A laboratory based in a lighthouse on Crescent Cove provides the setting for this CBS live-action comedy series.
Here, a mad scientist named “the Professor” (Howie Mandel) took three microscopic fish-faced, web-footed, loony sea monkeys – – brothers Dave (Rob LaBelle), Aquarius (Peter Pitofsky), and Bill (Sean Whalen) – and accidentally enlarged them to human size.
Stories follow the brothers’ misadventures as they attempt to live life like humans and learn about life.
In their sea world, the brothers attended Diver Dan Memorial High School. They have two pets, Stinky (a seal) and Peeper (a turtle). They eat Sea Wheaties cereal for breakfast, and their favourite food is watermelon.
Their favourite TV show is The Star Spotlight Talent Show, and they each have a secret desire to be a spy (like James Bond). They each have “a deep dark secret:” Dave is afraid of polka music (“It gives me the chills”); Bill hates bunny rabbits and beards, and Aquarius can’t keep secrets.
The three occasionally interact with their next-door neighbours, the Brentwoods, whose daughter Sheila (Eliza Schneider) becomes the Sea-Monkeys’ best friend.
The Professor is a member of the Bridge Club (they build model bridges) and won his high school science fair with a cheese display of the world. He also invented the ‘Presto-Chango’, a device that changes two objects into one.
The show – derived from the Sea Monkeys product (in reality, brine shrimp), created in 1957 by Harold von Braunhut and marketed in the 1970s with a series of comic book ads – performed abysmally in the ratings, failing to justify the hefty price tag of the special effects.
CBS cancelled the series after just 11 episodes.
The Professor
Howie Mandel Dave
Rob LaBelle Aquarius
Peter Pitofsky Bill Sean Whalen Sheila
Eliza Schneider
Episodes
Octapotomus R’ Usamus | Lighthouse Alone | Swampthingamajig | Look, Don’t Touch | Sea Monkey of Love | Wrestlemania | Haunted Lighthouse | Scout’s Honor | Top Secret | Talent Show | Teacher’s Pests
