Jumping the Shark
Have you ever heard of the phrase “jumping the shark”? Actually it’s a metaphor when a television series has passed its climax or peak, and after that everything is going down hill, quality wise.
The phrase was taken from a scene off the classic comedy “Happy Days” which had Fonzie jumping over a shark on his water-ski.
In the famously misguided episode, the character of Arthur Fonzarelli, played by Henry Winkler, takes waterskiing lessons and ends up jumping over a shark. Many television fans feel that after Fonzie jumped over the shark, the show had obviously hit rock bottom and the rest of the episodes were just a matter of passing time until “Happy Days” was canceled by the network [source]
The site jumptheshark.com discusses this trend. According to the site, there are many ways a show can jump, either by replacing actors but playing the same characters, death to a character, marriage or even main characters making out.
I think the term can also be referred to artist/singers, sometimes after they released a compilation of “best of”, what comes from them after that will be like, without much goodness anymore. Some lah, not all. Anyone remembers Michael Learns To Rock?
What about Britney Spears? I think she jumped the shark after her marriage to K-Fed.
August 10th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Looks like the local kids show ‘Cumi dan Ciki’ jumped the shark too I guess..?
August 10th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Doom to Smallville!