Diver Dan
Encyclopedia
Diver Dan was a series of 104 seven-minute live-action shorts made for children's television. Made by Brian Cartoons, it was syndicated (mainly to NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 affiliates) and distributed by ITC Entertainment
ITC Entertainment
The Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution. It was founded by Lew Grade.-History:...

. The shows were sometimes re-edited into half-hour (including commercials) blocks by local stations.

The series featured the adventures of a diver in an old-fashioned diving suit
Diving suit
A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. A diving suit typically also incorporates an air-supply .-History:...

 who talked to the passing fish. The series was filmed in live action with puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....

 fish; the underwater effect was achieved by shooting through an aquarium.

Production

Diver Dan debuted in 1960, the brainchild of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

, cartoonist J. Anthony (John) Ferlaine, as a spinoff of his comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

, Fish Tales. Ferlaine, who worked as an art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....

 at Philadelphia's CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 affiliate WCAU-TV, produced two Fish Tales live-action marionette
Marionette
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...

 pilots. When CBS did not pick up the show, Ferlaine and promoter Martin Young partnered with Philadelphia producer Louis W. Kellman, who with his staff produced local TV spots and film shorts
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...

 and filmed NFL football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 games. They produced the shorts over nine months and syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 them.

In New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Diver Dan shorts ran as part of Felix & Diver Dan, a 30-minute children's show airing from January 4, 1960, to August 31, 1962, which also included Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combine to make Felix one of the most recognized cartoon characters in film history...

. In Chicago during the 1960s, Diver Dan was regularly shown on the WGN-TV show "Ray Rayner
Ray Rayner
Ray Rayner was a staple of Chicago children's television in the 1960s and 1970s on WGN-TV.-Early life:...

 and His Friends" even though Rayner would frequently read on-air letters from children requesting that he get other cartoons.

Main cast

  • Allen Swift
    Allen Swift
    Ira Stadlen , known professionally as Allen Swift, was an American voice actor, known for playing characters including Simon Bar Sinister and Riff-Raff on the Underdog cartoon show...

     as the voices of the many puppets, the unseen Captain, and the narrator.
  • Frank Freda as Diver Dan. Freda is a prize-winning playwright and recipient of the Waldo Bellow Award for the play Lunchtime. He has acted in many TV commercials including ones for Pall Mall and Budweiser. He was one of the earliest Ronald McDonald
    Ronald McDonald
    Ronald McDonald is a clown character used as the primary mascot of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. In television commercials, the clown inhabits a fantasy world called McDonaldland, and has adventures with his friends Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, and...

    s. He is currently a business consultant in New York City.
  • Suzanne Turner as Miss Minerva, the beautiful mermaid
    Mermaid
    A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk"...

     queen, who referred to Diver Dan only as "The Diver" and shyly kept away from his sight.

Dramatis personæ

The characters included Diver Dan and Miss Minerva, the Captain (heard but not seen), and a puppet cast including the villainous Baron Barracuda, his henchman Trigger (a trigger fish), Finley Haddock, Doc Sturgeon, Georgie Porgy, Gabby the Clam, Gill Espy, Glow Fish, Goldie the Goldfish (who spoke only in peeps and squeaks), Hermit Crab, Sam the Sawfish, Scout Fish, Sea Biscuit the Seahorse, and Skipper Kipper.

One of the running gags in the series was for Trigger to refer to the Baron as "Boss," at which the Baron would get angry and say some variation of, "Call me Baron, you idiot!"—to which Trigger would reply, "Okay, Baron, you idiot."

Baron Barracuda wore a monocle in one eye, and spoke in a vaguely European accent; he sounded like a Bela Lugosi "Dracula" imitation. Trigger always had an apparently unlit cigarette jutting from the side of his mouth and sounded a bit like Ed Norton from The Honeymooners.

The series was not immune to ethnic stereotypes: One of the undersea characters was Scout Fish, who carried a tomahawk
Tomahawk (axe)
A tomahawk is a type of axe native to North America, traditionally resembling a hatchet with a straight shaft. The name came into the English language in the 17th century as a transliteration of the Powhatan word.Tomahawks were general purpose tools used by Native Americans and European Colonials...

 and always spoke in pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...

