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Although I've always know the phenomenon, I've never known this phrase until recently.

"Jumping the Shark" is a term derived from Happy Days, when, after 5 seasons, the show started stooping to having Fonzie jumps sharks on waterskis when the ratings of the show began to decline. The term has come to mean any major deviation from the formula of a tv show, film franchise, or genre/sub-genre of tv or film that occurs when it is losing momentum to try and jump-start interest, more often than not leading to ridicule and the death of that show/film/genre. A tv example would be "The Cousin Oliver Syndrome" when The Brady Bunch added a child cast member when the rest of the cast were either moving out of or well out of adolescence. Film franchises almost inevitably "jump the shark."  My current favorite "shark jumping" in current events is the vampire sub-genre, that has gotten so far off topic from the founding horror sub-genre as to be nearly unrecognizable except for the fangs.

So, let's hear it, what are some of your favorite "shark jumpings?" T.V., film, whatever. I hope to foster this most apt phrase into the badmovies.org lexicon immediately, and hope to see it used regularly, as it can easily fit into at least 25% of all threads.

hehe I remember seeing the Fonze jumping the sharks (I think it was a 2 part show) although, I'd seen it on a rerun when I was 11, 12 or 13... (between 1981 to 1983)


hehe... I actually thought it was called something like "Give the couple a baby." Best example (the most famous one) Murphy Brown the show was failing and Zoom! Bam! Boom! gess what producers did to jump start it (Murphy Brown becomes a mother) It becomes famous when Dan Quayle attacks the show about family values (Sorry Dan although I do understand your point it was your attack that actually 'double' jump-started the 'dead' show.)


Other examples of baby boomers...

The Flintstones (Pebbles/Bamm-Bamm) oddly I dont recall much of a use of the Flentstones babies besides seeing their dad's alien friend.

Scrappy-Doo... Ok, I'm not sure who was the mastermind of Scrappy-Doo but I actually think the super pup killed the series, I really hated how Hanna-Barbera kept pushing the pup and I made every effort to watch pre-Scrappy-Doo episodes, until Hanna-Barbera tossed in Vincent Price and some Hip Hop Kid (It peeked my interest for 1 show, only to find out that the Hip Hop Kid and Scrappy-Doo are the most annoying cartoon characters I had ever, ever seen.)


Mork and Mindy had a baby too...

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/3154784037_fd2a6ab86b.jpg)

Although, I think it was a parody towards the baby boom idea (or jump the sharks)

Mork and Mindy! That's a great example. And the "baby" was Jonathan Winters. "Jumping the Shark" often employs taking a series into ridiculous directions because the formula has run it's course and the writing has become stagnant. Straying away from the formula is the nail in the coffin. Series rarely survive it. There have been exceptions, though. I mean, how many years did Happy Days remain on the air after that? Quite a few years. Or how about M*A*S*H? Once Alan Alda got behind the camera and the show got all serious and preachy, the show still managed to keep chugging a few more seasons.

Other ways of "jumping the shark:"

Addition of a baby (due to pregnant cast member).
Two cast members finally "doing it," getting rid of the sexual tension that made the show work.
Changing of writers or directors. This is big with film franchises.

When an aging actor,not able to pull in the crowds like he/she used to, makes a buddy flick with a much younger actor. They usually suck and all follow the same formula. Grouchy older guy, young know it all in over his head guy and they teach each other about life... or something like that.   :teddyr:  

Very nice, 3mnkids. Just goes to show that "jumping the shark" can certainly apply to an individual actor. How about some examples? I can think of one off the top of my head. Dennis Quaid (In Good Company) comes to mind, but I have a feeling you have better examples.

King of the Hill jumped the shark when they added the awful character Lucky.

The entire last season of Roseanne was one gigantic shark jump.

Sounds like: Moonlighting (I'm not quite sure when it happen because I lost intrest in the series but it seemed that the story all fell apart after the two lead characters scored... or... after Bruce Willis made $$ for Die Hard)



Amazing turn arounds... Roseanne wins the lotto, I think. I'd never like the tv series but I do recall hearing something about this towards the ending series (maybe it was to explain her getting plastic surgery and liposuction)

Franchise example: Saw

I liked the first one, it was something new in the horror world and worked well. The second one I liked a little less, and the third just a little bit less again, but still thought the franchise was pretty solid. Then, just when the franchise could have died a dignified death and left a good-looking corpse, the franchise jumped seas of great whites.

Indiana Jones Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Hollywood homicide
Ford has jumped the shark a couple of times..

