Endless Thread - Introducing "Jaws Island"

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Dun dun... This week, on Endless Thread... dun dun... something new is here... dun dun dun dun... a podcast mini-series about the 50th anniversary of the cinematic classic... DUN dun dun dun DUN dun dun dun..."Jaws!" Part 1 of this mini-series, Jaws Island, is right here, right now, and it's all about the "finatics" (yes, that's what they call themselves). WBUR arts and culture correspondent Andrea Shea takes us to Martha's Vineyard — AKA "Amity Island," where Jaws was filmed — for the 50th anniversary celebration of the film. Through conversations with "finatics," collectors, and cast members, Andrea learns how Steven Spielberg's enduring monster movie sank its teeth into us. Parts 2 and 3 are right around the corner, so follow Jaws Island in your podcast app! ("You're gonna need a bigger podcast library!")

Support for endless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for this podcast comes from Nature is the Solution, a podcast from The Nature Conservancy. This show tells climate stories like a stubborn optimist, because hope, innovation, and nature itself are key. to solving the challenges ahead. Follow on your favorite podcast app. Amo. Benjo. It's a special Friday, baby. Special Friday.

It is special. Not just because it's a holiday weekend during which I will likely toast the nearing end of summer with a veggie dog, a s'm a smore. I love a s'm. Yeah.

But also because instead of our usual holiday rerun action, we're doing a special drop from another WBUR project that's coming out right now. It's about a movie, one of my favorites, to be honest, which I watch every summer. Do you? Do you watch it every summer? At least, at least every summer, yeah. And today we're giving you the first episode, which isn't expressly about the internet,

but it is about the internet-fueled fandom for this great movie that 50 years later keeps chomping at us. Hooper drives the boat, chief. Hooper drives the boat, chief. Take a listen, and if you like it, you should search a specific. phrase that maybe gives this away more than we already have. Jaws Island. You can find Jaws Island wherever you get your podcasts. Just search that phrase.

Jaws Island. And in the meantime, hey, come on in. The water is not fine. Dun, done. Dun, done. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Hey, how are you doing? Good.

How are you? Doing all right. How's your day going? It's going. It's going. How about you? This is me, Andrea, talking to my brother Timmy. I called him because I'm trying to remember the first time I saw one of my all-time favorite movies.

I know it was 50 years ago, with him and my dad. Well, so what I remember is probably six or seven. We went to the old downtown theater three front row, and I just remember really the scene where Roy Scheiner says, You're going to need a bigger boat. And I remember the entire crowd jumping back and being... Do you remember my reaction? You would have been sitting next to me and probably screaming the same way.

I wonder if I was enjoying it. I will say, I do remember people walking out and there was a certain exhilaration among the crowd of having seen that movie. I do remember that. There is a creature alive today who has survived millions of years. of evolution, without change, without passion, and without logic. When Jaws debuted in June of 1975 on more than 450 screens nationwide, it was a collective event, audiences were primed for this new monster movie about a quaint touristy island

and a massive, bloodthirsty shark. It is as if God, creation. created the devil and gave him Jaws. Jaws was billed as a horror movie, but for me, it's like comfort food. I watch it three, maybe four times a year, often while cooking, because I just relish listening to the action, dialogue, and music. But this summer, the summer of Jaws' 50th anniversary, I've been thinking about why this film resonates so deeply with me and so many other fans.

So here I am in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, about to board a crowded ferry to Amity Island, a.k.a. Martha's Vineyard. That's where Jaws was filmed in 1974, and superfans are converging for an island-wide, weekend-long birthday bash. The boat is packed, and I'm surprised to learn the first fan I meet was also in introduced to Jaws by their parent. My mother is a horror film fanatic, so somewhere along the line when I was watching horror movies with my mother, I'm sure that's where I watched it. Andrea Paskill from Munson, Massachusetts, is here with her best friend and her mom, who crocheted cute little shark key chains. All three are decked out in matching Jaws 50 T-shirts.

Andrea was hooked at, you know, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, there it comes. The beginning scene when the woman's out there swimming, and you just don't know what's going to happen. The music playing, and then all of a sudden. Then there's the scene where the little boy, Alex Kintner, gets eaten while paddling on his yellow inflatable raft. I guess he's going to be there along Richard Dreyf is, so we're excited about that.

I actually have a Sharpie in my pocket that we're going to ask for autographs on our shirts. The trip is like a pilgrimage for Jaws fans, to visit iconic locations. where the film was shot, to meet cast and crew, and to dive deeper into all things Jaws at screenings and panels. We're all walk-off passengers that will be located on the stubborn side forward. I feel like I'm in Jaws, walking down the ferry ramp with a few hundred people. It's like the scene where summer tourists stream onto the island for the 4th of July, while a ravenous predator lurks beneath the waves.

