Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Has "Jumping the Shark" jumped the shark?

There's one Happy Days writer who's had enough:


5 comments:

  1. I was of the opinion that jumping the shark didn't mean that a show started to outright suck, but it was more of a post climatic definition. A show reaches a point where it can't continue to try and out do itself at the risk of becoming completely ridiculous. So although a show may continue to air, from that point on, it will not really be the same or quite as "hot". just my opinion

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  2. Dale,

    Correct, jumping the shark is the point when the show has basically run out of story and begins using gimmicks to keep users watching. After that it becomes a parody of itself.

    On a side note...

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  3. CZABE! AFFILIATES! NOW!

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  4. I always liked the jump the shark episode. It was one of those "to be continued" deals, where they froze the screen when Fonzie was in mid-air. All of the kids in elementary school the next day were asking "do you think the Fonz is going to make it?" I think Happy Days truly jumped the shark when Richie and Ralph left the show and they brought in Ted McGinley as Cousin Rodger and made the Fonz a school teacher who wore the tweed jacket with elbow patches instead of his leather jacket. Very uncool.

    BTW, I think the writers got the idea from Evel Knieval. Not long before the JTS episode, Evel was supposed to jump a tank full of sharks live on TV, but he was hurt in a practice run and had to cancel.

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  5. Czabe,
    Did you notice that Fonzi's nemesis from the shark episode was Greg Marmalard from Animal House?

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