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alt title(s): Jump The Shark; Jumped The Shark; Shark Jump 
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:
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.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull introduced " Nuking The Fridge" as a synonymous phrase (albeit as a forced meme by a specific Hatedom). Whether or not it will see sort of wide usage is up in the air. At least one reviewer of the Twilight movie has suggested 'The vampires are playing baseball' as another synonym and potential replacement.
Contrast Growing The Beard, Win The Crowd. For a related phenomenon, see Franchise Original Sin. For a video game related phenomenon (going into 3D ruins the franchise), see Polygon Ceiling.
When the people start claiming something is a shark jumping moment right after it happens, see Ruined FOREVER.
JumpTheShark.com used to be run by writer Jon Hein, who coined the term with his friends in the mid-1980's. Maintained an ongoing list of series killing moments (granted, you could vote for every cause, and shows commonly had "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). Ironically, the site itself jumped the shark in January 2009, when it was merged into the TV Guide website, had its content removed along with the voting system, and became a blog by writer Erin Fox.
There is some evidence that jumping the shark has no real effect on a show's success.
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... If anything, this site has shown the limits of the term by demonstratng that the wide-range of fan opinion means that for any action a show takes, there will inevitably be a group who defends it and a group who complains about it, in varying proportions. This means that the likelihood of a majority of any given fanbase agreeing on a single when a show started going downhill is by and large next to nil.
References:
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Comic Books
Live Action 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. The show itself, however, never Jumped The Shark, although it never really had the opportunity for seasonal rot to set in.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.This was a reference by the writer to effectively lampshade what she had to do whe nthe actor left, new characters were introduced and it still enjoyed some success after this.
- 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 Trope Namer was referenced in an episode of That 70's Show in which Fez, imagining how cool it would be to be the Fonzie, 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.
- In the last episode of Boston Legal after Alan accepts Denny's proposal of marriage Denny says "It'll be great! Like jumping a shark!"
- The producers of Lost have referred to the scene at the end of season 3 where Jack's flashbacks were really flashforwards as the moment where their show "jumped the shark," however, they are apparently unaware this is usually a negative term and that perhaps they should stop using it to refer to their show. The moment in question actually IS where the show Jumped The Shark in the eyes of many fans, although for others it had the opposite effect as well.
- An episode of Supernatural featured a kid who is believed to be the third Winchester brother. The name of the episode? Jump the Shark.
- A recent episode of House had House, bored out of his skull during clinic duty, constructing a racetrack from medical tape, tongue depressors, and cards. At the end of the track is a ramp, and under the ramp? A shark. Cuddy catches the car in midair, before it reaches the shark. But maybe the writers are telling us something....
- The penultimate episode of The X-Files is titled "Jump the Shark". In it, the quirky trio of conspiracy theorists that had lasted the show's entire run and gotten their own failed spin off end up thwarting a terrorist's plot to use a neurotoxin made from sharks (somehow). Unfortunately, they died in the process.
- Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide has an episode about making and taking dares that incorporates one character jumping a bicycle over a tank with a shark in it. The episode also included a guest appearance by pro-BM Xer Matt Hoffman, Moze receiving a more feminine wardrobe makeover, and a subplot where three new characters are introduced and suspected to be undercover robots. Completely lampshaded and deconstucted throughout the episode, which was actually around the beginning of an upturn in quality that continued through all of the show's third and final season.
- Not to mention how Ned was shown to actually return Yandere Missy's feelings.
Video Games
- In Tony Hawks' American Wasteland, one of the missions involves feeding imbecelic oil rig worker Mega's pet shark, Fonzie. That involves jumping over him on your board for some reason. Keep in mind that Mega's the kind of guy to name a shark Fonzie unironically, completely unaware of it meaning anything deeper than "That guy on that show I watched when I was like five. He was cool. Ayyyyy!"
- In Hallrunner, a game on the Videlectrix website (a gaming website hosted by the creators of Homestar Runner), the object of the game is to make your way through various obstacles while running down a neverending hallway. Upon coming to each obstacle, the player has the option of talking to it, fighting it, or jumping it. If the player chooses "jump" when the obstacle is a shark, he gets the response "You jump the shark. Just like homestarrunner.com."
Web Animation
Web Comics
- The obligatory Penny Arcade strip [1]
- In 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.
- 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. [2]
- 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.
- 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.
- Clip-art webcomic Partially Clips lampshades its own potential shark-jumping here.
- A Freefall strip features a shark tank, but warns people away from jumping over it.
- In Absurd Notions, several years in, the characters buy an aquarium and get a pet Bala shark. They decide that, given that they introduced the shark as a new character to breathe new life into their lives, which had gotten boring, the only honest name to give the shark was "Jump".
- This and the Cousin Oliver trope gets referenced in this Something Positive strip where the writers for Monette's show discuss future plots.
- Gordito in The Adventures Of Dr Mc Ninja literally jumped over a winged, flying shark. The alt-text defended the move with "Look, it was the only way he could dodge it". Of course, by Dr Mc Ninja standards this isn't that unusual an event.
Western Animation
- 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.
- Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends, "Sweet Stench of Success": "Tune in next week when Deo jumps a shark!"
- In the final episode, "Goodbye to Bloo", Bloo thinks Mac is moving away forever, and tries to come up with something big they can do for their last day together. After Mac shoots down several of his suggestions as things they have already done before (they are in fact references to the plots of previous episodes), Bloo decides that the only thing left to do is to Jump The Shark. Unable to find a shark in time, he settles for walking over a fish with a paper fin on a bowl.
- 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.
- Velma from Scooby Doo remarks, "I thought I never see Scooby-Doo jump the shark." in a "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" episode.
- One "Previously On" for a two-part episode of South Park had scenes of Fonzie about to jump a shark cut in. Then when he makes the jump, he gets eaten, seeming to say "Not yet, viewers".
- My Life As A Teenage Robot "In-Des-Tuck-Able" serves as the final episode were Tuck is performing a series of dangerous stunts including riding a motorcycle over a Shark Pool. Brad provides the lampshading. "Once you jump the shark, the show is over."
Real Life
- JumpTheShark.com used to be run by writer Jon Hein, who coined the term with his friends in the mid-1980's. Maintained an ongoing list of series killing moments (granted, you could vote for every cause, and shows commonly had "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). Ironically, the site itself jumped the shark in January 2009, when it was merged into the TV Guide website, had its content removed along with the voting system, and became a blog by writer Erin Fox. In March of 2009, in response to the drastic changes away from what JTS originally was, several fans made a new site www.bonethefish.com as a dig against TV Guide and JTS, and rebuilt the original "vote for the moment when" style format that the old pre-Erin Fox Blog version of the classic Jump the Shark. "Bone The Fish" is a reference to Jump the Shark "boning itself" since it jumped it's own shark and shouldn't be worthy of doling out criticism anymore since it had violated it's original intent. The Trope for Bone The Fish can be found here at Bone The Fish
- Inverted on Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel, where one can often view clips of great white sharks jumping out of the water. The inversion is that such scenes (in this troper's opinion), by definition, never get old.
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