To-do list:

• Limit the definition to the original, off-site usage of what is also called "jiggle television" from the 1970s and 80s, as mentioned in this post, this post, this post, and the opening post and rewrite the description accordingly, and turn the "See also" list at the end of the description into a disambiguation page-style bulleted list, similar to the ones on Stuffed into the Fridge and Mondegreen, and possibly add other related pages to the list.
• Clean up on-page examples and wicks that do not match the off-site definition the page is being retooled to fit. A sandbox to track checked namespaces is at Jiggle Show Cleaning.

Original post:

Note: This thread was proposed by Very Sunshine.

A Jiggle Show is a genre about women who don't wear bras, or who wear skimpy clothes, or who wear swimsuits and run around in slow motion, or shows that have "seductive imagery". The description never properly defines the trope. Instead, it lists examples throughout the decades. It says each decade frowned on using jiggle shows while listing shows that were incredibly popular. Unsurprisingly, that lead to tropers having completely different ideas about what the trope actually was.

Jiggle show (or "jiggle television") is a pre-existing term. It was coined by Creator/NBC executive Paul Klien to describe Creator/ABC's television output. Klien used the term to call the shows ABC was producing trashy and low-brow. On this wiki, there are some entries that imply that a Jiggle Show doesn't have to focus on jiggling to count. There are jokes that Jiggle Shows don't have plots. In addition, many people looking at the trope name but not checking the page confused it with Gainaxing, seeing the page as an action and not a genre.

How do other websites define the genre, and what do they consider part of it?

Wikipedia suggests the "use of female television celebrities moving in loose clothing or underwear in a way in which their breasts or buttocks could be seen to shake" was used to attract audiences. It also notes the programs were frequently sexist or suggestive. They include:

• Charlie's Angels
• Wonder Woman
• Three's Company
• Police Woman
• Baywatch
• She Spies
• Beverly Hills, 90210
• Melrose Place
• Charmed

The website Groovy History says "Body parts were bouncing all over the place and it was said to be sexual exploitation of women. Women were typically, now, being shown in skimpy bikinis, towels with NOTHING underneath (oh dear!), nighties and underwear; not to mention that they were also going bra-less in public! Of course, they were… the target audience was 18 – 25 years old!" They include:

• Charlie's Angels
• Three's Company
• Fantasy Island
• I Dream of Jeannie

Your Dictionary says it's the "gratuitous use of scantily clad women to appeal to television audiences." This page does not include examples.

Britannica says "The new trend was referred to as “jiggle TV” in the popular press (“T&A TV” in less-polite publications) because it tended to feature young, attractive, often scantily clad women (and later men as well)." They include:

• The Love Boat
• Charlie's Angels
• Three's Company
• Fantasy Island

The website Flashbak's article "The Breast of the Best: The Top 5 Jiggle TV Shows of the 1970s" defines a Jiggle Show as "gratuitous T&A", a "derogatory label", and could be based more on the promotion than the actual content of the show. They included:

• Charlie's Angels
• Three's Company
• Logan's Run
• Wonder Woman
• The Love Boat

How do examples use the trope?

Method: Due to the fact that many examples have different text on their work pages compared to the trope page, I'm including both in the wick check when they are relevant. They will be sorted according to whichever entry would rank higher. For example, if it's a commented-out ZCE on the work page, but there is context on the trope page, it would be placed on the trope page. However, most of the examples aren't cross-wicked. I also examined the shows mentioned in the description, as those should be clearer examples than most.

• Example on the work page.
  • Example on the trope page.

In total, there were:

• 19/58 or 32.8% of wicks were ZC Es or notable absences
• 17/58 or 29.3% of wicks were referencing scenes or characters rather than the work as a whole
• 7/58 or 12.1% of wicks were referencing the genre in general
• 6/58 or 10.3% of wicks were showing multiple characters wearing skimpy clothing
• 5/58 or 8.6% of wicks were showing jiggling breasts or running around braless without additional context
• 3/58 or 5.2% of wicks were discussing a genre focused on the sexualization of women
• 1/58 or 1.7% of wicks were stating that character's breasts didn't jiggle, but not calling that an aversion
• 1/58 or 1.7% were wicks that could not be put into another category

This means that 62.1% of the wicks were either ZC Es or misuse as the trope is usually defined, while 25.9% fit some version of correct usage, and 13.8% were referencing the concept of the genre of could not otherwise be counted.

