It's Only A Model

I didn't even know that Bruce was missing, but an intrepid journalist kept the unthinkable from happening. Corey Turner went in search of the star of the very first summer blockbuster, "Jaws," and when he found the twenty-five foot long mechanical shark at a junkyard in Los Angeles it came as a surprise to Steven Spielberg. Steve thought all the big rubber fish had been destroyed. Technically, he was correct. The three robot sharks that were used in filming had gone to the big feeding frenzy in the sky. But one more had been cast from the original molds and had hung by its tail at Universal Studios for fifteen years until it was taken down in 1990. With the thirty-fifth anniversary of the release of Spielberg's second feature, after "Sugarland Express," the clock is ticking on history.
And what would have happened if this movie prop had been consigned to the scrap heap and there was no evidence beyond that which unspools in theaters and flashes across TV screens of one of the greatest villains of movie history? Would we as a culture be any poorer for lack of a mechanical shark? Perhaps not. I live over a vast, unfinished basement that has filled up over the course of thirteen years with bits and pieces of "history." Very little of that is Mint In Box. A lot of it doesn't have a box at all. This is to say that I understand how a rubber shark, even a twenty-five footer, might have become displaced over thirty-some years. We know where the original King Kong ended up. The bulk of the animation cels used to create the classic Warner Brothers cartoons of the forties and fifties were destroyed to make room for a publicity department. Either way, we still have memories of the Eighth Wonder of the World and What's Up Doc. The plastic isn't the thing. It's the movement they were given and projected into our brains all those years ago. Those are the real treasures.
All that being said, if they're looking for a place to store Bruce for the next thirty-five years, I've still got some room in my basement.