Once upon a time, there was an undersea adventurer and filmmaker named Jacques Cousteau, who was French. He was a gentle, kindly soul, and children and grownups alike treasured his stories and films.

A Jacques Cousteau television special was an event the whole family could enjoy, an hour or two packed full of fascinating stories about exotic sea creatures, all photographed with the quiet dignity that was the old sailor's trademark.

Cousteau, who was French, was something of an environmental pioneer. He campaigned for conservation long before doing so became fashionable, appealing to governments around the world on behalf of animals that had no voices of their own.

Mostly, those sea animals could not speak because mammalian vocal cords in general are designed to send sound waves through air. Water, which is denser and heavier and more viscous, is not so easily set a-vibrating.

So you can see why Cousteau, who was French, had to do all the talking. Because the animals couldn't. Talk, that is.

One day, Cousteau, who was French, set out to make a new film about the creatures that live in the darkness and pressure if the ocean's extreme deeps.

Filmmaker and crew, both of whom were French, boarded a specially-equipped deep-sea submarine, knowing full well that it would be weeks before they saw the sun again. Inside the submarine, they lived in cramped but comfortable conditions, breathing a mixture of oxygen and helium that enabled them to descend to great depths without fear of decompression sickness, or, as it's known on the street, "the bends."

This helium-oxygen blend was much lighter than air, and it made the sailors, who were French, sound amusingly cartoonish when they spoke. They shared many a titter over their temporarily-high voices.

All was not fun and games, however. For while the helium-oxygen blend sustained life, it did not sustain combustion. In particular, it did not sustain the combustion of tobacco cigarettes.