Point of Shark Jump: When Did Any Given Television Show Jump?

MASH is unusual, perhaps unique, in that you can pinpoint the JTS moment not to the season or even the episode. but to the exact scene.

"The Late Captain Pierce" (s4e4)
Hawkeye finds out that due to clerical error, he has been declared dead.

In the last scene of Act II, Hawkweye decides to "go home" by accepting that he is "dead" and takes a place on the Bus of Corpses. B.J. comes aboard to talk him out of it, but fails. Hawkeye is determined to leave the 4077th and his responsibilities behind. Just then, he hears choppers loaded with wounded coming to the compound. He slowly gathers his bag and heads to the OR to continue his selfless dedication to human life

After that scene, MASH is never again the same show. It would devolve into the Alan Alda Sensitivity Festival.

 

As TAGS ran on, Andy became less and less of a good ole boy and more of a boringly standard TV father dispensing sage words of wisdom. By the color years there is very little Southern about the show at all.

However there is one great color episode, the one where Howard gives it all up to live on a tropical island.

 

Haha! Check out them Bat draws

 

What people forget about the shark jump episode is that it was not Fonzie's first jumping event.

It was an attempt to recreate the heat they got from Fonzie jumping over 14 garbage cans in the parking lot of Arnold's.

This was the must see TV event of 1975. At least it was for me and the other third graders I knew.





To be continued! The suspense of it all. What would happen to the Fonz?

Spoiler

He crashed into Arnold's chicken stand.

Spoiler

 

I wonder how many hundreds of threads we already have on this forum regarding 'Jumping The Shark'?

 

Yup. I was in 6th grade.
That's when I knew Happy Days was getting out of hand.......!

 

Mission Impossible after season 4

 

I never thought of it like that. I've always thought seasons two and three were the best, and the show was never quite the same after the loss of McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers. And I definitely agree with the comment about the "Alan Alda sensitivity festival", but I wouldn't necessarily have pegged it as early as season four, episode four. I noticed it during one episode where the whole camp ganged up to battle a visiting brass of some kind (as opposed to battling each other), but that was a few seasons later. There were still some funny episodes; the abduction of Margaret comes to mind.

 

Me too! I think the Flintstones actually went up a notch!

 

True

Well first off the shark is already being prepped for jumping with "Margaret" instead of "Hot Lips". Alda couldn't stand the fact that the only major female character was a heavy, so he made her one of the gang.

When you add all thse factors:

* Gelbart leaves and Alda takes creative control

* Stevenson and Rogers leave

* Their replacements, Morgan and Farrell, are unsatisfactory. Farrell is downright bad. He's so boring the writers try to make him a practical joker to give him a personality. This just makes him a boring practical joker.

* "Margaret"

The show ends up with perhaps the biggest decline in quality in sitcom history, rivalled only by All In The Family.

But the thread askd for one moment, and I think the one moment I named is applicable.

 

The brilliant dynamic of Andy & Barney (which made the show) was gone. They increased the roles of Aunt Bee/Goober/Howard Sprague which didn't have the charisma needed to carry the show, and the show became more poignant than funny.

 

True dat. Also Andy goes from being clever and humorous to bored and pissed off. I think when Don left Andy checked out mentally and spiritually.

 

Yeah, he became Angry Andy. Bummer because those episodes (black & white) were some seriously funny skits. For my money, it doesn't get better than classic Andy & Barney.

 

When "The Honeymooners" started singing and dancing ... and went to Europe ... and did it all again in color 10 years later.

 

I wouldve been angry as well being married to Helen Crump!

 

I totally agree. Vikings after S01 became just another soap opera with pseudo historical context. Laughable really.

 

Oliver on the Brady Bunch

John Boy left the Waltons

Any show that Ted McGinley shows up on

Laura went blind LHOTP

Chrissy left 3's Company

 

Television jumped the shark when "Dance Moms" got a green light.

 

I respectfully disagree that Ted McGinley causes shows to jump the shark. Usually, he joins a show (such as Happy Days and The Love Boat) when it has already started its downward slide. However, I do think he might have been a factor in Married...With Children jumping the shark because while Jefferson D'Arcy was a good replacement for Steve Rhoades the show wasn't quite the same with him (the relationship between Al and Steve was like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, while the relationship between Al and Jefferson was more like Fred Flintstone and Fred Flintstone).

 

In my opinion, Happy Days went downhill after the first season, due to the fact that the producers decided to shoot the show in front of a live audience instead of shooting it outside of a staged area. At first, it had the look and feel of American Graffiti. The cars, etc. Then they take it to a soundstage and push the "Fonz" upfront for utter silliness that got worse and worse. Similar to the show "Good Times." When the father was on the show, Good Times had some great episodes that spoke to racism and poverty. Once it became the "J. J Walker" DYNOMITE show, it began to fall. In fact, the father (forgot the actor's name) argued for a return to the way the show originally was. The producers disagreed and he quit, really sending Good Times down the toilet.

 

For awhile, Esther Rolle left the show too because she thought J.J was a bad role model for kids watching the show.

 

Actually, Happy Days went from being a single camera show, to the three-camera one with Fonzie becoming the main focus at the beginning of the third season. (He moved into the the room above the garage in the first episode that year.)

But, I agree with you that the show started sliding with the change.

In the first two seasons, Fonzie was relatively subdued and really came off as being, well, cool. He'd always seem to just appear when Richie was in trouble.

It was the third season when he became the jukebox-smacking, "Aaaaye"-spouting, dialogue-shouting superhero the producers wanted.

Henry Winkler underplayed the role early on, but he seemed to be taking lesssons at the William Shatner School of Overacting after the format change.

Compare the way HW portayed the character in an early episode where he shows up to help Richie get out of trouble with some girl's jealous boyfriend to the later episode where we learn The Fonz is afraid of liver. Fonzie's histrionics when seeing the pan of liver are embarassing.