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 affiliates)[1] and distributed by ITC Entertainment. 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 who talked to the passing fish. The series was filmed in live action with puppet fish; the underwater effect was achieved by shooting through an aquarium.
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, stupid!" — to which Trigger would reply, "Okay, Baron Stupid".
Baron Barracuda wore a monocle in one eye, and spoke in a vaguely European accent. Trigger always had an apparently unlit cigarette jutting from the side of his mouth.
The series was not immune to ethnic stereotypes: One of the undersea characters was Scout Fish, who carried a tomahawk and always spoke in pidgin-Indian dialect. He occasionally used his tomahawk to extricate Diver Dan from seaweed (in the Sargasso Sea), fishing nets, or some nefarious trap.