About a mile from the ferry landing is the Martha's Vineyard Museum. Dozens of hardcore early bird fans are already there, kicking off its Amity Homecoming weekend. There's a big Jaws exhibition and an open-mouth replica of the killer shark's head. People are taking pictures of each other sticking their own heads inside its toothy maw, including Mark Schaefer and his partner Sheila Maliki of Bowman'sville, New York, near Buffalo. He remembers when Jaws got him for the first time. Eight years old, nine years old, something like that. My parents used to own cottages up on the lake and we used to go down there. And I used to run down by the beach and tell people to get out of the water.

Nobody ever listened to me. They just said there was no sharks in Lake Erie. And I go, well, you never know. It could be. And then I was like, okay, if you don't want to listen to me, then. And then we went to the drive-ins in the movie theaters almost every week. And I saw the movie probably 50, 60 times. before I was even 10 years old.

Sheila supports Mark's lifelong obsession with Jaws. We bought a house. He built a Jaws movie room. So in the house, it was his moving contribution to the house. And we planned the trip to the vineyard here because he just loves it. Mark is totally giddy, like a little kid. I feel that way, too, but his dedication is next level.

And he is not a long. own. It's the greatest film of all time with the greatest characters. I've gone to the theater three times in two days to watch Jaws by myself. I got the limited edition pinball machine that came out last year. I'll be buying whatever I see to baseball caps and t-shirts and hoodies and Jaws only turns 50 once. That's why they call these super fans fanatics. Fin addicts.

Fin addicts, it makes me laugh. Exactly. That's what we are. We're crazy about Jaws. I'm a film critic. I see, you know, 50 movies a year. But ever since that day in 1975, I've never seen a film that has affected me like Jaws. That last voice is Michael Smith. He's co-creator of Let's Talk Jaws Live, a weekly YouTube discussion show and Facebook

community for super fans and collectors. Those you have not seen the film, Alex Kittner has been eaten, and now there's a reward offered for him. But if you haven't seen the film, why are you here? here. Michael traveled hundreds of miles to the vineyard from Lee Summit, Missouri, so he could commune with his people. It's like you found your lost brothers and sisters. It's just a gathering of fans from all over the world, like the Jaws Army, like Kiss Army,

but I prefer to call us the Jaws family. Michael compiled a book for the 50th anniversary that celebrates 50 passionate Jaws aficionados from all around the world. I've got fans from Serbia. Ukraine, Spain, the United Kingdom, obviously America. Then his phone interrupts us. Yes, his ringer is that drinking song from another classic scene in the movie. Michael even proposed to his wife on the vineyard years ago.

He says this anniversary weekend is like a homecoming for kindred souls he's met online over the years. The collectors, the people who know every line of the movie, movie, the people like Michael who've taken planes, buses, and ferries, hundreds, even thousands of miles, to celebrate Jaws 50th together. We're not all crazy. Indulge us. We're harmless. Get to know us, and I think you'll like us.

So that's exactly what we're doing, getting to know the Jaws fanatics. Are they crazy? Am I crazy? Could I be one of them? I'm Andrea Shea. an arts and culture reporter in Boston. From WBUR, Boston's NPR, this is Jaws Island, the story of the first summer blockbuster

and how it lives on in our collective imaginations, in our nightmares, and in our culture. There's no one way to be a Jaws fanatic. For Mark from upstate New York, it's having a room in your house devoted to Jaws. For Maine-based musician Judy Pancoast, it's writing a love song for her favorite character, deputy Hendricks.

For those of you going, wait a minute, who is Deputy Hendrix? He's a smallish character with a big following. He's the cop who finds the first victim Chrissy's severed arm on the beach. Judy Pancoast has had a burning crush on Deputy Hendrix since she first saw Jaws in 1975, and today she can serenade him in person. She's a superfin. She always... She always stuns me. She wrote that, sent it to me, played it for me.

It was really something. It makes me... Ooh. I am Jeffrey Kramer, and I play Deputy Hendrix in Jaws and Jaws too. Daisy, Daisy, this is Hendrix. Anything? I thought I saw a shadow over. Superfans, you must encounter a lot of them. No. Nobody knows who I am.

am. This is a 50-year-old film. I had hair. But I do wear Miami Police cap because it went through a stop sign and the cop pulled me over. He goes, you know, you went through the stop sign. I said, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't go over very far. He goes, why are you wearing that hat? I said, oh, I play the deputy in Jaws. And he goes, I love that movie. Don't do it again. So now I wear it like it's going to save my life forever. And that's a probably a safe bet because, as Jeffrey says, Jaws fandom feeds itself. They pass it on from generation to generation. I asked you, and you said, your dad took you, you were six. Dad, that was a big mistake. Too young. And do you still swim the same?