Notably:

• Two examples involved media usually seen as child-friendly, but both were misuse
• One ZCE mentioned a radio programme, indicating it would probably be misuse if it was given more context
• One example was on three pages, but the ways those examples were phrased meant they each ended up in another category.

How do we fix this?

Each of the five referenced websites defined a Jiggle Show in a different way. While they all agreed that being scantily clad or sexualizing characters was part of the genre, and there's a general consensus that this is used to appeal to an 18-35 demographic, each website includes different details. There are some discrepancies with what shows fit as archetypal examples, but over all, there seems to be agreement. That indicates there is a general consensus that we could reference.

Part of the issue with the page is from the name. While the standard term is "Jiggle Television", we have used "Jiggle Show." However, Jiggle Shows do appear in other media, so renaming it Jiggle Television might be limiting. Adding the word "genre" to the end of the name might cut down on the single scene misuse.

I have a few possible options:

• Overhaul the definition, but keep the name
• Overhaul the definition and change the name
• Nuke the examples and start over
• Clean the existing examples
• Keep it as a Useful Note

Wick Check

General examples

Examples from the description, which should theoretically have the best description of what the trope is:

Edited by Berrenta on Feb 7th 2023 at 1:29:52 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Paging ~Very Sunshine to the thread.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Jiggle Show's description should be made clear that it's about female characters' breasts jiggling as opposed to the likes of Rubbery World, Gelatinous Trampoline, Wacky Waterbed, or even rotund male bellies jiggling.

Kirby is awesome.

I don't think anyone was under the impression that those examples counted...

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

One big problem with this trope is that it originally had a pretty clear definition, but the term was appropriated for all kinds of shows where female fanservice was a prominent part of the attraction. To complicate matters, this is not just ordinary trope decay, but reflects changes in fashion and society.

In the 70s, the braless look was popular and fanservice in the form of jiggling breasts was very natural. Skip forward 30 years: in the 00s, the braless look was out but push-up bras were in, and if you wanted to make a fanservice-heavy show it would probably involve women with very prominent breasts, but they wouldn't jiggle. I suppose it felt natural to appropriate the term "jiggle show" for such a show from the 00s.

That said, just because it's a natural extension of the term doesn't mean it's not trope decay. If we widen the term like that, it will become just "a show that's heavy on female fanservice". Do we want that or not? Probably not.

It may be a good idea to limit the trope to the original definition, but in that case maybe we are missing a supertrope for "show where fanservice is a major attraction"? We have Best Known for the Fanservice, which applies to many jiggle shows, but that trope really implies that the fanservice is the only appeal of the show (or at least the only thing people remember in retrospect). As an example, Lost Girl (which was mentioned as basically a modern jiggle show without jiggling) is very fanservice-heavy, but I would definitely not say that it's best known for that.

OK, the missing supertrope merits its own discussion. But, as I wrote, we may want to limit this trope to the original, 1970s, definition, and then cut the examples where there is no jiggling along with the outright misuse.

Edited by GnomeTitan on Jan 30th 2023 at 8:44:04 PM

OK, I know that it's considered bad form to double-post rather to edit one's earlier post, but I'm doing it deliberately to show that there's some time since my last post.

I've thought a bit about it and I now definitely think it's better to restrict the trope to the original definition, i.e. to cover fanservice-heavy shows from the 70s and 80s, basically from Charlie's Angels to Baywatch. This seems to be the external usage of the term, and I've actually never heard the term applied to any other shows outside of this site.

Extending the term to include more modern shows such as Lost Girl or Relic Hunter is trope decay and just waters down the concept.

Fantastic OP, and excellent analysis from Gnome Titan as well.

I agree with Gnome’s reasoning — to restricting this in the suggested manner.

TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall

Honestly just here to say I'm impressed with the thoroughness of the OP. I'll just read others' takes and vote on the crowner; nothing to add myself.

Vehicle-Based Characterization | Grief-Induced Split | Locker Mail

I also agree with Gnome Titan that we should restrict the definition to match offsite usage of the term.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 30th 2023 at 6:03:14 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Since this is a preexisting term, I agree it's best to incorporate the definitions from OP ("the general consensus") and limit examples to the fanservice-heavy shows of the 70s and shows that deliberately reference that period of shows.

Seems like we have a missing supertrope of "fanservice-heavy show" (that isn't YMMV like Best Known for the Fanservice) that can be TLP'd or yarded?