-Indian
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Indigenous languages of the Americas are spoken by indigenous peoples from Alaska and Greenland to the southern tip of South America, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language...

 dialect. He occasionally used his tomahawk to extricate Diver Dan from seaweed (in the Sargasso Sea
Sargasso Sea
The Sargasso Sea is a region in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by ocean currents. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf Stream; on the north, by the North Atlantic Current; on the east, by the Canary Current; and on the south, by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current. This...

), fishing nets, or some nefarious trap.

DVD release

Alpha Video
Alpha Video
Alpha Video is an entertainment company, based near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that specializes in the manufacturing and marketing of public domain movies and TV shows on DVD...

 released a collection of 15 Diver Dan episodes on DVD (Region 0) on September 26, 2006.

Another DVD release can be found at many Dollar Tree stores. Titled "Diver Dan, Vol. 2" and produced by East West Entertainment LLC, it contains two hours of the show, approximately 17 episodes. It is unknown what is on Vol 1, as this DVD appears to start with the very first Diver Dan episode.

In addition to these two DVD releases, the television series was rerun in the late '60s in Chicago on "Ray Rayner and Friends" after it was originally telecast. The Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention also occasionally shows episodes as fillers between movies.

"The Ballad of Diver Dan"

The series opening and closing themes were written, performed, and sung by the show's sound engineer, Jack Sky.
  • Opening theme

Below in the deep there's adventure and danger;
That's where you'll find Diver Dan!
The sights that he sees are surprising and stranger
Than ever you'll see on the land!
  • Closing theme

He moves among creatures
Of frightening features:
Flashing teeth, slashing jaws,
Flapping fins, snapping claws!
He protects and he saves
His friends under the waves;
That's where you'll find Diver Dan!

In other media

Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing
Dell Publishing, an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte, Jr.During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Dell was one of the largest publishers of magazines, including pulp magazines. Their line of humor magazines included 1000 Jokes, launched in...

 issued a Diver Dan comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

, as issue #1254 (February–April 1962) of its series Four Color
Four Color
Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and One Shots, was a long-running American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962...

. A follow-up issue #2 was published dated June–August 1962 and then was cancelled. Diver Dan episodes are also available at tv4u.com.

In 1964, songwriter and record producer Tony Piano of Columbia Records put out a children's album based on the series titled "Diver Dan and the Bermuda Onion." With the exception of the theme song, which he legally borrowed from the series, Piano wrote the story, music, and lyrics for the album. His inspiration for producing it was his two young children at the time, who were 'hooked' on the Diver Dan TV series. In addition to producing the album, Piano took on three of the roles: Trigger, Sam the Sawfish, and Skipper Kipper. Aiding Piano on the album was the famous comedian Del Close, playing the role of Baron Barracuda. "Birthday House" and children's album star Kay Lande played Minerva the Mermaid.

Episodes

  • Hard Water
  • The Bubbling Pit
  • The Volcano
  • Depth Charge
  • Goldie's Heroism
  • Dynamite
  • Ghost is Clear
  • School Daze
  • Strange Vines
  • Savage Seaweed
  • Baron's Capture
  • An Unusual Treasure
  • Trigger's Revenge
  • Riddle of the Hermit Crab
  • Sargasso Sea
  • Lost in the Sargasso Sea

Credits

  • Produced by Louis W. Kellman
  • A Brian Cartoons, Inc. production in association with Young Productions, Inc.
  • Executive producer: Hal Tunis
  • Associate producer: Harvey Blake
  • Created by J. Anthony Ferlaine
  • Writers included: Joseph Bonaduce, Ron Ronszel
  • Puppeteers: Martin Kreiner, John Caracciolo, Harold Taylor, Alfred Sandstrom
  • Directors: Leon Rhodes, Mort Heilig
  • Production manager: Ben Berk
  • Cameraman: Morris Kellman
  • Script supervisor: Ruth Clyman
  • Editors: Arthur Spieller, Margot Mor
  • Sound: Jack Sky
  • Art director: Frank Heininger
  • Lighting: John Wynn
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