Men In black

48 hours

Live free die hard  
I know there are more but Im drawing a blank right now.. :teddyr:  

law and order when they started focusing exclusively on ripped from the headlines plots.  and general wear and tear on the scooby doo nature of the big reveals at the end

Thanks. Roger that on Harrison Ford. Hear you loud and clear. All the more reason to applaud those that have resisted the urge to jump the shark, like Clint Eastwood. And don't you bring up Every Which Way But Loose, or Clint will personally shoot you in the face with a vintage M1.

To expand on that, it's not just old guy with younger guy protege, but pairing an established stereotyped actor with their diametric opposite, as in Arnold Swarzenegger and Danny DeVito (Twins). That's a gag that works for about ten minutes, then the movie needs some serious writing to take it any further. In that case, it didn't.

I've been a big fan of The Simpsons, but ever since I got into college years ago, in the early 00's, I just stopped watching.  They jumped the shark by simply refusing to end when they ran out of ideas.  Is it even still on the air?  That's how much I've lost touch with it. I mostly watch Family Guy now, because for all of its juvenile silliness, they still manage to win me over with some original thinking smooshed in.  

From what I see, The Simpsons today has none of the originality of the older episodes, the characters don't evolve anymore, Homer is always at the center of everything, and they seem to rely completely on celebrity guest voices, and plots that always end with everything back the way it was by the end of the episode.  

And the movie...don't even get me started about the movie.  

They created a new phrase for that one...
"Nuking the Fridge" or "Nuke the Fridge"
From the scene when Indiana Jones saves himself from a thermonuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator.

That phrase is used whenever a movie or TV show goes WAAAAAY overboard.

That's true. I haven't watched the Simpsons in years, and I too am a big fan of Family Guy. That's a show that sticks to the staples that make it work, yet the characters have also evolved. Cleveland got divorced. Peter has gone from working at a toy factory assembly line to being a self-employed fisherman to, doesn't he work for a beer company now? The show has flirted with jumping the shark from time to time, but always seems to pull back at the last minute. I just picked up Volume 7 recently and the show still rocks.

I could be wrong... but I remember hearing that Michael Jackson co-owned the Simpsons for years and kept it around to milk its success (that and the Beatles) if thats true then I dont expect the Simpsons to end anytime (since the Jackson family is milking Michael's death)

As an avid fanboy of The Simpsons (I started watching since Season 9), I haven't noticed any jumping the shark.  Maybe with killing Maude off, but that's a whole different debate.  I always dislike it when people say that the episodes have no originality today.  They obviously haven't seen a lot of the show recently.  I like to see you say that after watching Gone Maggie Gone, The Enternal Moonshine of a Simpson Mind, and Dial N for Nerder.

Also, I'm fed up with people saying Season 8 is the greatest and Homer's Enemy is the best episode around.  They are all overhyped and Homer's Enemy was really unsettling and bothersome.  Anyways, that's a whole another debate.

Also, as for jumping the shark, I never noticed this sort of thing with any show.  Either I'm not observant or I just don't give a crap.

The Sopranos seriously jumped when they killed off Ralphie.  It gave way to a barrage of big name actors playing mediocre, boring characters. 

Price Is Right jumped when they hired Drew Carey.

GI Joe the cartoon jumped with Arise Serpentor Arise.

That might explain a lot. I've always maintained that the show started sliding before Season 9.

I do agree that Homer's Enemy wasn't a great episode. It had its funny moments, but it had all of the problems that just continued to get worse over the following seasons. Homer was completely clueless, characters behaved uncharacteristically if it suited the story, and it was maybe just a bit too far removed from reality to be good satire, not to mention the whole situation feeling forced.

Uhmmm...I hate to sound like a jerk, but this is an old phrase that's had it's run in popular culture.  It even had a book.
http://www.amazon.com/Jump-Shark-Jon-Hein/dp/0452284104 (http://www.amazon.com/Jump-Shark-Jon-Hein/dp/0452284104)
From what I understand, the original website for jumptheshark was sold to tv guide channel, and now serves more as an promotional site.

But to add to the discussion, my favorite JTS is in the first episode of Criminal Minds because I can pinpoint the exact moment in time it happened.

The two investigators are trying to figure out what the password to the criminal's computer was.  The criminal can't sleep and likes Metallica.
The one says  What would an insominatic Metallica fan use as a password?
The other one says: "Enter-Sandman".

I heard eveyone who got the reference let out a groan after that.

The jump the shark incident I can think of is the last season of the A-Team when the guys went to work for Robert Vaughn. Plus they added the got rid of the girl and added some guy to help them out.

Married With Children - when they added that horrifically unfunny kid named Seven to the show.  I'd actually say it jumped when Al founded No Ma'am, as it was out of character for the show and I never found that stuff funny either.  It soldiered on for quite a while after that with an occasionally good episode, but for the most part it was done.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - at the beginning of season 2 they ruined everything about that show.  Made it into some sort of children's show.

Star Trek Voyager - when they added the Borg children to the cast.

Babylon 5 - at the end of the fourth season, they thought the show was going to be canceled, so they tied up all the plot threads and pretty much ended the show.  But then it got renewed for a fifth season.  They added a new character who was seemingly patterned after Janeway on Voyager, and they basically didn't have any (interesting) story left to tell.

For me, it was an earlier episode. Can't remember the details, but it had one of the trademark building montages in which they went to a good deal of trouble to armour plate a truck. Then they used it to crash trough a wall and escape. I mean that's all they used it for. They crashed through the wall, got out and mopped up the bad guys without it. I knew it was all downhill from there. The best part of the show was when they'd go on the attack with improvised weapons and have a big action scene. Then we got more and more episodes in which the climax was just more random machine gun fire. I see the last season as a desperate attempt to save a show that was already a goner.

Uhmmm...I hate to sound like a jerk, but this is an old phrase that's had it's run in popular culture.  It even had a book.

[/quote]

Well then, since it's run it's course, allow me to bring it back. I shall also do my best to revive:

"Where's the Beef."
"You look maaahvelous."

Also, The Simpsons? Why is this show still alive? It's gone way past it's capacity to die a dignified death. I've honestly tried to watch it. Boring, not funny, no longer relevant, nor irreverent enough to keep my attention. Family Guy rules!

HEHE... I wouldnt call that Jump the Shark... I'd call it silly script writing :)

If Married With Children did jump the shark... Peg would have a JOB... hehe :)


I recall hearing a few housewives (with nothing better to do) wanted to ban the show because they said 'the content was bad for their children' and the complaint got more people into watching Married with Children... So naturally Fox push more 'anti-feminist content' on Married with Children which actually made the show funnier. No Ma'am was another rehashing of the same old joke (like most good shows they sometimes end up repeating themselves)

[I place Married With Children at the same sitcom level as The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy]



Was it the second season or 3rd (if they had a 3rd) that Buck Rogers was playing 'Star Trek' It seemed that way since they were in space.

I remember liking the space vampire episode and the one with the 9 generals and a privite... :)

Yeah, they just had 2 seasons.  In the second one they were in a spaceship and they put Wilma in a little sailer outfit  :teddyr:  The 9 generals and 1 private - all midgets - was of course from season 2.

Saved By The Bell jumped when Jessie got hooked on caffeine pills.   :buggedout:  Actually I always hated this show but I'd say it went downhill after this episode.

I hate to say it but Hell's Kitchen mildly jumped the shark last season.  Whenever people start answering the judge/host back its going to go downhill.  

CSI jumped when Grissom left.

I agree that No Ma'am was a nail in the coffin. It took things to a level of absurdity that actually made the jokes harder to enjoy. Al and his buddies complaining about the women in their lives is one thing. Guys relate to that. But having them form a club with meetings and t-shirts and such - basically formalizing what they would have done anyway - that just didn't make sense.

But I think it was just the result of something that had been going on for a while. This is the same thing that happens to other long-running sitcoms. The show becomes less about funny situations and more about the characters doing their shtick in an ever more exaggerated fashion.

Happy Days was the same way. The shark jumping episode is what we notice, but that was the culmination of another trend that had been killing the show for some time - Fonzie as superhero. The Fonz was very successful as the intimidating greaser bad boy the girls loved, the nerdy guys looked up to, and the adults were unsure of. He was tough, he had style, and he knew a few cool tricks, like getting the jukebox to play by hitting it. On top of that, he also lacked sophistication, and was in some ways kind of a dumbass. He was great because he was believable, almost familiar, and he fit a niche within the show. But then his popularity resulted in an expanded role, which messed up the whole nostalgic coming-of-age comedy centred around Richie and his friends. But the show was still funny.

However, from there, Fonzie's coolness gradually turned into a full-blown super power, summoning women like Aquaman calls fish, and doing things with thumps and finger snaps that bordered on telekinesis. But that stuff was still funny.

But then the show continued to revolve more and more around the Fonz, who went from being the guy who could be counted on to intimidate a bully or set one of the guys up on a date to the guy who solved everybody's problems with his wisdom.

And on it went. The writers just kept emphasizing the traits that made people like Fonzie in the first place, at the expense of the character's and the show's integrity, until they had him jumping over a shark on water skis. Of course, the other factor there is the story well gradually running dry, and the writers struggling to come up with fresh new ideas that keep people excited about a show they're gradually tiring of.

