A particularly severe case.
Jumping The Shark is the defining moment when an established show changes in a significant manner in an attempt to stay fresh. Ironically, that moment makes the viewers realise that the show has finally run out of ideas. It has reached its peak, it will never be the same again, and from now on it's all downhill.
Some examples of clues which may indicate that a show's made the "jump":
Cast Changes:
Character Development:
Plot Development:
Gimmicks:
- The show starts relying too much on 'special guest stars' (especially if they're celebrities playing themselves) which wreck the versimillitude of the show.
- Graphical gimmicks such as 3D are used to shore up failing character development.
- The Movie of the series is released, after which the creativity level of the actual show starts to wane.
Too many
shark-jumping moments in a row can spell
Seasonal Rot.
This expression originates from the episode of
Happy Days in which Fonzie literally jumped over a shark on water-skis.
Gary Marshall tirelessly reminds us that
Happy Days went on for a number of years after the original shark jump, misunderstanding a phrase that judges suckyness, not success. Henry Winkler has elsewhere commented that he's happy with the popularity of the phrase, as its usage in a magazine is often accompanied by a photo of him during a time in his life when he had great legs.
Following
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the phrase "Nuked The Fridge" has been coined to mean the same thing. It remains to be seen whether it'll catch on.
For the opposite, see
Growing The Beard. For a related phenomena, see
Franchise Original Sin.
When the people start claiming something is a shark jumping moment
right after it happens, see
Ruined FOREVER.
JumpTheShark.com
- run by writer Jon Hein, who coined the term with his friends in the mid-1980's - maintains an ongoing list of series killing moments (granted, you can vote for
every cause, and shows commonly have "
Day One" as an option). The website lists actor Ted McGinley as their "patron saint", for he has the most television roles in which series slowly died off after his first appearance. The longest-lasting show with Ted in a starring role was
Married With Children, where he went for seven seasons after replacing David Garrison (Steve Rhoades).
There are really too many to list here, and it is probably the most subjective article we have, so we are just listing the phrase references. See the website mentioned in the last paragraph for all shark jumping speculation.
The phrase "Jumping the Shark," itself, is increasingly referenced on TV:
- In the Arrested Development episode "Motherboy XXX", Barry Zuckercorn (played by Henry Winkler, Fonzie himself) visits Buster on a dock, where his hand has been eaten by a seal. On his way to make a Product Placement for Burger King, he is forced to physically jump over the shark.
- Sealab 2021, "Sharko's Machine": Sharko (A Cousin Oliver parody who is Marco's half-shark illegitimate son) is seen jumping over several Fonzies during an absurd Hard Work Montage.
- In Neds Declassified School Survival Guide, Loomer bets that he can jump over a shark on a motorcycle. It turns out that the shark is in a kiddie wading pool, but Loomer still fails to jump over it — he jumps in the wrong direction, and goes flying into an open van. Fortunately, it turns out to be an ambulance, which whisks Loomer away. Then, the Celebrity Star produces a pair of Evel Knievel-style ramps out of nowhere, and uses them to successfully motorcycle-jump the shark. Ned later trips and falls into the pool, but it doesn't matter since it was just a nurse shark.
- "Jump the Shark" was the title of an episode in the final season of The X Files. In it, the quirky squad of sidekicks were killed in a very mean spirited manner.
- In the first episode of the new season of Kim Possible after it was Un Canceled, Ron asks Kim if that was just a dream about her "water-skiing over a shark." She hangs up on him without answering. Only time will tell, but all indications seem to be good.
- Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends, "Sweet Stench of Success": "Tune in next week when Deo jumps a shark!"
- In the webcomic, Bitmap World, the phrase is used to indicate its very silly and literal meaning. The creators insist that this does not mean their relatively new strip (at the time of publication) is headed in that direction.
- In Bruno The Bandit, the protagonist literally has to jump a shark, to be more successful getting readers.
- Stargate SG 1: In the self-referential 200th episode, Marty responds to the suggestion of doing the Wormhole X-Treme! movie with Thunderbirds-style puppets by sarcastically suggesting that they have Puppet O'Neill jump over a puppet shark on a scale motorcycle.
- Schlock Mercenary uses a gag about a shark tank and a motorcycle ramp as a promise that even though the strip's invoking Time Travel as a Reset Button, it's just this once and that's not what it's going to be all about from now on. [1]
- The fifth-season premiere of Reno 911!, entitled "Jumping the Shark", featured Lt. Dangle actually attempting to jump over a normal fish tank containing a small shark. Naturally, he doesn't quite make it over, and Hilarity Ensues. Incidentally, it was the first new episode to be aired after the release of The Movie, which can also be a major shark-jumping point for some shows.
- The 542nd strip of Order Of The Stick is named "In Azure City, Shark Jumps You!". In addition to the obvious Russian Reversal, this is also an actual description of the strip's contents.
- The webcomic Melonpool, after a decade of time-travel history-changing shenanigans, had gotten so convoluted that the author decided on a massive retcon, whose fuzzy science rationale actually had the acronym Jump the S.H.A.R.K..
- Irregular Webcomic addressed Jumping The Shark (both literally and figuratively) in a arc starting here.
- Johnny Keogh from Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps was killed (offscreen) in a tragic accident involving him attempting to jump over a shark whilst on holiday.
- In the CSI episode "Two and a Half Deaths" (written by the Two And A Half Men writers), Captain Brass (in reference to a character winning money on a sitcom - a Take That against the last season of Roseanne) says that that's when the show "jumped the shark."
- The Zero Punctuation review for "LEGO Indiana Jones" was the first to feature a new opening video and hardcore metal theme song, as opposed to the (copyrighted) Suspiciously Apropos Music of previous shorts. In his sign-off bit of snark, Yahtzee predicts oodles of e-mails predicting this as "his shark jumping moment".
- Clip-art webcomic Partially Clips lampshades its own potential shark-jumping here.
- One episode of Dora The Explorer had Dora use Jump Star to "jump the shark".
- One episode of Squidbillies shown Rusty watching a TV show in a dramatic way, showing a Mailman delivering mail into a mailbox. What is worth a mention in this article is Early commenting on the show with the trope name.
- The Trope Namer was referenced in an episode of That 70's Show in which Fez, imagining how cool it would be to be The Fonze, has a daydream of himself performing the original jump. Hyde comments that this was the worst moment in television history, and Fez confesses that he stopped watching the show after that. It's interesting, because this is more of a modern perspective rather than one commonly held at the time it aired... like pretty much everything on That 70s Show.
- Velma from Scooby Doo remarks, "I thought I never see Scooby-Doo jump the shark." in a "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" episode.
- Taken to its logical extreme in an issue of DC's The Atom; Atom sees Adolph Hitler with a jetpack, and declares that reality itself has jumped the shark.
"If you land somewhere awesome, it doesn't matter if you Jump the Shark."
-Matt Caracappa, X-Entertainment
