hang ten” the post-apartheid way at Nahoon Reef. A popular beach for locals who enjoy moving water and standing on wood, the two brothers surfed the reef while a friend of theirs filmed from the beach, chronicling every last minute of their extreme standing and turning on water.
The video of the attack shows Shannon in the middle of executing his trademark “crouch/stand with back toward wave” maneuver, blissfully unaware that he will momentarily be pulling the first ever fully inverted hardflip-to-pants-shit ever attempted in the history of the sport (term used loosely). This feat will be made possible courtesy of not one, but TWO great white sharks, both of which plan to bring Tag Team back again with extreme prejudice.
Right as Shannon begins to combine his “crouch/stand” with a backside “slight turn,” the dorsal fins of two great white sharks explode out of the water around him and he is sent flying up into the air.
Several run-through’s in glorious slow motion show that the two sharks attacked Shannon from opposite angles in what we can assume was a botched attempt to “high-low” the surfer. These sharks didn’t just want to eat Shannon; they wanted to destroy him, as evidenced by their blatant attempt to utilize the hit-stick and Any Given Sunday this dude into red man-mist.
In a flash, Shannon’s ass disappears underwater and thus begins the Discovery Channel’s simulation of the event, brought to life by the same computer graphics used in the original Tron.
Once in the water, Shark A snaps down on Shannon’s arm and takes him on a walk to Shark B’s mouth, who has meanwhile whipped around and is coming at Shark A head on, realizing at this point he has to force a fumble or go for the strip. Shark B swoops in, jaws open, smashing into and around Shannon’s chest and shoulders, successfully tomahawking the surfer from the other shark’s mouth.

It's looks like Deep Blue Sea, if the graphic design was done with a toaster.
Luckily for Shannon, Shark B bungles his business and somehow loses the handle on Shannon’s face and the surfer manages to make it ashore, leaving both sharks looking like major assholes.
Positives:
- 2x the sharks > 4x the steak.
- “High-low a ho.”
Negatives:
Best Moment:
- The part where he isn’t surfing anymore.
Rating:
B
#3 “Sweep the Leg, Johnny”
First off, I would like to take this opportunity to say that I stand firmly behind the notion of individuals pushing the limits of safety and common sense in the name of scientific research.I don’t care if you fly a hot air balloon around the North Pole to study the Aurora Borealis’ effects on narwhals fucking each other. I’m fine with that. Why? Because that’s science.
With that said, there exists a thin line between “research in the name of science” and “research in the name of getting someone dismembered on camera.” And the “professionals” responsible for the next video crossed that line with enough misguided velocity to break the sound barrier of retardation and travel backward into retarded past.
Chances are you have seen this video before, but for those less devout Shark Week followers who have yet to happen upon this most sacred footage allow to me lay out the scene for you-
Two dudes filming a documentary about bull sharks. Standing in waist deep water. Surrounded by forty circling sharks. With four or more cameras rolling. To sum this whole thing up accurately I will borrow a line from Dave Chappelle- This isn’t Trading Spaces.
The two men in the water with the school of sharks circling them are shark specialist Erich Ritter and researcher/host Nigel Marven.
“I’d certainly be very nervous doing this on my own,” stammers Marven, visibly on the cusp of becoming the first man to shit himself in hi-definition or while hosting a documentary. Ritter, responding in a tone that suggests he is almost if not equally shit-prone as Marven, states that they are both in fact safe and explains that the sharks aren’t interested in them as long as they stand completely still.
No sooner does Ritter advise us to treat bull sharks like we would a Tyrannosaurus does a four hundred pound one smash into him from behind and rip out his entire right calf muscle.

Leg= swept.
Ritter was immediately pulled out of the water by the crew and saved from what most certainly would’ve turned into an excellent blood orgy. He survived his brush with death, and provided us all with an important lesson in the dangers of applying knowledge gleaned from the movie Jurassic Park in our everyday lives.
Positives:
- Hi-definition pwnage.
- British accents.
- Complete disregard of any and all common sense in the name of ratings.
Negatives:
Best Moment:
- “I can’t believe it happened.” –Marven
Rating:
A-