Moby Dick was to be portrayed by a whale in the movie with the same name. There are, of course, sperm whales that can be hired for the role. However, sperm whales know they have no serious competition from human actors, not even the ever superb and ever versatile Tom Cruise. Sperm whales realize this and charge $100,000 a day while on the set. White sperm whales are much rarer and command acting fees of $10,000,000 a day. No motion-picture studio can afford such a cost.
This is why the movie Moby Dick starring Gregory Peck did not film actual white sperm whales. The studio simply could not afford to cast Spanky the Sperm Whale.
So what did they do? There answer was ingenuous. They simply boiled some far-cheaper weisswursts. German white sausages, and drew mouths and eyes on them with a black marker. You really can’t tell the difference unless you see the white sperm whale and the weisswursts side by side and motionless as can be seen below
Of course, Hollywood always wants a sequel to any blockbuster. It never happened in this case, because the studio’s coffee lady moved to New Zealand, However, my sources told me the sequel would have been called Caleb Dick, Moby’s son. The above picture on the right was a promotional poster for the never-materialized second movie. Now you know.
Oh, and it took more time than I care to reveal to come up with the above pictures. However, that time would have surely been spent by me fomenting revolution in the streets. And we don’t need that.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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