No. No, she's shaking her head. No, no. I get it. I get it. There's a scene in Jaws where Chief Brody, played by Roy Shider, learns that most shark attacks happen in three feet of water. That stuck with me, and for years I was scared to go deeper than two. Same with a lot of fans. Yeah, I won't go in the water. I'm not going to water here. Absolutely not. And when I went home in the night, I refused to get in the bath. Anytime I go in the water, I still'm a little leery, and I'm not in there very long.

No, I were not going to the water. I know there's great whites out there. Fear seems to be part of the fandom. I grew up on Long Island beaches, scanning the sound for shark fins, but never deterred from watching Jaws. I lived in a tourist town with a ferry, not unlike the movie's fictional Amity.

Amity in real life is actually Edgar Town. And this weekend, it's teeming with collectors. A bunch of them were lined up outside Edgar Town bookstore to get signatures from the movie's production designer Joe Alves and Michael Smith of Let's Talk Jaws Live. A lot of them are coming together in person for the first time. We've communicated for like five years, but we never met each other. This is Mark Fitzgibbons, talking about his collecting buddy from America.

Mark, if you couldn't tell, is from England. I come from the second city, which is Birmingham, where Peekeye Blinders comes from, and Black Sabbath. Mark is decked out head-to-to-to-in-jaw, his shorts, shirt, and Amity hat. He buys memorabilia from the UK. His friend, you'll meet him later, hunts for stuff in the U.S. They buy two of everything and then ship heavy boxes to each other three times a year, which adds up. I'm coming up to like 3,000 items of memorabilia now. I've got three storage units and I'd go and visit them to see all my toys. Mark was 10 when Jaws came out. His father got him all kinds of Jaws stuff. Mugs, pendants a game, on and on.

Sadly, he's no longer with us now. He died in October. So I'm doing this for the memory of my dad. My dad gave me the greatest gift. He gave me jaws. He'll be looking down at me thinking, my boy got to Amity. This dad theme continues outside the bookstore,

where I meet a father and son who traveled cross-country to be here. So I'm Samuel Dean from Washington State, local Jaws collector there. So what do you have? I've got a Ben Gardner head, Jaws barrel, the Quint fighting chair.

Quint, the ornery shark hunter who captains the orca. He shoots floating yellow barrels into the shark throughout the movie's seafaring second half. Fisherman Ben Gardner's head pops out of his sunken boat's hull in an iconic jump scare scene.

Samuel's collectibles are replicas because he says he can't afford screen use. He wanted a barrel so badly he asked his wife for permission to buy one as his wedding gift. Turns out Samuel inherited his obsession with Jaws from his dad, David. I was born in 70, so parents just kind of dropped kids off at the theater. Just get rid of them for a while for half a day and not knowing that we're being traumatized for life possibly. Traumatized or tantalized.

In defense of all the parents out there, parents like my dad, Jaws was rated PG. Yes, just PG. We'll get there, I promise. David, the P following the Motion Picture Association's G, showed Jaws to Samuel when he was maybe five or seven. Samuel says being on the vineyard is inspiring him to think more deeply about why he and so many others worship Jaws. When meeting other fans, it's almost kind of the same story about, like, connecting with your childhood, nostalgia, and just like maybe connecting with family. And it's a movie, too, that shows humanity. It's not just, it's an action film, right? A little bit of horror elements, but within that is the father with kids, the wife.

We all love the scene where Chief Brody is distraught at the dining room table. His youngest son sits there next to him, mimicking his dad's. every move. It's ridiculously adorable. Very Spielberg. Then Brody says, Give us a kiss. I need it. That's a winner scene right there. You know, you really feel for him as a parent. Because... He goes through a hard day and then his son's there to bring him out of it. Samuel is a dad now too and says his one-year-old daughter is already obsessed with sharks. She's kind of watched the movie. I haven't... I'll probably wait until she's about, like, six or something.

It's actually comforting to talk to other fans who see Jaws as a family movie, which might seem odd to some, but I'll find more of them on the island. My next stop is a bus ride away. All right, Ocean Sign, Oak Bluffs. Oh, my God, I love your t-shirt. Oak Bluffs is totally packed. There's a harbor festival going on. Richard Dreyfus is there, and there's a big long line.

