Jumping the Shark

Forums: Tv, Television, Jumping The Shark, English, Entertainment
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Until a month or so ago, I'd never heard that expression.
Until just now, I didn't know what it meant.

For those of you who are as out of it as I am, it means the moment when something (like a TV show) becomes absurd.

The expression came to be over the episode of Happy Days where Fonzi, on waterskis, actually jumped over a shark in a pen.

Well, I think there might have been other clues the show was having its deaths rails....like Fonzi being on waterskis in the first place....in his stupid leather jacket no less.

I don't like that expression. Mainly because I stopped watching Happy Days long before it got to that point. For me, it had jumped the shark long before that. But, it is what it is.

I'm glad there's some sort of name for this type of thing. Up until now, I would just say "this show sucks".

You know, there's a lot of people out there who barely know who Fonzi is. Gil Grissom doesn't know who Fonzi was at all, hence, did not grok the expression jumping the shark.

I think Arsenio Hall is a prime example. I rarely stayed up as late as his show was on. One time when I was up I tried to watch it.

I watched for 45 freaking minutes, and nobody said anything. It was like they'd all smoked crack and every third word there'd be that "whoo whoo whoo" crap with everyone rolling their foreams....whatever that was supposed to mean.

Remember that moment when you really didn't care anymore who let the dogs out?

When, if someone said, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing", or, "Mama mia, thatsa spicy meatball" you wanted to throttle them?

How about those "Baby On Board" signs?

Ok, have a nice day.

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So tell me, Chai...how are things going today????

2 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Really good actually.

You know I really mean it because I used the word "actually"

I'm just all about change man.

The bold. The innovative.

1 Reply

@chai2,

Quote:

The bold. The innovative.

. . . the grilled cheese, the tomato soup . . .

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Quote:
The bold. The innovative.

. . . the grilled cheese, the tomato soup . . .

the spawn of satan and gun control

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Oh yeah . . . Oh Baby, Oh Baby ! ! !

Pull my trigger, Miss Kitty . . .

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@chai2,

Remember Mork and Mindy?

Boy, that show got weird and stupid.

Like it was so intelligent when it first came on the air.

I don't know why that reminds me, but I have a friend who still uses the term "snapshot"

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@Frank Apisa,

Here, I'm procrastinating on paperwork yet again.

So, I'm trying to remember my first talk show, probably before Paar and Steve Allen and Cavett, dunno, but it was local to Chicago, a galoot named Tom Duggan. I might have been eleven, early fifties. I was so impressed, he kept talking about all sorts of interesting things, or so I thought. My parents let me stay up to see it, which was probably weird in itself, the show ending at 1 a.m. Anyway, whether that it was true or not, the show to me seemed dense with ideas, such talk.

This has ramifications for later, as in time I liked hearing Buckley and Vidal and similar sharpies, and have low tolerance for a lot of insensate piffle, except when it is I (me?) doing the piffling. Not entirely kidding. I have trouble with things like four hour dinner conversations about not much.

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@chai2,

I think Mork and Mindy worked well when Williams was allowed to ad lib . . . the it appeared that a coterie of television writers got at it, and tried to make it into a typical sit-com, at which point it collapsed.

At the time of Mork and Mindy, I was already phasing out of television. Several years later, people i knew were raving about the Bill Cosby show. I watched it. Typical sit-com, predictable plot and resolution. Same-same with Seinfeld. I don't miss television.

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@chai2,

Moonlighting - it bit the big one when they started focusing too much on the romance. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

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@Setanta,

I think I realized I was disgusted in general with television about the time of the Cosby Show.

That show stank. Whenever he opened his moth, I wanted to say "Come on Bill, spit it out!" He was supposed to be some kind of doctor. I'm glad I wasn't having a heart attack waiting for him to tell me something.

I think it was supposed to be good at first, but then the little kid grew up, and one of the kids got laid.

I love Lucy. When they moved into that house in CT or wherever it was, and Little Ricky started getting that smart mouth and playing the congas, it was all in the toilet.

I'll tell ya what show Never got to that point....the Honeymooners....oh yeah.

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ALL OF TV HAS JUMPED THE SHARK. (with the exception of South PArk and FAmily Guy), and a coupla episodes of Mythbusters and Antiques Roadshow.
Carry on

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When Don Knotts left, the entire town of Mayberry went straight to hell.

Andy ended up marrying that frigid bitch Helen, and they went to Hollywood to be a consultant for the movie about his life, "Sherifff Without a Gun"

It didn't help that the new deputy, Warren, was a complete douchebag.

Hey Mismi!
Why don't you sing us a few choruses of "Floyd the Barber"?

2 Replies

@farmerman,

i sort of have to agree with you FM, i watch the local and national news, and sometimes 60 minutes on network tv

and selected shows on TVO and PBS, TVO is basically the Province of Ontario's version of PBS

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@chai2,

I have a horrid cold...but I'll squeak out a few verses for you. Razz

1 Reply

@mismi,

Quote:

Andy ended up marrying that frigid bitch Helen

that made me laugh...really - Ellie would have been the better choice...what busted up that romance?

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@mismi,

mismi wrote:

Quote:
Andy ended up marrying that frigid bitch Helen

that made me laugh...really - Ellie would have been the better choice...what busted up that romance?

You know those pharmacists...She probably started dipping into the oxycontin.

I liked those two "fun girls" who would come to town sometimes. You know, one of them would always say "hi dolllll" with this voice that sounded like she'd just smoked a carton of pall malls.

You know, Otis wasn't mentioned in Floyd the Barber.

How the f*** did you ever know that song Mismi? I had to look it up, and when I read the lyrics I thought I would die.

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@chai2,

Speaking of expression derived from TV media...there's the word "Grok". Some of us been using for it so long that it's been second nature, but for those under-45 ... or those not brought up around certain college or urban areas, they may have no understanding. They don't grok it! I had to look up it's derivation...that it came from Heinlein's 1961 book, 'Stranger in a Strange Land'. Taken from the novel:

“ Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed"to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science"and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man. " He used it as a Martian word which started out as meaning to drink.

Yeah, 'Jumping the shark' - a tv show or some actions having little relevance or impact after having been popular at one time. Funny concept.

Aresnio's 'Whoop whoop'..had to have the whirling forearm along with the cheer. His Arsenio Hall show was where it generated from. Very '91-'92-ish.

Oh yeah...Have a Nice Day. We used to use "HANDI", which translated to Have a Nice Day, Idiot!

As a former Tech writer we were conducting a review of documentation at a company meeting. I played an audio clip of "Who Let the Docs (Dogs) Out" in back in 2001 or '02. Got a few snickers.

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@ossobuco,

Out of Chicago, wasn't there Irv Kupcinet ("Kup")? I understand that he was an early tv talk show pioneer.

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Jumping the Shark

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