Jumping the Shark

[Lammycat]

Fonzie jumping the shark in that episode meant the show had turned for the worse. This has always been my understanding of the phrase.

[bigshoulders]

Is that "Booger" from Revenge of the Nerds?

Classic.

[JUDE]

"too sensitive for the internet"

[cryptique]

who cares how it is used. Jesus Christ! this thread may be the best of the day, but damn it's like the playground in 2nd grade when some kid doesn't now what the middle finger means and the rest of the kids give 'em shit about it all day. the punchline is that nobody knows what the finger means. just like anyone can use the god damned phrase 'jump the shark' any way just to make a point. Damn people.

 

it never ceases to amaze me how people just project their shadows on the web. face to face would probably be a different story.

Good bit.

[Synthesizer Patel]

Fonzie jumping the shark in that episode meant the show had turned for the worse. This has always been my understanding of the phrase.

 

yeah, that is right. but, i personally think the fonz jumping the shark was a logical step forward for the character, he couldn't stay in the garage all his life now, could he? what else was he to do? i actually think i've seen the episode on tv once before but can't remember how or why he had to jump it - was it a bet, and were they all on holiday or something? i'm sure i've seen an episode where he's supposed to jump something on his bike, but pulls out at the end - saying it's stupid. if only he'd seen what was to come!

[Moe_Syzlak]

Is it only me or has the expression "jump the shark" jumped the shark?

[m_thomp]

if only he'd seen what was to come!

 

 

What? This thread?

[Synthesizer Patel]

What? This thread?

 

no. silly. if he thought that jumping stuff on his bike was stupid, then deep down he must have been appalled at the stupidity involved in jumping a shark in some kind of makeshift water fishing-net-prison. if he'd seen into the future that first time, maybe he'd have jumped the cars, or bus, or the diner, whatever it was - i can't remember.

[Central Scrutinizer]

Louis: You guys are snobs.

Dick: No, we're not.

Louis: Yeah, seriously, you're totally elitist. You feel like the unappreciated scholars, so you shit onto people who know lesser than you.

Rob, Barry, Dick: No!

Louis: Which is everybody...

Rob, Barry, Dick: Yeah...

Louis: That's so sad.

[mpolak21]

 

Henry Winkler also jumped over a shark in an Arrested Development episode on his way to Burger King.

 

--Mike

[EL the Famous]

who cares how it is used. Jesus Christ! this thread may be the best of the day, but damn it's like the playground in 2nd grade when some kid doesn't now what the middle finger means and the rest of the kids give 'em shit about it all day. the punchline is that nobody knows what the finger means. just like anyone can use the god damned phrase 'jump the shark' any way just to make a point. Damn people.

 

it never ceases to amaze me how people just project their shadows on the web. face to face would probably be a different story.

 

do you know what the middle finger means or can we help w/ that too? let me know and we can meet up at a chipotle or wilco show or something.

[m_thomp]

no. silly. if he thought that jumping stuff on his bike was stupid, then deep down he must have been appalled at the stupidity involved in jumping a shark in some kind of makeshift water fishing-net-prison. if he'd seen into the future that first time, maybe he'd have jumped the cars, or bus, or the diner, whatever it was - i can't remember.

 

Forgive me. I was lulled into thinking he was your usual prescient prophecy-spouting Italian-American 50s throwback.

 

Maybe, and this is purely speculation on my part so stick with this, Fonz's values in life are inversely proportional to that of any sane person? Therefore what he thinks is good is, to the layperson, invariably bad. This explains why he thought jumping Arnold's on his motorbike, dressing his age, etc as being bad, but waterskiing over sea creatures, punching jukeboxes and saying, "Sit on it!" (instead of the vastly superior "Swivel!") was thought of as being cool.

 

I look forward to him giving a double thumbs-up to the next Ben Affleck film.

[MrRain422]

who cares how it is used. Jesus Christ! this thread may be the best of the day, but damn it's like the playground in 2nd grade when some kid doesn't now what the middle finger means and the rest of the kids give 'em shit about it all day. the punchline is that nobody knows what the finger means. just like anyone can use the god damned phrase 'jump the shark' any way just to make a point. Damn people.

 

it never ceases to amaze me how people just project their shadows on the web. face to face would probably be a different story.

