"If I could save JAWS in a bottle..."

And now I can! We're celebrating the 50th anniversary of Steve Spielberg's unmatched, cinematic masterpiece, JAWS this year, (hard to believe, isn't it?) The timeless classic of Man vs. Great White still holds up, solid as ever even today. And boy oh boy, I was 8 years old seeing it in the theater in the summer of '75 for the first time-- and was absolutely terrified from start to finish! Like every kid from that time era, I had a JAWS shirt. I had a JAWS poster in my room. I can't even begin to tell you how many rubber shark toys I had, courtesy of the local 5 and dime. I even had the silly Mr. JAWS 45 record. One awesome thing I never had though, was the Addar "Super Scenes" JAWS hobby model kit. So it would only make sense, you know, being the 50th anniversary and all, to finally find one for only $15 on Facebook Marketplace (I do believe I got the deal of the century too) during this half century, Golden Jubilee marker! And here it is, in all of its excitingly dimensional, badly painted (thanks previous kid owner), super scene replicated in a murky old, corked bottle. As you can see, all sides of the box art design is impressive, though it seems a human attacked the lid --settle down, kid! The model kit itself is nicely sculpted as well, especially the "Matt Hooper" in black diver gear, and the rather claustrophobic, flimsy as ever shark cage. Hooper's lost his spear unfortunately, and I guess someone filled his leaky scuba tank with bright yellow urine, --or maybe it's Tall Man blood (kudos to another 70's horror classic-- PHANTASM!) JAWS itself on the other hand is sculpted a bit more cartoonish, though no less menacing, but he still manages to look a bit like the shark from Ideal's The Game of Jaws, also from 1975. Now we take all of this, glue it all together, paint it up, and put it inside a bottle! What a clever idea, only marred by the fact that the bottle is ultra cheap, clearish plastic, and just makes everything look completely out of focus (hence why I only included one hard to get picture with the bottle halves actually snapped together.) The background painting is almost my favorite part of the whole thing, a surreal wave of swishy blueish greens, plus a gurgling burst of scream-filled bubbles to line up with our panicked diver. Addar produced a number of these bottled "Super Scenes", many (according to the box side listing - see last image below), devoted to the Planet of the Apes, plus war scenes, dinosaurs, and my favorite of them all, the atmospheric, "Spirit in a Bottle" graveyard scene complete with swirling fog and a spooky haunted house background. I'm now on the hunt for that! (*insert JAWS theme here...)