Very signing autographs. Right next to the replica. of the Orca, which I really hope I can get onto. Meet the man. The man is Mike Sterling, an English marine carpenter who painstakingly built and crafted every inch of a floating homage to Captain Quince Orca. When you come through the door,

we've got an original bronze porthole, which you're really hard to find. That's as close as I could get, but it's very close. You've got to remember this is all from stopping the the movie and like looking, zooming in, but it's very fuzzy. The net with a gentleman. Who knows how many times Michael paused the movie to study the orca so he could get every prop just right?

Michael even found a period-perfect radio, like the one Brody uses to call the Coast Guard. Coastguard, this is the orca, do you read me? Coastguard, this is the orchard, do you... Then Quint gets the baseball bat, which is back here and smashes it. Nobody's going anywhere near that radio with a baseball bat, because she can't find them. Excuse me, Chief.

Sterling looks like Quint, sitting at the table inside the cabin, down to the sideburns and can of Narragansit in his hand. He says, people think he's making money off his orca, but he hasn't made a dime. So, why do it? That's the golden question you've just asked, right?

People can't understand and comprehend. They're like, why would you do that? Because the movie touched me so much, right? And I've used the question. quotes through my life, like saying to people, like when somebody, when you're in trouble and you know it and you're with somebody else, you go, but he made me do it. He made me do it. He made me do it. He told me to do it. There's been a lot of people who've told me that I don't know what I'm doing. I'm doing it wrong. And I just say to them, where's your orca?

Welcome aboard, said, do you know who this is? I get to ring the orca's bell before climbing. up the ladder back onto land. Richard Dreyfus is sitting at a table under a tent signing autographs. He played marine biologist Matt Hooper, who set out with Quint and Chief Brody to kill the murderous shark. The line is long. But I've heard he'll be at a fan event back in Edgartown at a restaurant called The Wharf.

So that's where I'm going next. And I'm taking you with me in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out. about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew.

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I'm scoping out the line of fanatics outside the wharf in Edgartown. They know who's inside, but this passerby, not so much. Is Quinn in there? No, he died. All right. He died. Right after the movie. What about Roy Schneider?

Is he in there? No, he's gone. Hooper's in there. I don't remember which one was Cooper. Hooper's, Richard Dreyfus. Oh, he is. The geologist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Biologist. What's he doing? In there, boozing? Yeah. One fan sports a gray blazer, a wash, and anchors, like the mayors in the movie. And here I am, not even wearing a Jaws T-shirt. I feel a little like a fish out of water. Especially when I talk to a fanatic named Jamie Saunders, who wears his love for Jaws on his forearm.

He's got a big tattoo. It's the poster. Roger Costel was the man that designed the poster. It covers my whole forearm, and then it's got the title, the logo at the top. and it took about nine hours. Jamie tells me his Jaws obsession started when he was just three years old. That's when his parents took him to see it at a drive-in in Ontario. But instead of scarring him for life, Jaws soothed him.

I remember as a little kid, eight years old, I had a little flat, candle tape recorder, and I set that tape recorder up beside the TV, and I recorded the movie audio, and then I would sleep with it every night underneath my pillow for years. Jamie didn't start collecting Jaws memorabilia until 2014. My wife and I lost her son, and, thank you, was a distraction from the sadness, and then the collecting became an obsession.

I think I have pretty much the biggest collection of Jaws stuff in Canada. I'm very, very proud of it. Jamie says it's always on in his home. It's like an old friend. It's comforting. I watch Jaws when I'm happy, I watch it when I'm sad, I watch it when I'm anything. I just, every time's a good time for Jaws. This is what makes me feel like maybe I could be a fanatic, just without much stuff to show for it, no posters or shark tattoos.

In my own quiet way, usually alone, I've been calling on our old friends several times a year. And for decades, many of these fans have done the very same thing, until Jamie says along came the internet, ushering in a new era of Jaws fandom and community at conventions and other events like this. Only in the last 20 years or so have they started doing these kind of things, because fans want to meet the people in the TV shows of the movies that made a difference in their life. I've been saving for this for a few years. I've had my Airbnb booked in Martha's Vineyard for two years for anticipating this.

Jamie says he was the first in line outside the wharf event. I'm not even sure I'll get in. I've never been to a horror convention or a shark con, and I don't even have a ticket. These people are clearly on a mission. I think you're good. But so am I, and the organizers were kind enough to let me in. It's a scene to behold.

