Shark Week starts on Discovery Channel July 24, and Dwayne Johnson is the first master of ceremonies in the 34 years of the TV event. Discovery will offer 25 original episodes of shark content that week, with Tracy Morgan and the casts of Jackass and Impractical Jokers turning up in the programming.
Johnson will kick off and close the first five nights of Shark Week.
“I’m honored to be your first-ever Shark Week Master of Ceremonies,” he said on Instagram. “Our Seven Bucks Productions has partnered with Discovery to bring you a very special (and bad ass) Shark Week. I filmed exclusively in my home state of Hawaii, these beautiful predators, Aumakua (Gods), are deeply revered and respected in our Polynesian culture.”
On July 24, there is Return to Headstone Hell, about tiger sharks battling great whites for cow carcasses near Norfolk Island, and Great White Battleground, which breaks down the “secret language” of shark breaching. Jackass Shark Week 2.0 is on that day too. Featuring Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius, Wee Man, Jasper, Dark Shark, Zach Holmes and Poopies, the gang tries to get Poopies over his fear of sharks.
On Monday, July 25, Noah Schnapp of Stranger Things teams with Mark Rober of YouTube fame as they hunt for the strangest sharks in the ocean. That same night, Air Jaws: Top Guns deploys the latest in high-tech cameras that aim to capture the largest breaching great white ever seen.
Other Shark Week highlights include Great White Serial Kill: Fatal Christmas and Rise of the Monster Hammerheads on July 25; Extinct or Alive, Jaws of Alaska, Impractical Jokers Shark Week Spectacular (working title) and Jaws vs Kraken July 26; Mechashark Love Down Under (wt) and Great White Comeback July 27; Tracy Morgan Presents: Sharks! with Tracy Morgan (wt) and Monster Mako Under the Rig July 28; Jaws vs The Blob, The Great Hammerhead Stakeout and Clash of Killers: Great White vs Mako on July 29; and Monsters of the Cape and Sharks in Paradise on July 30.
New locations Shark Week visits include the Exuma Islands in the Bahamas and Papua New Guinea.
TBS, TNT, truTV, Food Network, HGTV, CNN, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Animal Planet, Science Channel, ID, OWN, TCM, Discovery Plus and HBO Max are all involved in Shark Week. For its part, Discovery Plus prefaces Shark Week with Great White Intersection (working title), about great white sharks off Cape Cod, on July 23. ■
