For Over 40 Years, I’ve Wanted to Play That Cool-Looking ‘Killer Shark’ Arcade Game Briefly Seen in ‘Jaws’

Like many people, I have a “bucket list” of things I would like to do before I leave this mortal world. Many of the things on this list are probably similar to other people, like wanting to visit certain places.

But there are even more unique (some might say “weird”) and nostalgic things on that list that I hope to experience/try at some point.

One of these experiences has been on my to-do list for over 40 years, ever since I saw its broadcast premiere jaws on abc sunday night movie In 1979, and this is something that every time I’ve watched Steven Spielberg’s classic thriller since, I’ve been reminded that I wanted to do each of these. And that is: playing killer shark Arcade game that is briefly featured in the film.

The game unfolds at the end of a scene on Amity Island Beach on the Fourth of July, where we see a crowd of people walking toward the shore, unaware that the shark they thought had been killed is actually still there. It’s a nice set-up scene, and as a kid what made it even better for me (and which I still love) is the little arcade by the beach. This is where Spielberg zooms in on the screen of a game a young man is playing: Killer Shark.

For a few seconds, we see this person aiming the game cabinet’s light-gun at the screen and firing it at a shard that appears to be created by the light projection.

For a long time I thought Killer Shark was a traditional video game, but it was actually an example of an electromechanical game made by Sega in the early 70s (there appears to be an actual video game on the side in this scene; I believe the yellow cabinet around which some other kids are gathered is Computer Space, which became the first arcade video game when it was released in 1971. So, in this one scene from the early 70s A nice bit of arcade history!).

The more I’ve read about electromechanical games since learning of their existence, the more fascinating they seem, almost like a hybrid “missing link” between the pinball machines and true video games that would come to dominate arcades just a few years later. jaws Premiere took place. So, if it turns out I can never play Killer Shark again, I’d love to at least try one of the other games like that.

But the killer shark looks very cute in that scene. Every time the guy attacks the shark with his light rifle, the shark looks as if it explodes in a cloud of blood and “dies” before continuously coming back towards the screen once again.

Here’s a real-life lucky guy who has been playing Killer Shark in recent years and giving us a good look at the game, which sounds intense:

This little sequence is a clever addition jawsNot only does this reflect the film’s theme and show that Spielberg surprisingly had his finger on the pulse of the pop-culture that young people were involved in at the time, but it also offers a fun foreshadowing of the film’s climax, when Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), who passes by this guy playing the game while focusing on beach safety, finds himself confronting an actual killer shark with a real rifle, as he Comes in and tries to blow him up – except, If He If the player loses, he cannot throw another coin and try again.

Looks like something might have been specially designed to look like a killer shark jawsBut it was actually released by Sega in 1972, so it wasn’t made specifically for the movie, just a nice improvement on it (I’m not sure if there was any product placement money or licensing of the game involved).

On a related note, there was an actual video game Did come out chasing jawsLater in 1975, once again it seemed as if something was officially attached to the film but which was not.

it was shark’s jawsReleased by an organization called “Horror Games”, which was actually the name of a shell company created by good old Atari in hopes of avoiding a lawsuit from Universal, who had produced and released jaws,

© 1975 Atari, Inc./Image from Internet Archive

Along with hiding not so subtly behind the “Horror Games” name (I mean, Atari’s name is clearly listed in the promotional flyer for the game), it seems that Atari has also tried to avoid any legal action for using the “Jaws” title by calling the game “Shark Jaws” and still placing heavy emphasis on the JAWS part, with the “Shark” part listed in front of it in very small type.

For anyone who worked on this machine, after seeing the giant “JAWS” emblazoned across the top with images of sharks and learning the game’s concept, it would have been easy to assume that it was, in fact, tied to the blockbuster film. That’s certainly what Atari was hoping for – with all the positive association. jaws And no legal hassles.

It seems it worked; The game appears to have been relatively successful, and I haven’t read about any resulting lawsuits against Atari (Universal’s lawyers may be too busy focusing on other jaws-like the movies that were coming out and making sure they weren’t too close to the OG shark attack movie).

Shark Jaws looks like something I wouldn’t mind playing one day. It sounds very simple; You control a SCUBA diver who must collect fish before being attacked and killed by a shark (the game’s promo flyer promoted that this “1-player underwater video terror” game features “realistic sound effects – diver screams when attacked by shark”).

Things got a little meta when this game tried to cash in jaws‘The success itself ended in a cameo in a film, and that too in a film Self was playing jaws (Though certainly one of the better “killer-fish movies” of that era): Within the first 10 minutes of director Joe Dante’s piranha (1978), one of the film’s main characters, played by Heather Menzies, is seen playing Shark Jaws at an airport.

I don’t know how I found out about someone else’s existence jaws-inspired arcade game, but I guess I can’t feel too bad considering that this seems to be an extremely rare title, and may even have been uncommon to encounter at the time of its release (it’s unclear how many of these machines came out).

that game is from 1975 cannibalWhich requires a player to control a diver to retrieve treasure from the ocean floor and bring it back to the surface, while avoiding killer sharks along the way.

As you can see in the photo below, Maneater was clearly inspired by Spielberg’s blockbuster, so much so that its arcade cabinet was designed to look like a great white racing across the surface with open jaws, just like the film’s iconic poster (the game was also released in an apparently more traditional, but much less cooler, cabinet design).

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

I’m not sure Maneater was officially approved jaws-related title, either, but it looks like it at least has Spielberg’s personal approval; That’s the director in the photo, standing next to the Maneater cabinet in his office in late ’75.

A sales flyer for the game, which was produced by a long-defunct and probably little-heard-of company with the decidedly unsexy name of “Project Support Engineering”, tells potential buyers of the game in its first bullet point that they should “take advantage of the Jaws rage”, no doubt implying that they were riding the huge wave created by the film. Really, can’t blame them.

Another bullet point boasts about the game’s realistic-sounding “chomps” and “screams” when the shark attacks the diver, and “Video Panic!” Promises.

This is another game I would love to find and play someday, but I think it might be even more difficult to track down than Killer Shark. It’s even harder to find many videos of people playing it; Here is an example: