Sea Hunt

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Sea Hunt
Genre	adventure
Creator(s)	Ivan Tors
Developer(s)	Ivan Tors
Starring	Lloyd Bridges
Narrated by	Lloyd Bridges
Theme music composer	David Rose (Ray Llewellyn, credited pseudonym)
Opening theme	"The Sea Hunt Theme" (BMI)
Ending theme	"The Sea Hunt Theme" (BMI)
Country of origin	USA
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	155
Production
Producer(s)	Frederic Ziv
Executive producer(s)	Frederic Ziv and Maurice Ziv
Camera setup	35 mm
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Syndicated
Picture format	1.33 to 1
Audio format	mono
Original run	1958 – 1961
Links
IMDb profile

Sea Hunt was an American television adventure series from syndicator Ziv TV that ran from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in syndication for decades afterwards.

The program followed the adventures of scuba diver Mike Nelson, an ex-Navy frogman turned freelance diver, played by Lloyd Bridges. He outmaneuvered villains, salvaged everything from a bicycle to nuclear missile, and rescued a downed Air Force pilot (in his sunken jet, in the pilot episode), kids trapped in a flooded cave, and even a dog. One unusual aspect of the series was that at the end of each episode, Bridges made a plea to protect the oceans.

After Bridges was cast, he was given a crash course on scuba diving, by Courtney Brown, who would serve as his underwater stunt double. Over the course of the show's run, Bridges would get more involved in the underwater stunt work, graduating from close-ups in the earliest episodes, to doing all but the most dangerous stunts by the end of the series' run.

The series served as a stepping stone for some of Hollywood's most notable actors, including Leonard Nimoy, Robert Conrad, Bruce Dern, Larry Hagman, Jack Nicholson (in the last episode of the series) and Bridges' own sons, Beau and Jeff.

The underwater sequences were first filmed in Silver Springs, Florida, but were eventually filmed in Nassau, the Bahamas. On-land location shots were filmed throughout Los Angeles, Central Florida, and Nassau, or on a soundstage.

Famous divers such as Zale Parry and Albert Tillman were involved in production of the show, as was flying ace Charles Lindbergh's son, John. Parry was joined in 1960 by 18-year-old Wende Wagner as female underwater stunt double. Pioneering underwater cinematographer Lamar Boren, who would work on other Ivan Tors' productions (e.g., the motion picture and TV series versions of Flipper, and three James Bond films—Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and The Spy Who Loved Me), shot nearly all of the underwater footage for the series. John Lamb, who went on to shoot the underwater sequences for both the movie and TV versions of Irwin Allen's Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea also filmed some episodes.

The show's producer Ivan Tors had tried in vain to sell the series to CBS, NBC and ABC, each citing the opinion that storylines involving an ex-frogman couldn't be sustained. Each of the networks was embarrassed over the show's subsequent popularity and success.

A shortlived revival starring Ron Ely and Kimber Sissons appeared in 1987.