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

Full House: guest appearance by a dysfunctional, out of favor 60s rock group with a bald singer in a ridiculous hat, in a futile effort at relevance.

 

Shows jump the shark when a couple gets married (or gets horizontal such as Moonlighting)
When they have a child
When Amy Acker is hired (Angel, Alias)

 

You can't post that without also posting this:

 

This topic jumped the shark long ago......heh.

 

What does 'relevance' have to do with that appearance?

 

hat > turban

 

While no masterpiece, the early Happy Days was an entertaining exercise in nostalgia. Portraying an allegedly more innocent time (Garry Marshall claimed he set the show in the past so he wouldn't have to deal with drugs) HD was often amusing in its portrait of frustrated 1950s youth. One fascinating episode even concerned Richie being approached by an older woman (shades of Summer of '42!). All in all I prefer it to The Wonder Years, if only b/c it didn't have any irritating, pseudo-Jean Shepherd narration.

Actually Happy Days Jumped The Shark even before it jumped the shark -- when it went to a live audience so teenyboppers could scream at Fonzie. But by then it as really a different show anyway.

 

True

The Mary Tyler Moore Show may be the champ here. One of my top 5 episodes ("Mary's Three Husbands") was IIRC the third-to-last one aired.

The DVDS episode I chose,, "The Gunslinger", was the last episode shot. But it's an atypical episode, and I half-suspect the script might have been siting around for a year or two anyway.

 

Also in the early shows Potsie wasn't such an imbecile as they made him out to be later. The early shows were based on Richie's friendship with Potsie and learning life lessons from his Dad. The show was warm and sometimes even touching. After they decided to turn Fonzie into a cash cow it was forever ruined.

 

Happy Days was on the air for seven years after the shark jump!

 

I wouldn't say they were bad, just different. I prefer Stevenson's and Rogers' characters but the new two had plenty of moments. Ditto for Frank / Winchester.

 

Very true. And it was still a ratings success.

But, it was around that time (the principals graduating high school, the addition of Chachi, more anachronisms you could shake a stick at) when the show was no longer "must see TV" for the kids at school. (Previously, Wednesdays were spent discussing the episode everyone was sure to have watched the night before.)

Eventually, Happy Days became either something you watched when nothing else was on, or something you'd express surprise seeing still on the air.

 

"That's such a cheap gimmick, adding a new character" "How's it hanging, Mrs S." "Oh, hi, Roy!"

 

This is what leads me to think that most people are using the phrase "jump the shark" wrong. Isn't it supposed to mean a silly ridiculous attempt to stop a downward slide, and return to the glory days? It isn't simply the point of no return. Is it?

 

for the west wing:

the fin appears in the water alongside the appearance of Josh Malina in season four.

shark first fully sighted at the departure of Aaron Sorkin and Rob Lowe at the end of the same season.

shark jump complete at the first attempt to reinvigorate the show--the introduction of intern Ryan Pierce, west wing's version of Cousin Oliver.

 

Small correction: John Amos says he was fired from Good Times over disputes over scripts, and that is also reflected in his bio on Wikipedia. I agree that Good Times was not a good show, but I think Norman Lear was afraid to tamper with success because the ratings were so high and he didn't want to make it as serious and realistic as Amos wanted.

I think Happy Days was a broad comedy that found success doing over-the-top gags and silly crap, all of which made it a #1 show for several years. To me, it actually only hit the wall once Ron Howard left. I actually worked on the show a little bit for the last couple of years, and it was really awful -- they had a lot of problems coming up with stories, and I think the actors were losing energy and interest.

In truth, I don't think Happy Days was ever a good show, but there were points where it got markedly worse. I was on Laverne & Shirley the season that Cindy Williams left, and that show went from "bad" to "unwatchable by humans." The writers and producers were miserably unhappy trying to make that show funny, and they knew they were failing. Very bad to be on that set.

One thing people gotta remember: when a show has jumped the shark, before that actually happens, often the producers know the show is going down, and they're trying everything they can do to save it. But usually it's like bailing water from the Titanic: it might buy them a little time, but it ain't gonna save the for long.

The funniest "Jump" moment I experienced: I worked on a 1990s NBC show nobody watched, the Fred Savage show Working. When they started the second season, the network demanded that a handful of cast members be fired and new actors brought in playing new characters, just to liven up the stories. They started the first new episode with a wide shot of the old cast, then a hand reached down and shook up a snow globe of the set. Everything went blurry, and then when we went back to the wide shot, the new cast was now sitting at their seats in the office. So they knew things had literally "shaken up" on the show. It did no good and they were cancelled at the end of the second season.

One of the rare shows I say never jumped was Dick Van Dyke, which is just about a flawless show in many ways. I Love Lucy comes very close, and I actually liked the episodes where they went to Hollywood and the last season where they move to Connecticut. The "classic 39" episodes of The Honeymoon are also very good, and I think Fawly Towers was damn near perfect. Those four put the bar very high.

Jon Hein from the Jump the Sharp website (which he sold to TV Guide for $3 million) has said that Seinfeld would be one of the rare shows that never jumped until the final episode. I didn't love the last episode either, but I don't think it's quite that bad.

 

In tribute to the man who coined the phrase, all I have to say is, "HIT "EM WITH THE HEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!"

 

Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch

 

Gilmore Girls - Season 5, Rory's second year at Yale. Logan and his braying posho friends come on the scene, and nothing is ever the same again...

 

My favorite moment from the single-camera "Happy Days" - the guys are all standing around looking at a Playboy magazine. Pottsie folds out the centerfold and says "Wouldn't you like to see a tight sweater on THAT!"

 

This is the one I was going to mention.

I think it started earlier around the "Who Shot J.R.?" period or maybe just afterwards. But THIS show, with Bobby returning, is the one that put the nail in the coffin for me. Whoa! Wha? So last season didn't even happen? Huh? I was done then.

 

I thought The Brady Bunch jumped the shark when that little John Denver clone, Oliver, came to stay with them for the last season.

 

Ehh, I think the show's decline started when Pebbles became part of it. The addition of a baby almost always marks creative desperation.

"The Flintstones" still had some great episodes post-Pebbles but the overall quality declined - and each change ala Bamm-Bamm, Gazoo, etc. just marked more desperation!

 

The last season of Roseanne was a joke. Every episode jumped the shark.