movies/tv What Is Your Definition Of "Jumping The Shark?"

[Pony Of The Month 534]

I'm not sure if I came up with a good title, but what I wanted to title this would have been too long. What I'm asking is what kind of direction does a show have to go in order for you to say that it has jumped the shark? What is considered good and what is considered bad? How many consecutively bad episodes will you watch before you drop the show completely? Do you welcome change, or do you want your show to stay the same every season? Did the show really decline in quality, or do you just have a Nostalgia Filter? What shows do you think jumped the shark and why?

 

For me, the only show I can say that has truly jumped the shark in my opinion is Fairly OddParents. Inevitably someone's going to say "You forgot Spongebob!" but I haven't seen any of the recent episodes, so I can't say anything about that. 

 

So why do I think Fairly OddParents jumped the shark? Is it because of poof? No, but that's when it happened. You see, Poof isn't my problem. My problem is that I feel like they ran out of ideas, and created Poof as a plot device. I don't hate Poof, but he's only there because they ran low on ideas. 

 

Even before Poof, the show's humor had started to decline. There used to be brilliant humor, and now every episode is full of stupid running gags. To be fair, the older episodes had a lot of running gags, but at least they were funny.

 

There are other cartoons that have been accused of Jumping The Shark for similar reasons. I can't remember much of it, but once Dil was introduced to Rugrats, that's when people say it jumped the shark. Honestly, the only thing I remember about Dil was The Rugrats Movie which is one of my favorite animated movies of all time. I can't say I hate Dil, considering that he was a big role in one of my favorite movies.

 

People also say that Powerpuff Girls jumped the shark during their 5th and 6th seasons. I don't agree, but I can't argue with them either. Season 5 was the weakest and Season 6 was the second weakest. But I'm not just going to say the show Jumped The Shark. But I am a very forgiving person. I even forgave them for that awful garbage known as "Toast Of The Town." Seriously, if you've never seen Powerpuff Girls, don't watch Toast Of The Town. Watch something from the first 4 seasons first.

 

So, that's all I have to say about Shark Jumping. What do you have to say?

[Bardock 139]

Dragon Ball GT is the definition of jumping the shark. Good thing it doesn't exist.

 

What? I'm in denial? No I'm not. You're in denial. Shut up.

[Sir.Flutter Hooves 2,953]

My definition of jumping the shark is when a show looses it's original magic. One example is Spongebob.

 

I remember when Spongebob use to crack me up, leave me in stitches, but after the movie it lost it's original humor, the charm that made that little yellow sponge part of your family. 

 

My definition is when a show runs for to long, and eventually starts recycling their old ideas. 

 

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[TheTEChguy27 273]

SpongeBob SquarePants after the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie back in 2004. It all just kind of went downhill from there, partially due to the fact that the creator of the show, Stephen Hillenburg, left the studio after the movie was made.

 

That's what I call jumping the sponge shark.

[Sugar Cube 4,843]

SpongeBob is the best example I can think of. The first three seasons were very clever and funny, but after the movie it all went downhill. From season 4 on the show lost all of what made it so funny and well-written, and I believe that's because creator Derek Drymon stepped down and left the show completely. From then on the show went from one of the best cartoons down to one of the worst. To this day I will only watch SpongeBob episodes if they're from the first three seasons. I refuse to watch anything after that. The jokes are horrible and there is no clever writing or wit to it anymore. The appeal has been shot down entirely. Just compare season 1-3 with seasons 4-9. The difference in quality is colossal.

 

Friendship is Magic fans should count their blessings that when Faust left, the show stayed as good as it has been. It could have taken the same dive as SpongeBob did when Drymon left, but it hasn't. I'm so glad the writers in charge of MLP know what they are doing, because the people who work on SpongeBob have no idea.

 

 

[Sir.Flutter Hooves 2,953]

 

To this day I will only watch SpongeBob episodes if they're from the first three seasons. I refuse to watch anything after that. The jokes are horrible and there is no clever writing or wit to it anymore. The appeal has been shot down entirely. Just compare season 1-3 with seasons 4-9. The difference in quality is colossal.

 

I could not agree more. Those are the only episodes I watch, and nick barely shows those anymore. All nick is the wash-up great cartoon channel used to be filled with teen dramas. 

[TomokoKuroki 1,707]

I've never heard of this term, but i am guessing it is pretty much the exact same phrase as "Jumping the gun". In that case, a show that "jumped the shark" for me was Inuyasha, Hellsing until Ultimate came out( that was a godsend), and pokemon/digimon. They just lost their magic as either I got older, or as they progressed. DBZ for me lost it's luster for me as it was always just a big fight, and very lackluster in terms of story.