I also agree with Gnome Titan reasoning, though I wonder if limiting it also makes it Too Rare to Trope.

Yarding objective tropes sounds fine, but I'd rather not get Best Known for the Fanservice mixed up with this since it still has an open TRS thread with unfinished work.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I'm not so sure it's Too Rare to Trope for works from the period. It's just that most of the works it would apply to have been forgotten today. But if it's decided that it is too rare, perhaps we could make it a definition-only page with an index of typical works.

I'd say that it's a Discredited Trope today, not just because jiggling went out of fashion in the late 80s, but because producers found out that they could have strong female characters and still attract the male demographic, so they didn't need to make fanservice a selling point of the work (I'm talking TV series and movies here - other media may differ).

Edited by GnomeTitan on Jan 31st 2023 at 10:21:28 AM

Restrict the definition but if this leaves us with few examples, then keep it as a Useful Notes page.

Regarding the missing supertrope for "fanservice-heavy shows," like a non-Japanese version of Ecchi?

I think this is better off as a Definition Only page. One thing I think is easy to forget is that often times modern "genres" are also marketing tools to signal to advertisers and future audiences what kind of work they should expect to watch, to block for time, put their money behind, associate their products with. The collection of common tropes that makeup the "genre" really just being one: fanservice. And "being fanservice heavy" isn't really a distinct trope from Fanservice itself. That seems like a pretty clear case of The Same, but More.

Notably, the oldest version of the page in the Internet Archive mentions Baywatch as a show that "[took] the Jiggle Show to new heights of craftsmanship" (and the show is called the Trope Codifier in its example on the trope page today), but Wikipedia is the only source in the OP that lists Baywatch or any show postdating it as a Jiggle Show at all, and I don't know how much any of the post-Baywatch examples would fit the narrower definition if at all. (Also, note that it considered Gainaxing to be "the anime implementation", which probably doesn't help the confusion with that trope.) This suggests we might not have been using the term exactly correctly from the start, but there's also the question of whether the broader definition is really wrong to begin with.

Wikipedia mostly cites books that wouldn't come up in a Google search but might be more authoritative (though only one of the ones cited in the "jiggle television series" section could be considered to have the genre as its topic, and the claim at the end of the "description" section that "the term was taken to new extremes...on such television shows as Baywatch and She Spies" isn't cited at all). If - and I grant that this is a big if - any of them a) aren't taking their cues from TV Tropes and b) use the term in a broader sense than what's being proposed, and it's determined that "show with an emphasis on female fanservice" is tropeworthy, you could make a case that the term Jiggle Show is an Artifact Title, that using it for the broader category is justifiable, and maybe even that the narrower definition is The Same, but More Specific amounting to "Jiggle Show meets Gainaxing".

On the flip side, though, none of the post-Baywatch series Wikipedia mentions are on the usage check anyway, except for Charmed being the subject of the Girl-Show Ghetto entry, which implies it actually isn't a member of the genre but had the fanservice ramped up enough in later seasons that it got mistaken for one. (On the trope and work pages themselves, it's only said that the leads wore "very low-cut and/or revealing outfits", which would seem to be misuse under the proposed narrower definition.) She Spies is mentioned on the trope page as "an Affectionate Parody of Charlie's Angels" without much context beyond that, while 90210 and Melrose Place aren't given examples on the trope page, nor do they mention the trope on their work pages, at all. For that matter, even among the 70s and 80s shows mentioned in the sources cited in the OP, only Charlie's Angels, Three's Company, and Wonder Woman (1975) (the last of which, notably, predates supposed Trope Maker Charlie's Angels) link to the page (The Love Boat doesn't even include any Fanservice Tropes, while I Dream of Jeannie's entire run predates any of the other shows mentioned). That may suggest that even the relatively broad definition currently being used doesn't quite capture how the term was used historically... and maybe that the term, as a pejorative, was always used more towards the perception of a show, as with Charmed, than the reality. That could imply that the page still needs substantial retooling to capture how the term has actually been used outside the wiki, that we shouldn't be bound by what other sources say, or that the page should be YMMV or even definition-only.

I don't know. It's late at night where I am and I can feel my mind going, so I don't know how useful any of this, especially the last paragraph, is. Maybe I'll have more useful contributions tomorrow.