Tables line the perimeters of two rooms, actors, designers, authors, and a few locals stand behind them wielding sharpies. The music is pumping, and Jaws is on the television screens. Fans swirl around like a school of fish engaging in a feeding frenzy. Then I see Mark Fitzgibbons, the collector from Birmingham, England. He's been busy getting autographs and says, while Jaws collectors are serious and determined, they're also super nice. You hear all the Star Wars collectors, they're quite catty.

You know, I've got this. You haven't got this. Whereas the Jaws community, all they would do is like, oh, you haven't got one. You know, do you want me to get it for you and send me the money? His American collector buddy, Eric Augustine, walks up and says he's arranged to pay cash for some Jaws artifacts, including a pile of rubble. At the end of the day, it's bricks from a lighthouse that fell over at the last seconds of the movie Jaws. Worthless to most people. They hauled it away in dump trucks.

I'm going to be buying it tonight and I don't even know how much. It's a sickness. I need hope. Eric assures me Richard Dreyfus will be making his big entrance soon. Fans are lined up at his table. They're holding up their cell phones, ready to get shots of the 77-year-old actor, the last of the three main characters from Jaws who's still alive. Then the room erupts. They're saying,

Hooper drives the boat, chief. A fan favorite from the movie. I can barely see Dreyfus through the sea of adoring fans, gray hair, blue sweatshirt, no bucket hat like in the movie. I don't know if I'll get to talk to him this weekend, but I do know what he said in the past about why Jaws Endures. In the introduction to Michael Smith's book, Fanatics, 50 Years of Jaws, Dreyfus said the fans are the secret sauce that keeps the movie alive. Stacey Davis from Columbus, Ohio, said she watched the movie for the first time as a kid all by herself. I had the remote control. I was left alone.

And back then, it's like there was only one show on at a time. And it was Jaws. And that was, I was hooked. Decades later, Stacey is making new Jaws memories. And this time, she's not alone. I jumped off the Jaws Bridge today. I mean, it was on my bucket list to do it on the anniversary. Jumping off the Jaws Bridge is a rite of passage for fans.

It's in that scene where the hippie girl yells, Shark, as an ominous gray fin glide silently through the water. The iconic location is, a few miles away. But will I be brave enough to jump? Oh no. Oh, no. Nope, that's not me. But fans of all ages are taking the plunge. Seventy-four-year-old Conrad Watson jokes he's the oldest jumper here. He's with his granddaughter Elle and daughter Kate, who's from Golden, Colorado. Oh, my God, it was like the pinnacle of our childhood was watching Jaws, you know, and coming here and jumping off the Jaws Bridge.

This is three generations right here. Oh, yeah, yeah. We've been doing this for, well, even before you guys were born. Have you seen Jaws? Yeah. Does Jaws scare you? Oh, yes. Then I discover Conrad first saw Jaws where I did 50 years ago.

Port Jefferson. I'm from Port Jefferson. No way. Yes, way. And you saw it in the theater downtown? Yeah. That's where I thought. Wow, cool.

You're too young, though? No, I was, well, I was too young. I think I was six. Oh, okay. But you know what? Maybe I wasn't too young. Seeing Jaws as a child left an indelible imprint on me. It's part of my core.

It has become an old friend. And now it's opened my eyes to a jawsome community I barely knew existed. The fanatics welcomed me, shared with me. Heck, Mark and Sheila even offered to drive me around the eye. island, making me feel like one of their own. But, as a woman in the movie says, When do I get to become an islander? Ellen, never, never. You're not born here, you're not an island. You're not an islander. You're not an islander. There is a difference between the Jaws fans who made a pilgrimage to where the movie magic happened and the people who've been on the vineyard all

along. We landlubbers can only understand so much about how the islanders and the island itself made it through the making and aftermath of what became one of the greatest and biggest monster movies ever made. The island had never experienced anything like this and was learning as it went along about what the rules were supposed to be and also bear this in mind. Nobody expected this movie to become the most successful movie of all time. Next time, we'll get to know the place and the people who made Jaws. Jaws Island is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR. It was written and reported by me, Andrea Shea.

People saw a shark. I'm definitely not jumping off the Jaws Bridge. It was produced by Amory Severson and edited by Tanya Raleigh, Ben Brock Johnson, and Amory Seavertson. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski and Paul Vikis. Sumitajoshi is our managing producer. The director of digital audio is Ben Brock Johnson. I want my most obscure piece of memorabilia is. You'll be shocked.

It's a Jaws panty liner. And that's it, episode one of Jaws Island. And a reminder that if you want more of this very limited series that Ben and I both actually worked on, you can find it wherever you find. Find endless thread. Just search Jaws Island in your podcast app.