 

my 2 cents have been thrown ~Desu.

[Fhaolan 4,468]

Actually I still think the original 'Jumping the Shark' show, Happy Days, had the most obvious one. And funnily enough *not* the episode that gave the trope it's name. For a sitcom about a relatively realistic 1950's America, having episodes all about a space alien wandering around (Mork) was the clincher for me.

 

@Hayzelestia, so you know 'Jumping the Shark' normally means a show that due to declining interest the writers throw something ludicrous in, as a desperate attempt to get people to watch again. It's named after a scene in an old sitcom Happy Days where one of the main character literally jumps over a shark when waterskiing. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JumpingTheShark

[TomokoKuroki 1,707]

Actually I still think the original 'Jumping the Shark' show, Happy Days, had the most obvious one. And funnily enough *not* the episode that gave the trope it's name. For a sitcom about a relatively realistic 1950's America, having episodes all about a space alien wandering around (Mork) was the clincher for me.

 

@Hayzelestia, so you know 'Jumping the Shark' normally means a show that due to declining interest the writers throw something ludicrous in, as a desperate attempt to get people to watch again. It's named after a scene in an old sitcom Happy Days where one of the main character literally jumps over a shark when waterskiing. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JumpingTheShark

 

 

Ah well there goes my ignorance... ~.~. They sound the same so i figured it was just different ways of people saying the same message. disregard what I said. My bad.

[Dzastur 1,719]

When I personally think of the term, I think of the following shows and circumstances (other than Happy Days...)

 

*When Scrappy Doo showed up in Scooby Doo

 

*When the Connors won the lottery in Roseanne

 

*The arrival of Seven in Married...With Children

[Shanks 10,811]

I think that jumping the shark means that the show is starting to or has already lost what made it good in the first place. This can happen slowly over time as has happened with The Simpsons due to simply running out of ideas and things getting stale, it can happen as it did with Spongebob when the creator stepped down and everything that was good about the show is flushed down the crapper. Or it can happen when a major character/characters is turned into a Mary Sue, which we see quite often in a lot of in shows geared toward teens and little girls though in most cases these days most of the characters in those shows were already Mary Sues and Gary Stus from the start so that can't really be considered jumping the shark when they have already jumped over the moon.

 

In the case of MLP there is a 50/50 chance this could happen due to Twilight Sparkle's transformation both because it is way too soon and the half assed way it has been handled so far which puts Twilight a bit close to Mary Sue/wish fulfillment for my tastes. The good news is that since there is far more we know than don't know that the odds of this working out are pretty good they already turned Wysteria from G3 into a Mary Sue and well that generation didn't exact go over very well for them and I think they may remember that.

[Neptunebyte 22]

Dragon Ball GT is the definition of jumping the shark. Good thing it doesn't exist.

 

What? I'm in denial? No I'm not. You're in denial. Shut up.

I agree, I loved Dragonball Z but I hated Dragonball GT.

 

The whole thing seemed like it was filler, the some of the already overpowered characters became even more powerful, and Goku became the only useful character as others became really weak.

[Wingnut 6,738]

Does anybody else remember a website dedicated to Jumping the Shark called jumptheshark(dot)com?  Sadly, it went kaput about five years ago.  But it had an article on virtually any significant TV series.  People could vote on what they thought contributed to each program's downfall.  Then they could leave comments too.  This site was the bomb!  Would that info still be saved on a cache or webcrawler somewhere? 

 

I'd love to see this site revived but, if it hasn't happened by now, it ain't gonna happen. 

[shocker1991 32]

Spongebob is probably the best example I can think of for jumping the shark. After the movie, the new writers dumbed everything down.

 

The characters are now extremely bland. Spongebob and Patrick are complete morons in a bad way, squidward only uses his bored expression, mr krabs has been consumed by his love for money and sandy no longer appears that often. however, when she does appear, there is a 99.9% chance her science interest will be used. By getting rid of her interest in karate, they have removed a huge chunk of her character.

 

Another problem is the repetitive nature of the episode plots. I personally feel there are too many episodes involving Spongebob working at the Krusty Krab, annoying squidward and plankton trying to run the Krusty Krab out of business.

 

I don't think change is necessarily a bad thing but it depends on how the change is handled. When the Smurflings were introduced in season 5 of the Smurfs, I began to lose interest because I felt there were too many episodes focusing on the Smurflings and the adult smurfs were reduced to the roles of babysitters. The episodes I enjoy from seasons 5 to 9 don't have the Smurflings in them at all.