For those of you who don't know what "Jumping The Shark" means, I'll explain. The old TV show Happy Days was great until they went on vacation to California and Fonzie jumped a shark on waterskis. After that it was total shit. This is where the phrase was born.

So post the name of an actor or TV show and when you think it jumped the shark.

Will Ferrell: Anchorman.

Anything he did post anchorman was just unwatchable. Talladega Nights? Yeah Nascar watching 'necks need help looking stupid. Step-brothers? Straight to video. And by the time he did that Washington Bush-Texas Bush special for HBO we were all so tired of anything Bush it was just over for him.

The office : When the americans remade it.

That applies to almost all American remakes of foreign TV series. I cant think of anything that has translated well. And its not because Americans are incapable of doing so, its because their TV Network executives wont let 'em.

I kinda think NCIS has jumped the shark...

I think the phrase "jump the shark" has done just that.

I think the phrase "jump the shark" has done just that.

That was exactly my thought when I saw this thread.
I'll pinpoint the timeframe as: when LG started talking about it.

How can a concept jump the shark? That's like saying "the concept of shows getting ridiculous is old hat." What does that mean?

How can a concept jump the shark? That's like saying "the concept of shows getting ridiculous is old hat." What does that mean?

It means that shows getting ridiculous is being over-done, and that the producers should pull back a little when they think about making a show get ridiculous.

OK nice recap. Now that we're all on the same page, go back and read my post in context with Krsna's and your posts. You'll see that rather than failing to grasp the concept, the question I've posed relates to how the concept of something "jumping the shark" could possibly be considered to have gotten ridiculous.

Would you rather say "that point when an otherwise good thing becomes ridiculous due to its creators over-doing it" every time you're talking about when something reaches the point of shark-jumping? I think you guys are just whining to hear yourselves whine.

monkapotamus!

For those of you who don't know what "Jumping The Shark" means, I'll explain. The old TV show Happy Days was great until they went on vacation to California and Fonzie jumped a shark on waterskis. After that it was total shit. This is where the phrase was born.

So post the name of an actor or TV show and when you think it jumped the shark.

Will Ferrell: Anchorman.

Anything he did post anchorman was just unwatchable. Talladega Nights? Yeah Nascar watching 'necks need help looking stupid. Step-brothers? Straight to video. And by the time he did that Washington Bush-Texas Bush special for HBO we were all so tired of anything Bush it was just over for him.

Zoom, I'm gon' come at you like a spider monkey!

I'd agree that WF hasn't done anything nearly as good as Anchorman since Anchorman, but that's cuz Anchorman was just so fucking good.

OK nice recap. Now that we're all on the same page, go back and read my post in context with Krsna's and your posts. You'll see that rather than failing to grasp the concept, the question I've posed relates to how the concept of something "jumping the shark" could possibly be considered to have gotten ridiculous.

The concept got ridiculous because i hear everyone saying "jumped the shark" now.  It's on TV, in the Radio, online media as well as printed materials.  I often even hear it misused.

What did people say before Fonzie jumped a shark?  Did they just not talk about how old a particular approach was getting?  4K years of written communication, and it wasn't until Happy Days that people were finally able to express what they had kept inside for so long?

Hearing it misused is annoying, and hearing it explained over and over again is annoying. We all understand the concept. At this point it's entered the lexicon.

But suggesting that because it's entered the lexicon since you began using English it's somehow invalid is pretty luddist to tell the truth. What did people call it in the last 81 years of written communication about TV shows? I guess they called it "that point when an otherwise good thing becomes ridiculous due to its creators over-doing it."

EDIT: A number of examples could be proffered but I'll stick to the quick "pwned" as an example of something new that existed conceptually before and that we all happily use now without whining.

The word "excellent" wasn't a word until Shakespeare used it. That and an incredible amount of other words he brought into use. The difference between the words Shakespeare introduced and a phrase like "jumping the shark" is just time.

Doormouse:

"Jumping the shark" doesn't mean that a tv show has gotten too silly, it means that the public has gotten so tired of a [whatever] that we no longer care about it no matter how extravagantly it might try to keep us interested.

I never said that concept "jumped the shark". I said the phrase did. It's time for a new one, I'm tired of it being shoved in my ears, and I'm also tired of people gleefully pointing out things that have "jumped the shark".

Those are some fine hairs you're splitting. I frankly can't see any difference between:
A) "the public has gotten so tired of a [whatever] that we no longer care about it no matter how extravagantly it might try to keep us interested."
and
B) "that point when an otherwise good thing becomes ridiculous due to its creators over-doing it."

...except that A makes the mistake of assuming that it's the [whatever] itself that is trying to keep you interested rather than the [whatever]'s creators.

Incidentally that's also the problem with saying "Jumped the shark" has jumped the shark. "Jumping the shark" only makes sense within the context of an episodic [whatever]. There has to be a point at which Fonzie jumps the shark and the [whatever] is now officially "too much." Repeating the same phrase ad nauseam doesn't jump the shark. The phrase is static and not episodic. If the creators of the phrase continually embellished it into "jumping the shark with frickin' lazer beams attached to their heads" and then "jumping the mutated sea bass" and other nonsense beyond that then we'd have a case for the phrase having jumped the shark.

Here I'll give you some valid criticism. You guys should point out to me that the moment I started defending the use of the neologism rather than high-fiving is the moment this thread jumped the shark. See it works because the thread can be seen as growing in a dynamic (episodic and non-static) manner so there's a clear point when the thread went over the top.

Dear krapsna,

You know those religion-mongers that Doormouse is always bad-mouthing?  The ones that, even when faced with evidence contrary to their belief, will continue to argue against that evidence with specious claims?

I'm glad you're not like those guys.

Love,
eitje

PS - pajama party tonight?

Booerns. I even spaced it all out so it would be easy on your eyes eitje. But ok. You guys think the expression is overused. Fine. Have fun at the Pajamarama.

That was an awful lot of work to try to shore up a shaky position.

eitje: The pajama party is ALWAYS on.

Arguing about this has hopped the dogfish.

With frickin' LASERS, man!

Booerns. I even spaced it all out so it would be easy on your eyes eitje.

I noticed!  It was very good!

But I didn't think it was appropriate to compliment you just before attempting to burn you.

No that would've heightened the burn. A cruel juxtaposition. We'd have to wait for mello to post the burn ointment.
Speaking of which where the hell is she?

boyfriend and work.

i think we can summon her back, like tricky did with C, but I don't remember how.

Maybe we need to come up with harsher burns. She is queen of the burn ointment post.

she says she's been unable to get to the site for the last few weeks.
i think she must be seeing the same issues that siko, tru, and others have reported.

She's lame. I've called her a couple of times over the last few weeks to see how she's been doing but I can never get her on the phone.

Dude, talk about jumping the shark ...

I'll try calling her as well as hitting her up on TSi ...
If she's having issues getting here, I need to know about it ...

she says she's been unable to get to the site for the last few weeks.
i think she must be seeing the same issues that siko, tru, and others have reported.

Which have been fixed now to my knowledge...

Right, Dave?

News Radio - Phil Hartman (death)

The Simposns - Phil Hartman (death)