Talk:Land Shark (Saturday Night Live)

(text moved from Talk:Land shark)

"for some mysterious reason?"

i'm quite surprised to see that wikipedia has no information on the land shark sketches. could someone rectify this? pauli 13:47, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps someone who knows what the heck they are can. Me, I came to the Land shark article from Terrorcons, and found it to be a redirect to Chevy Chase, but no one ever bothered to explain why. — JIP | Talk 17:33, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

This should probably be merged with Landshark. 69.143.163.149 13:38, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Arguably the References in Popular Culture do not need references if they occur in a published medium as listed Reference in Popular Culture is the source material. (e.g. the source of Landshark being referenced in the film K-9 is the film itself. One would not find a scholarly article that mentions the use in the film to use as a source.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jabjab142 (talk • contribs) 13:20, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Title

When merging these articles, I was conflicted -- the canonical spelling seems to be "Land Shark" (cf. SNL books searched via Amazon), but the more common cultural spelling is "landshark" (by a hair: 140K [1] vs. 95K [2]). I just thought I should record that here. --Dhartung | Talk 18:46, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Copywrite issues around video link

I am new here, so please feel free to correct me. I added the link to a site were the skit is shown, how is adding this link a possible copyright violation, but adding links to other websites is not? I can see if I uploaded the video itself to wikipedia (can that even be done?) it would be an issue but just the link?--Gay Cdn 14:48, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works (policy) and Wikipedia:External_links#Occasionally acceptable links (guideline). If you have questions, feel free to ask me. Thanks. --GunnarRene 20:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

early-mid 80s Land Shark?

I seem to recall there being an episode of SNL from sometime in the 1980s where Chevy Chase, hosting via sattelite with the aid of wheeled television monitors, performed the Land Shark skit with one of the female cast members. The ending, however, was different, as the shark turned out just to be a shark costume over a metal frame, with a TV bearing Chase's image visible through the costume's open mouth. Can anyone else verify this? Kouban 05:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Popular Culture: Gaia Online

The Land Shark enemy in Gaiaonline does not drop rare loot items. Unless someone can find a citation for this, please delete it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.184.179.192 (talk) 19:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

References

• Deleted the Blazing Saddles reference from the list. Blazing Saddles is a 1974 movie and the sketch first appeared in 1977; I highly doubt the movie was referencing the skit.71.58.74.18 (talk) 00:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
• Deleted the Supernatural reference - that was a reference to Blazing Saddles ("Candygram for Mongo!"), not the SNL sketch, as noted above. -DrGaellon (talk | contribs) 02:31, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

In need of sources

per WP:TRIVIA the following unsourced content has been moved to the talk page as a potential guide for someone who may want to create a properly sourced, encyclopedic content entry regarding the cultural ubiquity of the landshark/candygram. Active Banana (talk) 17:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

References in popular culture

Though the Land Shark character appeared only irregularly on Saturday Night Live, it has entered the American cultural zeitgeist. References to a "land shark" (often preceded by the word "candygram") can be found in movies, print, video games, and other places. Often it is spelled as a solid compound, that is, as one word. In many forms of fiction, it is used as a name or nickname to a land-dwelling monster similar in appearance, temperament, or appetite to a shark.

• Land Shark Lager is Jimmy Buffett's premier beer
• Slang for police K-9 dogs. In the movie K-9, Jim Belushi's character refers to a police dog as a "land shark".
• BMW featured the Land Shark (taken whole cloth from the original skit) in a commercial for the Z4 in 2003.
• The Columbus Landsharks were a professional lacrosse team playing in Columbus, Ohio for the 2000–2003 seasons.
• The Berkeley, CA punk band Fang has an album called Landshark
• "Landshark" is a derogatory nickname for lawyers in the U.S.
• Beginning with the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, every edition of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual has included a monster known as the bulette. The bulette is essentially a land-based, four-legged, burrowing shark. The description mentions that the bulette's nickname is "landshark".
• In the comic 8-bit theater the Land Shark was mentioned briefly by Red Mage, but quickly dismissed by Black Mage in comic #227.
• The first and second edition of the Swedish role-playing game Mutant featured a monster named Landhaj, a direct translation of "landshark", and appears in the game as a burrowing shark. It was replaced in the UA version by a more Scandinavian analog, a giant eel.
• In the 1993 movie "Striking Distance," Bruce Willis' character says "Landshark" shortly before knocking out a drug dealer on a boat.
• In the video game Armed and Dangerous, one of the weapons available is the Landshark Gun, which fires a shark into the ground that "swims" through the ground, then comes up under the target and attacks.
• In the computer game Warcraft III, the unit quotes for the Goblin Sappers include "Candygram", "Package for (mumble)", and "Flowers for (mumble)".
• In the game Escape from Monkey Island, if the player observes a set of jaws on the beach the main character will remark "Land shark".
• In a 1989 episode of "Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers" titled "A Case of Stage Blight", an alligator with theatrical ambitions named "Sewernose de Bergerac" attempts to get an actor named Dudley to open the door to his dressing room with announcements of "Flowers", "Candygram", and finally "Singing telegram".
• The Pokémon Gible is classified as a "Land Shark" Pokémon, and both it and its evolutions, Gabite and Garchomp, resemble theropod-shark hybrids.
• In the Moonlighting episode "Plastic Fantastic Lovers" (Season 5, episode 4), Bruce Willis's character David Addison refers to a chainsaw (being held as a weapon) as a "landshark".
• The popular children's cartoon Street Sharks featured a character called Landshark, an evolved form of shark from the mysterious X Ooze.
• In the original Masters of the Universe toy line from the 1980s, the villain Skeletor had a vehicle resembling a tank with a shark's head, called, appropriately, the Land Shark.
• The shark-like motorized bombs used in an episode of Lupin the 3rd are referred to as "land sharks" by one of the protagonists.
• The members of professional wrestling team D-Generation X announced themselves as a "candygram" and "land shark" as they attempted to get Jonathan Coachman to open a locked door on the October 2, 2006 episode of RAW.
• In the video game Sins of the Fathers, protagonist Gabriel Knight attempts to gain access to a character's home by using various door-to-door sales tactics. When none of these are successful, he shouts "Landshark!" to which the resident replies "You are no Bill Murray."
• The women's rugby team name in Belmont Shore, Long Beach, California, are known as LandSharks.
• At least one integrated circuit, the ADSP-1939, has a microscopic image of a land shark inscribed on its surface.
• In the Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius episode "Return of the Nanobots", the Nanobots attempted to get into Jimmy's lab. Carl asked who was at the door and the Nanobots replied he had a telegram. Carl said he wasn't falling for it and they switched it to llamagram and Carl opened the door, only to get deleted by the Nanobots. This scene is an obvious homage to the skit.
• In the movie Hoodwinked, the Wolf knocks on the door while saying "Hello, paper boy!... Publisher's, uh... Candygram!"
• In the Xbox 360 game Blue Dragon, one of the main villain's mechanical henchman is known as a land shark.
• In the game Dead to Rights 2, Jack Slate is asked to identify himself to a guard through a door, to which he replies "Landshark." and kicks in the door.
• Land Shark is a youth football cleat by the company Nike
• In the 2008 movie August featuring Josh Hartnett, Hartnett's character owns a failing tech company called LandShark, which employs a series of sleights and ruses to try to gain clients and financing.
• The MMORPG zOMG! features numerous references to Landsharks. The most powerful monster in the game, Landshark, appears randomly at Gold Beach, attacking players. It drops rare loot items if defeated. In addition, a Landshark Plushie (named "Toothy") is available as a costume item, and the ring "Shark Attack" allows you to summon weaker Landsharks to attack enemies.
• In the comic book Iron Man #138, Jim Rhodes and Tony Stark are sneaking into the compound of a company controlled by the Maggia when they duck into a room to avoid security guards. Unfortunately, the room is filled with thugs who demand to know who they are. Rhodes replies, "Uh, candygram for Mr. Mongo?" and Tony adds, "Land Shark?"
• 1 May 2009, it was announced Dolphin Stadium, home of the famed football team the Miami Dolphins, is set to become Land Shark Stadium. It will be named after the joint beer project of Anheuser Busch and Key West icon Jimmy Buffett.
• In the beginning of the ninth episode of season 6 of the Gilmore Girls, Lorelai is locked out of her house by a security chain recently installed by her friend Luke. As she waits for him to open the front door to her house, she says, "Landshark! Candygram... Here's Johnny" as an homage to both the SNL skit and the Shining (film).
• In Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Abraham Lincoln was interrupted in the Whitehouse by a knock at his office door and someone saying, "candy gram." When Lincoln answer the door, he is grabbed suddenly by Genghis Khan.
• In the 2005 videogame Ratchet: Deadlocked, a landshark costume can be purchased at the cost of 35 stars.
• The Brooklyn Landsharks are a triathlon team based in Brooklyn, New York
• Land Shark Bicycles is John Slawta's Medford, Oregon-based brand of custom, handmade, high-performance bicycles. Slawta is known for his creative paint jobs, which sometimes includes airbrushed shark profiles. But his frames have been ridden, with paint jobs and decals of other manufacturers, by professional cyclists such as Andy Hampsten in major international races. “My goal is to get people to react,” John says, “I like people to see the bikes and have to respond. I like people to look at my paint jobs and not know how I could possibly have done it.”

At least one of the above is not a reference. Gary Gygax referred to the bullette as a "landshark" before 1975. He did clearly recognize the connection, however; when asked whether bullettes eat humans as well as halflings and horses, he answered that they prefer halflings but will eat humans, but followed up by explaining that they're too stupid to speak Common, much less disguise themselves as a singing telegram. --50.0.192.101 (talk) 09:27, 23 September 2016 (UTC)