Jumping the shark

"Jump the shark" redirects here. For the episode of The X-Files, see Jump the Shark (The X-Files). For the Supernatural episode, see Jump the Shark (Supernatural).

Fonzie on water skis, in a scene from the Happy Days episode "Hollywood, Part Three of Three," after literally jumping over a shark

Jumping the shark is an idiom, first employed to describe a moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality that is beyond recovery.

In its initial usage, it referred to the point in a television program's history where it has "outlived its freshness" where viewers feel "the writers have run out of ideas" and that "the series has [lost] what made it attractive." These changes were often the result of efforts to revive interest in a show whose audience had begun to decline.

The usage of "jump the shark" has subsequently broadened beyond television, indicating the moment in its evolution when a brand, design, or creative effort moves beyond the essential qualities that initially defined its success, beyond relevance or recovery.

In late 2011, 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair reported that 83% of poll respondents didn't know what the phrase meant, and 9% felt the phrase itself had 'jumped the shark.'

History

The phrase jump the shark comes from a scene in the fifth season premiere episode of the American TV series Happy Days titled "Hollywood: Part 3," written by Fred Fox, Jr., and aired on September 20, 1977. In the episode, the central characters visit Los Angeles, where a water-skiing Fonzie (Henry Winkler), wearing swim trunks and his leather jacket, jumps over a confined shark, answering a challenge to demonstrate his bravery. The series continued for nearly seven years after that, with a number of changes in cast and situations.

Jon Hein, creator of the now-defunct website jumpTheShark.com, explained the concept as follows: "It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it 'Jumping the Shark.' From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same."

In a 2010 Los Angeles Times article, former Happy Days writer Fred Fox Jr., who wrote the episode that later spawned the phrase, said, "Was the [shark jump] episode of Happy Days deserving of its fate? No, it wasn't. All successful shows eventually start to decline, but this was not Happy Days' time." Fox also points to not only the success of the episode itself ("a huge hit" with over 30 million viewers), but also to the continued popularity of the series.

Broader usage

As an example of the idiomatic usage of the phrase "jump the shark" in a broader context, Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive journalist Dan Neil used the expression to describe the Mini Countryman, a much larger and less nimble evolution of the previously small and aptly named cars marketed by Mini. The Countryman, in Neil's opinion, absurdly forsakes the ethos, the essential quality, the inner logic that made the brand successful in the first place: excellent handling in a nimble size. In a March 2011 review titled "What Part of 'Mini' Did You Not Grasp, BMW?", Neil wrote "with the Countryman, tiny sharks have been jumped."

Similarly, in 2008 during the Obama presidential campaign, at a meeting of Democratic governors in Chicago, each governor was identified with a name plate while Senator Obama had a large seal – that looked official but was not. The New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Rich wrote "For me, Mr. Obama showed signs of jumping the shark two weeks back, when he appeared at a podium affixed with his own pompous faux-presidential seal".

In September 2011, after Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann repeated an anecdote shared with her that the HPV vaccine causes "mental retardation", conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh said "Michele Bachmann, she might have blown it today. Well, not blown it – she might have jumped the shark today."

The idiom has been used to describe a wide range of situations, ranging from the state of advertising in the digital video recorder era, views on rural education policy, and the anomalous pursuit of a company acquisition.