Shark Bytes

hello everyone, I am Cathrine. I'm new here and I just wanted to say hello to everyone, I've actually been reading a lot of posts on this forum for a while but this is my first post here

Dallas, schmallas.

This is Patrick Duffy's TRUE legacy.

I absolutely loved this show when I was a kid. I remember Patrick Duffy in it so clearly...

Funny thing -- after the show disappeared, I was so ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIED to see Patrick Duffy pop up on a new night-time soap opera called Dallas. The Man from Atlantis as a boring oil man from Texas?? NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I loved this show when it first aired , and having had the chance to see it again recently, it has lost none of it's original appeal, and neither has Patrick Duffy, in his trademark yellow trunks - so hunky. Okay, so eventually, some of the episodes might be deemed as strange or silly - now, but at the time, in the late 70s; I was a teenager, and time travel, aliens and sea monsters were acceptable for an underwater sci-fi adventure series. I mean, if the 'Cetacean' (submersible) had just gone about regular 'ocean monitoring duties', I'm sure viewers would've been very quickly bored. I think that most, who watched the show, myself included, tried out the swimming technique at their local pool, but what kid would, at that time, really have compared it to anything lewd - I think not. The episode 'Shoot Out At Land's End' has to be one of my favourites, the part of Billy, giving Patrick Duffy the chance to offset the innocent, straight-laced character of Mark Harris, with one that was more 'worldly'.=o)

Patrick Duffy in those yellow trunks with the blue logo ... MMMMMM!! I can also thank him for getting me interested in Buddhism, since he converted to it from the Catholic Church.

I was beyond disappointed when the show was cancelled ... then "Dallas" changed everything for our guy ...

Dear God, HOW did we allow this to happen?

MfA was ALL WET.

It wasn't cancelled, it drowned. Mr. Duffy moved to DALLAS. Oil. Money. Black Gold.

I was a real young kid when this show came on. I don't really remember the actual show too much.

I do remember the ads for it. They said he could breathe underwater and all that crap. To me, I thought they TV network had found some guy that could actually do this feat.

When I never saw anything in the news, I figured out it was fiction.

That story of my youth gets a lot of laughs nowadays. Thought it would be fun to share.

I love the show, which was the first show introduced to China. At that time we called sunglasses as Markglasses and we imitated his swimming too to show off before girls. I thought there were still quite a lot aged funs now.

Episode #8, aptly named Giant, starred Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. This was a shark leap. Abdul-Jabbar's character was named Thark. Probably a bit of foreshadowing to use a name that rhymed with Shark.

It really never jumped. It was like most 70's TV, when you were young it was fun, but when you look back, it really is pretty goofy. I really liked the show because it got me into swimming. I became a very accomplished swimmer because of it. I practiced over and over holding my breath underwater for long periods. I finally pushed 5 mins. My parents thought I was crazy when they would find me sitting at the bottom of the deep end of the pool just sitting there. I also got very fast swimming dolphin style. I could beat any swimmer swimming that way, if you master it, it is probably the fastest way to swim. Steering is the problem. I remember beating the state swim champ swimming freestyle in a 100 meter olympic pool very easily swimming that way. But I soon tired of it when the show was cancelled.

This was a good show until the scientist girl was effectively demoted and they let the Man from Atlantis run things. In the pilot, the woman was struggling with male dominance (this was a sign of the times) but as the series got under way she became mousey and deferred to Patrick Duffy.

I don't think the show had a chance to jump. What I remember most about the show as a kid was how fast Patrick Duffy dolphin-kicked under water. Every day that summer, I practiced swimming like the Man From Atlantis.

As a kid, i thought the show jumped from the first episode. Really lame stuff. But, what really makes the cake is when at the pool I would see all these lame kids humping the water in imitation of Patrick Duffy!!!

The show was lame from Day One but on its own terms, it could be a decent way to pass time- in the beginning but then they kept changing cast and made it too broad. What made it jump,though, was when he was captured by some creeps holding a mermaid captive and was unable to break out of ROPE!! Come on! When we first saw him he was so STRONG he could pop layers of steel chains without flinching yet now he couldn't even loosen rope?! That's as bad making Bamm-Bamm a teenaged wimp after he had had superstrength as a toddler!