A new ad for Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week event is making waves around the web. It’s either insensitive to seals or a really funny dark joke about the power of sharks.
In the “Snuffy the Seal” commercial, a fake local news broadcast is covering the feel-good story about a seal being returned to the sea after it was rescued. The seal is moved over the water, dangling by a crane and as everyone watches, a shark suddenly jumps out of the water. Everyone is shocked and the camera moves. When it goes back to where the seal was, there is nothing, just the crane.
The news anchor says “holy sh-” and then the feed cuts to the date for this year’s Shark Week. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the event starts on Aug. 4. The tagline is “It's a bad week to be a seal. For the rest of us it's pretty awesome.”
On YouTube, the commercial has garnered over 69,000 views and 430 likes. Some of the comments from users are mostly hilarious, with one person writing, “I guess you could say his fate..... had been sealed.” Others caution that PETA might complain. After all, the group actually slammed The Hangover Part III for killing a computer generated giraffe since director Todd Phillips did use a live giraffe and other animals in some shots.
What are your thoughts on the Shark Week ad? Is it too much? Or just really funny?
image: YouTube