I don't think we can call Jiggle Show a genre by any definition of the word. It's a category that contains works from different genres (Charlie's Angels is a detective show, Three's Company is a sitcom, Baywatch is action drama).

As for "fanservice-heavy show" being just "fanservice but more", I disagree. Fanservice by itself is just an element (not really a trope, since it's not a narrative device) that can exist in any amount in any work. "Fanservice-heavy show" is a categorization of the show itself. And the idea may need a better name, since it's not really about the amount of fanservice but of the use of fanservice as a selling point.

To put it differently:

Jiggle Show is not just "any show where Vapor Wear occurs", it's a kind of show where the jiggling breasts are a selling point. We have word of god that this was intentional with Charlies Angels: it wasn't just a show with female detectives who happened to be good-looking and wear skimpy clothes, it was a show where the female leads were chosen for their looks and made to wear skimpy clothes specifically in order to attract the young male demographic.

My proposed supertrope for fanservice-heavy shows would not just be "shows with lots of fanservice", but "shows where fanservice is a selling point" - a generalization of jiggle shows to other eras and other kinds of fanservice than jiggling.

Edited by GnomeTitan on Jan 31st 2023 at 3:16:55 PM

"shows where fanservice is a selling point" <- this is the definition of fanservice; you include gratuitous slow mo and panty shots as titillation to get people watching. I realise your idea isn't about one instance of fanservice, but consistent and persistent fanservice. However, again, increasing the degree to which a trope shows up doesn't make it a wholly different trope.

Moreover, unless we have Word of God to verify the intention, how can we delineate between a jiggle show and a show with a lot of fanservice in it? Or a show with a big male Periphery Demographic because the show includes sexual content/fanservice that appeals to them? Would fanservice-y anime count?

I think you're missing one crucial point: there's a difference between

1. Fanservice as the trope is currently written. 2. Shows with persistent fanservice.

One is something that happens within a show (not really a trope, because fanservice isn't a narrative device).

The other is a category of shows.

It's like the difference between a show where one character is a detective and a detective show. The first is (or at least can be) a trope. The second is a genre.

Now, you could argue that if there's enough fanservice, the show will become a jiggle show. That's probably true. But that doesn't make jiggle shwo and fasnervice redundant with each other, because they are different kinds of concepts.

You're making some good points in the rest of the arguments. However, I think this is mostly relevant if we were to introduce a new supertrope, and this discussion should concentrate on what to do about the existing Jiggle Show page.

Edited by GnomeTitan on Jan 31st 2023 at 6:35:33 PM

To try to bring this discussion back on track: my proposal is to limit the existing Jiggle Show trope page to be about the 1970s phenomenon that exists outside of TVT.

But if we do that, will there be enough examples to warrant a trope page? Or should we make it definition-only? Or perhaps an index of the shows commonly listed as jiggle television?

If we limit the definition, I have a feeling that putting Jiggle Show on the show's trope list would be rather pointless. Any concrete examples could go under Fanservice or Vapour Wear, and the fact that critics of the day categorized the show as a jiggle show would be trivia, wouldn't it?

Edited by GnomeTitan on Jan 31st 2023 at 6:16:02 PM

I agree with those who said this isn't Too Rare to Trope. If people think it should be added to the Discredited Trope index, we can do that, though.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

"The analogy is imperfect because fanservice isn't a trope and jiggle shows isn't a genre, but I think it's close enough to show my point."

It's not. To be honest, this comment is pretty confusing because it both calls jiggle show a genre and then doesn't, but that's also kind of the point I made earlier as to why Jiggle Show at best is an industry term worthy of a Def Only page and not a trope in its own right. It's not really a genre since the main conceit seems to be "any work created with fanservice as the primary factor"; unlike with genres which have a slew of conventions and tropes to go along with telling a mystery, Jiggle Show quite literally is just the one and therefore as a trope, it's functionally the same as fanservice.

Thus my suggestion for the current Jiggle Show page: Def Only.

Edited by amathieu13 on Jan 31st 2023 at 12:36:06 PM

I agree that it's not a genre.

And, as I wrote above, I can support making it def-only. That would, if nothing else, stop people from putting examples on work pages arguing that a work is or isn't a jiggle show.

Definition-only would work if we don't keep examples. I'm against getting rid of the page entirely per what was said about it being a preexisting term.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Sounds good. I can see it getting the treatment Stuffed into the Fridge did — it was also a term coined in response to existing works and caused a lot of arguments about its scope and which works fit.