#Jump the shark how to
#Jump the shark tv

#Jump the shark tv

Many say that the website itself jumped the shark when it was bought out by TV Guide in the early 2000s. In the late ’90s, Heim made a “” website listing hundreds of shows and their own shark-jumping moments.Ī: Well, actually no. They coined the act of “jumping the shark” as being the moment when you as a viewer knew that things would never be the same. Q: So when did the phrase “jumping the shark” become a thing?Ī: The idiom was first used in 1985 by two University of Michigan roommates, Jon Heim and Sean Connolly, when talking about TV shows that had gone downhill.

Q Then HOW exactly was this a “jumping the shark moment” then?Ī: Well, because he jumped a shark! The original jumping of the shark that resulted in the idiom was not related to a ratings slump at all, but it still broke with the usual tone of the show by being designed simply to show off Fonzie actor Henry Winkler’s real-life water-skiing skills. The ratings of Happy Days continued to be excellent, only dipping in the final year some six years later. Q: So then it must have been the stunt that sparked a decline in ratings then?Ī: Um, again, no. Q: So it was a stunt performed due to the show declining in ratings?Ī: No, the ratings were huge for Happy Days throughout the ’70s – with more than 31 million people watching that particular season. Q: Am I right in guessing this wasn’t a normal storyline? And one of these special episodes had popular character Fonzie water-skiing over a shark while still wearing his trademark leather jacket. Q: Still not getting the shark reference.Ī: It happened at the start of its fifth season in 1977, when the show – usually set in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – went to Hollywood. Q: Don’t get all nostalgic on me – we know things aren’t great right now but…Ī: No, from the TV sitcom Happy Days, which was set in the ’50s and ’60s and was huge during the 1970s and early ’80s. This is also called the “jumping the shark moment”. If something has “jumped the shark” it tends to refer to something or someone that has peaked and is now in a decline in terms of popularity.Ī: But it can also refer to the act of doing something outlandish, out of character or gimmicky – often either in response to a declining popularity or the very thing that sparks that decline. It kind of means two things but both are related.

Q: No, usually about TV shows or bands or celebrities.Ī: Ah yep. Q: Hi AWC, where did the phrase “jump the shark” come from? I hear it a lot. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness.

#Jump the shark how to

How to Build a Successful Freelance Copywriting BusinessĮach week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness.