Misterjaw

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Misterjaw is a 34-episode made-for-television cartoon series, produced at DePatie-Freleng Enterprises in 1976 for The Pink Panther and Friends television series on NBC.

Misterjaw (voiced by Arte Johnson) was a blue-colored great white shark (who wore a purple vest with white collar, a black bow tie and tall black top hat) who liked to leap out of the water and shout "HEEGotcha!" or "Gotcha!" at unsuspecting folks. He spoke with a German accent and was known to mispronounce words (examples: "dumbkuff" and "knucklehead" -- pronounced as k-nucklehead). He also had a sidekick, a yellow derby-wearing Brooklyn-accented catfish simply named Catfish (voiced by Arnold Stang) who usually referred to Misterjaw as "boss" or "chief"; Misterjaw usually called him either "pally", "fella" or "sonny" when in a good mood, or names like "dumbkuff", "knucklehead", "macaroni brain" when angry or interrupted. The two would get into all sorts of mischief, ranging from trying to catch Harry Halibut to outwitting Fearless Freddy the Shark Hunter (voiced by Paul Winchell), amongst other adventures.

All the shorts were directed by Robert McKimson with co-direction from Sid Marcus and produced by David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng. The music and score for the series were composed by Doug Goodwin. None of the shorts contained any credit information; only the series title, episode title and copyright (all dated 1976), and end titles were shown.

[edit] Trivia

Misterjaw was one of two cartoon sharks created as a cash-in on the Jaws craze (the other being the Hanna-Barbera created and less successful Jabberjaw).
As of July 2005, Misterjaw has regularly been seen on Cartoon Network's Boomerang in the United States (along with The Pink Panther Show and other DePatie-Freleng cartoons). As of 2006, all the Misterjaw episodes have been aired. Unfortunately, three of the cartoons shown on Boomerang have been edited (some scenes from "Beach Resort", "Monster of the Deep," and the ending of "Holiday in Venice" were removed).
The show was also known as Mr. Jaws and Catfish.
In the cartoon "Little Red Riding Halibut", Misterjaw said "Verrry interesting..." after looking in a picnic basket that Harry Halibut left behind which was boobytrapped with mousetraps. Then in the cartoon "Monster of the Deep", Misterjaw said "Verrry interesting..." again after finding out there was a ghost on a deserted ship. The "Verrry interesting..." catchphrase was first uttered by Arte Johnson (the man who voiced Misterjaw) on Laugh-in.