Shark Bytes

The misspelling of character as "charachter" was an unintentional comment on the oddities of written english versus spoken english that I talk about elsewhere.

Stephen J. Cannell is putting Stingray on DVD on April 1, 2008 so you can judge the show for yourself. He wrote in in Los Angeles and filmed it in Vancouver.

It was an intense show that was not too predictable. The X-Files production team must have watched Stingray.

This show really worked for me at the time and I never thought it jumped. Good stuff.

To Andrew:

And your incorrect spelling of "character" is *not* mysterious too?

In the past couple of years, a couple of people have gotten killed by stingrays.

My incorrect spelling of MYSTERIOUS is a mystery.

Ray was a mystery character that was revealed a little bit each week and it was not overstated like many shows since 2000. I am not even sure if Ray had a real last name.

The 1986 Stingray Series on NBC was a totally surreal show. How they filmed it was amazing. The charachter Ray was so misterious that it took an entire season to see who he was.

The EXPO '86 site in Vancouver was a great shooting location for STINGRAY. It made several episodes stand out from the rest of the shows on the air.

Nick Mancuso is a totally focused actor and the directors of the series made Ray very convicing.

Great show, but too smart for the average viewer, and I think that is why it was cancelled.

This show never jumped the shark. It was my favorite show and before it was cancelled I started my own campaign to keep it on the air distributing flyers, writing letters, etc. I even had the personalized license plate EGW-769 as seen on the vette in many episodes. Great acting, intelligent writing and fantastic music. I STILL wish it would come back!

Stingray didn't jump the shark...NBC did. They only cancelled 5 shows that season, as I recall. They kept several shows that were lower in the ratings than Stingray. The week it was cancelled, it was highly rated for the week and had been rising steadily over several weeks. The show was partly financed by NBC and the executive who backed it, left NBC. I have always suspected the cancellation was due to company politics.

Stingray is cool and still great entertainment 30-years on. Only comment was that it seemed like a small team of guys who were battling the Aquaphibians and Titan, considering World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP) had well, the whole world to look after. Also, Atlanta was hot!

Never jumped! Awesome show! Count me as one of the ones who wishes this were around on one of the cable channels. I would love to see this series given another shot with a decent time slot. Very cool premise. And for the person who said his name was Ray as in Stingray, you must have forgotten. Everyone always asked him that, and his standard reply was, "Ray as in Raymond". As a 14 year old at the time, I always got a laugh out of that one.

Never jumped, never had a chance to as it didn't last long enough. Good, in the sense that I will always remember it fondly; unlike some of my other favourite shows from childhood which up & jumped the shark, forever tarnished (A-team, Airwolf, Dukes of Hazzard, etc) I always kinda wondered though, how did he manage his day to day living!? I mean 3 squares a day is a lot of favours to call in...what about gassing up the 'vette? Luckily I was 12 & willing & able to suspend disbelief. Incidentally, Nick Mancuso currently gives acting lessons here in Toronto, in case anybody cares.

I really enjoyed this show when it started. The premise was great and the music was fantastic. I wish they had come up with a soundtrack album. Towards the end however, it seemed like everyone that Ray was helping wound up dead in the end. I still wish that it was back on. How about "The Return of Sting Ray"?

Never jumped! Didn't have the time. I remember this as a mid season replacement 2 years in a row when I was in high school. It had so much going for it such as the coolest car on tv( '65 Stingray, a mysterious main character without even a name, who relied on his cunning and photographic memory, and a unique payment system: trading a favor for a favor. I still don't know why this didn't catch on, while similar shows such as the Equalizer and The Pretender did.

I think it WAS Cannel's best idea...and it never jumped because it wasn't given a chance to get stale. The show had a the rare blend of a cool character with great writing and dialogue. But it was in a tough time slot back then...and unfortunately the viewer sensibility that was attracted to Miami Vice's MTV/action, (preceding it in the schedule) wasn't the type to appreciate Stingray's reserved delivery.

looks like we're doing two shows on this but I'm talking about the live action with nick mancuso. This show was awesome, Stepehen J. Cannell who made about half the top ten shows in the 80's made it and said it was his favorite idea. He never understood why the show never took off.