In 1985, one Sean J. Connolly coined the phrase “jump the shark”,
which his friend John Hein would use as the name of his web site 12
years later. For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with your pop
culture, here’s the definintion of “jump the shark”, taken from the
site:
Q. What is jumping the shark?
A. 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.
“Jumping the shark” comes from the fifth-season episode of Happy Days
in which the Fonz accepts a challenge from a rival to waterski-jump
over a shark. The rival chickens out at the last minutes, but the Fonz
is too cool to win by forfeit and makes the jump anyway. I have vague
memories of this episode (remember, this was September 1977 and I was
9) but I understand how “jumping the shark” became synonymous from
“it’s all downhill from here.”
If you’ve never seen the “jumping the shark” moment, you’re in luck:
someone recently posted it in Windows Media format [2.5 MB, enclosure],
and it’s even cheesier than I remember. Especially since the Fonz does the jump wearing his stolen-from-Brando trademark leather jacket/white T-shirt combo.