 

I guess. But it's also pretty hard to have any sort of conversation of people can just throw around phrases that have a specific meaning as if they mean something else entirely. Communication would be pretty difficult if everyone is just sort of making up their own definitions as they go along. You can use a phrase any way that you want, but if you're using it to mean something different from what the rest of the world understands it to mean, you're inevitably going to run into a little bit of confusion if nothing else.

[EL the Famous]

it is it just me, or has law & order SVU really 'passed the dutchie from the left hand side' this season?

[Synthesizer Patel]

Forgive me. I was lulled into thinking he was your usual prescient prophecy-spouting Italian-American 50s throwback.

 

Maybe, and this is purely speculation on my part so stick with this, Fonz's values in life are inversely proportional to that of any sane person? Therefore what he thinks is good is, to the layperson, invariably bad. This explains why he thought jumping Arnold's on his motorbike, dressing his age, etc as being bad, but waterskiing over sea creatures, punching jukeboxes and saying, "Sit on it!" (instead of the vastly superior "Swivel!") was thought of as being cool.

 

I look forward to him giving a double thumbs-up to the next Ben Affleck film.

 

turns out i made up a lot of the episode. i think it was this one, maybe:

 

Fearless Fonzarelli (Part 1-2)

Worried that he's losing his cool, Fonzie tries to jump 14 garbage cans on his motorcycle. His jump is successful, but he crashes his bike upon reentry. The Cunninghams take him home but their attentive pampering hinders his recuperation.

 

i think maybe at the end of the first part he backed out, but then in part 2 jumps it. or else i'm talking bollocks again.

[Synthesizer Patel]

it is it just me, or has law & order SVU really 'passed the dutchie from the left hand side' this season?

 

this is very interesting you say this. because the whole jumping the shark idea is a joke i'm using for a medieval thing i'm working on (don't really want to explain), the joke is that the main character must "jump the lark" - instead of the shark - for a bet because he's become a knight, but the other knights believe him to be useless, and he wants to prove his worth. but, also another joke is that there is a duchy (a duchy is an area of land owned by a duke or duchess) where the law is that travels may only pass it 'pon de left hand side.

 

just funny that those two random things can be mentioned in the same thread.

[Guest Moses]

this could have been a great thread and i still have hope for it. why don't we just stopping being or calling people assholes and talk television?

 

i think Californication definitely took a turn for the worse in the season one finale when hank's ex (can't remember her name) left bill for hank. part of what was making that show so great was their interactions as exes. i haven't actually watched more than a couple episodes of the second season just because i don't have showtime, but after season one, i had no desire to.

 

and for me, no show has ever jumped the shark quite as drastically as Six Feet Under. the first three seasons were just absolute money, the fourth was a little off but still good. the fifth absolutely bit. from start to finish. a terrible, awful, shitty end to a show that i was so invested in.

[austrya]

This thread reminds me of 6th grade when a girl in my class asked me if I knew what a blow job was. I didn't know, but I told her if she didn't know, she was stupid and I walked away.

[EL the Famous]

This thread reminds me of 6th grade when a girl in my class asked me if I knew what a blow job was. I didn't know, but I told her if she didn't know, she was stupid and I walked away.

 

do you know what the phrase 'blow job' means or can we help w/ that too? let me know and we can meet up at a chipotle or wilco show or something.

[austrya]

do you know what the phrase 'blow job' means or can we help w/ that too? let me know and we can meet up at a chipotle or wilco show or something.

 

You're stupid...

 

(I'm walking away from the computer now)

[EL the Famous]

[cryptique]

and for me, no show has ever jumped the shark quite as drastically as Six Feet Under. the first three seasons were just absolute money, the fourth was a little off but still good. the fifth absolutely bit. from start to finish. a terrible, awful, shitty end to a show that i was so invested in.

I agree, but I thought it went south way earlier than that. We loved the first season, but by the middle of the third season we just didn't care about any of the characters anymore. We never even started the fourth season. (Your post was the first time I'd heard that there even was a fifth season.)

 

That said, these days I watch both Dexter and Dirty Sexy Money, so I still keep up with the Fischer brothers.

[kamera]

You keep using that phrase..... "I jumped the shark". I do not think it means what you think it means.

 

 

 

[Lammycat]

I gave up on Heroes 3/4 of the way through last year, yet I have the last few episodes from then, as well as all from this season, dvr'd. I still haven't watched them but can neither bring myself to erase them or to sit through them. I call it "Hero Purgatory."

[kamera]