Who was into Jacques Cousteau was a child?

[Deep13]

Dude was uber-cool. What a life. Tooling around in his own ship with a helicopter and a Catalina flying boat. State of the art and highly fashionable diving gear let them drop to the bottom with those hand held lamp arrays. If the target was too deep, get out the Cousteau diving saucer. Is that bitchin' or what? Don't forget the super-modern 70s 35mm cameras and 16mm movies. My wife said she would make he a red hat live the Calypso guys wore. I just bought the DVD set called the Cousteau Odyssey.

In ze sea zere is no croo-elty, only zee ztruggle to zurvive.

[Deep13]

1. Oops, it should read "as a child" not "was a child."

Editing time expired.

[Aristus]

2. Yeah, I was a huge Cousteau fan. My Dad and I used to watch

him and "Mutual Of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" every Sunday afternoon.

[CottonBear]

3. Zee little fishes...what are they thinking as they swim in zee ocean?

I loved Cousteau, Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom, The American Sportsman with Curt Gowdy and ABCs Wide World of Sports ("The thrill of victory and the agnoy of defeat...").

Did you see the episode when he and his comrades dove into an underwater cave through underwater tunnels. Amazing! No way would I ever be brave enough to do that!

I also loved watching Evel Knievel jump over stuff in Vegas. :)

[Deep13]

8. We'll watch as Jim handles the deadly cobra.

Fuck you, Marlon. You handle the goddamn snake and I will hang out in the studio selling life insurance. How's that?

[CottonBear]

9. Once, Marlon wrestled a gigantic python or anaconda in a rainforest swamp

It was amazing! I didn't think he'd make it. The snake must have been over 12 feet long. :scared:

I once saw Jim run across a African grassland while being chased by a lion! There was a lone tree with the first branches at over 7 feet above the ground. Jim climbed up that tree like a monkey on speed! The lion clawed at the trunk but didn't climb after him. :o

[qnr]

4. I was n/t

[Lars39]

5. He was cool.

Probably from where I had the irrestible urge to learn French and sea-diving.

Had to explain The Life Aquatic jokes to my kids. :D

[YankeyMCC]

6. I was a fan

Exploring the world's oceans was to me a "real world" adventure just like I watched in my SciFi shows.

[wildhorses]

7. ......

:thumbsup:

[SeattleGirl]

10. Love Jacques!

Learned a lot, too.

[MoseyWalker]

11. I have to get that Cousteau Odyssey

You're right - man what a guy. I must have seen every one of his shows, either when first shown, or as repeats years later. Damn good stuff.

What's his son doing these days?

[MrScorpio]

12. I saw every show

Loved it

[supernova]

13. I had the hots for J. Cousteau

:loveya:

That uber-zexzy French accent and his intimate narrations just sent me around the bend. Never missed a show.

One of the first things to clue me in as a kid that I was a girl geek.


Sidebar: My parents were working at Duke Hospital at the time when he came to open their new hyperbaric chamber... in '58, I think. I'll have to check the date. They went to the keynote address and got his autograph. ;-) edit: I still have it around the house somewhere. :think:

edit 2: The Hyberbaric Chamber is still in use at Duke and is used mostly now to help burn victims and radition patients accelerate healing. Oh and the long-running deep-diving experiment about the effects of pressure on the human body.

http://www.dukehealth.org/clinicaltrials/20050411132656655?search_highlight=diving

[GoddessOfGuinness]

14. Because of him,

I want to visit a whale shark.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. I think I owe my interests in science and nature partly to him

Especially how he never placed on moral judgment on what any animals were doing, but accepted it all as part of nature, and how it was totally clear that he was doing what he was doing because he took absolute joy in it; and that he kept inventing things to help him, overcoming obstacles, and doing everything necessary to follow his passion.

And in that regard, he also was an inspiration that I should spend my life doing something I'm passionate about.

I also appreciated later in my life his drive to make the oceans cleaner, and to make those necessary moral judgments on the behavior of humans.

But as a child, what took me in most was his absolute fascination in both enjoying what he was seeing, while also trying to understand why things are the way they are.

[BrotherBuzz]

16. He was a nobody during my childhood...

Never mind the fact that he invented SCUBA equipment and was making films and all that neat stuff during my childhood, we just never saw it. We had to settle for the next best thing - Mike Nelson, and his cool boat 'Sea Hunt'.