Jacques-Yves CousteauBorn in 1910, was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, and filmmaker, who studied the sea. Although he is most famous to us from his television programmes, he also co-developed the aqua-lung, and pioneered marine conservation as a political and scientific priority.In the Calypso, an ex-Royal Navy minesweeper, Cousteau visited the most interesting waters of the planet. During these trips he produced many books and films. He gained three Oscars for; The Silent World, The Golden Fish, and World Without Sun, as well as many other top awards including the Palme d'Or in 1956 at the Cannes Film Festival.Cousteau liked to call himself an "oceanographic technician". He was in reality a sophisticated lover of nature who found a way of communicating complex scientific and biological concepts to ordinary people. While he was criticised at the time by some academics for failing to express science 'properly', his work permitted many people to explore the resources of the "blue continent". As an example of his influence, in 1975, folk singer John Denver composed the song "Calypso" as a tribute to Cousteau and his research ship Calypso. The song reached the number one position on the Billboard 100 charts.Cousteau's work did a great deal to popularize knowledge of underwater biology and was featured in the long-lived documentary television series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau which began in 1968. On January 11, 1996, the Calypso sank in Singapore harbour. Cousteau died on June 25, 1997 - his work is continued by his son Jean-Michel and his grandson Fabien, who studies sharks from a custom-built shark-shaped submarine.Pop Culture Tributes and ReferencesIn the 14 May 2007 episode of TNT's Inside the NBA, Shaquille O'Neal requested that he be addressed from that point on as "Shaq Cousteau".The 2004 film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, directed by Wes Anderson, is regarded as both an homage and send-up of Cousteau's career. It includes a credit and the end that reads "In memory of Jacques-Yves Cousteau and with gratitude to the Cousteau Society, which was not involved in the making of this film."In an episode of the TV show "Friends", Phoebe thinks she has subconsciously developed a crush on Jacques Cousteau.In the movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Courtney Cox' character corrects her boss' mistake of calling a dolphin a fish instead of a mammal. Angry, he retorts, "Thank you, Miss Jacques Cousteau".The Incubus song "Nice to Know You" features the lyric " Deeper than the deepest Cousteau would ever go".The Blue Öyster Cult song "Perfect Water" features the lyric "Do you know Jacques Cousteau, when they said on the radio that he hears bells in random order, deep beneath the perfect water?"The Wu-Tang Clan song "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" features the lyric "Jacques Cousteau could never get this low," sung by Ol' Dirty Bastard. A Jedi Mind Tricks song, "Get This Low," samples the line.The Andrew Bird song "Lull" features the lyric "Being alone/It can be quite romantic/Like Jacques Cousteau/Underneath the Atlantic".The Ukrainian band 5'nizza song "Морячок"(lit. sailor) features the lyric in Russian "Как Жак-Ив Кусто/Километров на сто/В батискафе пьет Нескафе..." (roughly translated, "Like Jacques-Yves Cousteau/100 kilometers below/In the bathyscaphe he drinks Nescafe...")