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illustrated world : inflatable shark, 1917

Illustrated World : Inflatable Shark, 1917.

Inflatable Shark
Illustrated World.
R.T. Miller, Jr., Chicago.
Volume 26 Number.5, January 1917.

Hathitrust
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015075032386

Introduction.
Early inflatable prone craft, shaped and decorated to look like a shark.

Following the posting of this article on the Surf Blurb,15 August 2016, Desoto Brown noted:
The inflated "shark" shown in a magazine article in last week's Surf Blurb plays an important role in this odd, somewhat incoherent short comedy film from 1916, The Mystery of the Leaping Fish.
The inflated shark does not appear until 6:11 minutes, but then is shown abundantly.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fprVONwmYnc

In this unusually broad comedy for Fairbanks, the acrobatic leading man plays "Coke Ennyday", a cocaine-shooting detective who is a parody of Sherlock Holmes.
Fairbanks biographer Jeffrey Vance describes The Mystery of the Leaping Fish as "undoubtedly the most bizarre film Fairbanks made" and that the entire scenario is "a hallucinogenic odyssey into the absurd.
wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Leaping_Fish

Page 267

THEY LAUGH AT WINTER

Riding the "Shark"
Along the coast of Southern California bathers now have a new plaything—a shark.
It is a surf-riding contrivance built of heavy canvas and blown up with air like a pneumatic tire.
Although somewhat heavy and hard to handle on land, this grotesque bathing accessory is buoyant and easily managed in
the water.
It really is a substitute for the Hawaiian surfboard, a substitute that cannot give the hard knocks so usual formerly.

llustrated World.
Volume 26 Number.5, January 1917.

Hathitrust
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015075032386

surfresearch.com.au

Geoff Cater (2016) : Illustrated World : Inflatable Shark, 1917.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1917_Illustrated_World_Inflatable_Shark.html