Same thing happened to Married with Children. Al got dumber, more misogynistic and more pathetic in general, Peggy got lazier and nastier, Marcie turned into a full-blown radical feminist harpy, Kelly got dumber and sluttier, Bud got hornier. Simpsons has the same problem.

For a while, this stuff can make a show funnier, but it eventually reaches a point of excess. The characters become caricatures of caricatures, and the things they do go from funny with a bit of truth to just plain absurd. The show gets weighed down by characters doing their thing and it bears little resemblance to the show people liked in the first place.

AndyC -

Bravo, sir.

Another poster had criticized my use of the term "jumping the shark" as it is an older term that had run it's course. Who cares? The phenomenon and the damage it does to good entertainment is very real, whatever you call it. This is why shows like Family Guy and South Park avoid jumping the shark. They are so absurd to begin with that they can pretty much do whatever they want, as long as they're funny. They're not stuck on whether or not the character is doing what they're expected to do. Most times they do, but sometimes they step outside their stereotype, as human beings do. Quagmire is a sex-addicted pervert, but he also fell in love once and almost got married. Peter is a moron, but he sometimes makes brilliant pop-culture references. Brian has more sense than the rest of the family most of the time, but we still have to be reminded that he is a dog, and has dog instincts. The show pokes political fun, and sometimes brilliantly, but doesn't wear an agenda on it's sleeve like The Simpsons does. Even when the show gets close to jumping the shark, it almost always seems to pull back just in time. 

I'd head the phrase "jump the shark" many times before but had never actually seen the clip of Fonzie doing it until today.

Here it is in all of its glorious absurdity!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDthMGtZKa4


The thing I find funny about it is that Fonzie is wearing his leather jacket while skiing.
Hilarious!   :teddyr:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QiOJKptsz0

Jumping the Shark is the moment when the show has gone past its prime, essentially.  There isn't ALWAYS a specific episode or moment (I don't think The Simpsons has one).  It doesn't mean there aren't any worthwhile episodes at all.  I'd say The Simpsons Jumped the Shark around season 8 (I don't have a favorite season, BTW - I just know I love fewer and fewer episodes starting in season 9), but I think seasons 9 and 10 have quite a few great episodes.  The show had occasionally good episodes for quite a while after that, but I can't recall any episodes even approaching great since 12 or so.  And I've seen all three eps you mention.  They're just decent episodes, ones which would be called the middle of the road filler episodes in the earlier seasons.  They just stick out as there are so many outright BAD episodes in the newer seasons.  

I also have to add that even when eps are funny now, they always totally fail when they attempt to have even the slightest bit of actual drama.  That was never the main appeal of the show, but I don't think we'll ever have another Simpsons episode with the resonance of, say, the endings of Mother Simpson or And Maggie Makes Three.

Personally though, while I think the Simpsons should have been retired a decade ago, I can't recall any other comedy show that was as consistently good for as long as the Simpsons was.  Only other contender is probably South Park.  Most sitcoms struggle under their own weight after three or four seasons, but it managed more than ten good ones.  Even now, a mere shadow of its former self, it's still better than many other sitcoms on TV.  I have to admit, though, that the newer bad episodes now are PAINFULLY bad.  

Personally, I feel Family Guy also Jumped the Shark.  This happened before it was initially canceled, after season 2.  It still has good episodes here and there, and even tries truly new things..  But the average episodes are at times so painful I have to conclude it is past its prime.  Showing 5 minutes of some guy singing an old song isn't inspired - it's boring and lazy writing.

Yep, the character's gotta do his shtick. I especially love the musical score. Late-70s TV cheese.

The interesting thing is that this was not that late in the show's run. I sort of remembered it being one of the later seasons, but it was the beginning of Season 5 in 1977. As Winkler said in the interview, the show went on for six more seasons.

On the other hand, looking through a list of episodes, Happy Days really was going downhill after that point. Chachi was introduced in the same Season 5 opener, and Fonz battled Mork from Ork later in the season. Season 6 had Fonzie riding a killer bull, going blind, developing a brief relationship with a girlfriend's son, taking on two different gangsters, faking his death, convincing Joanie not to smoke, developing an allergy to girls, and dueling with a French fencing champion, among other things. Good grief! The next season saw Arnold's rebuilt with Fonz as co-owner with an actual office in the can, and Richie and Ralph were gone by the end. And that's when the show actually started to suck.

Fonz was teaching school by Season 8, and Ted McGinley showed up. That's the other weird thing. In my memory, that was like the last sucky season, but Happy Days went on for four years like that.

I think it's a good example of what jumping the shark actually means. People often take it to mean a low point, or the time when a show really starts to suck. In fact, it's the point at which the show has peaked and you realize it will never be the same again. Some of the best Happy Days episodes came after Fonzie jumped the shark, but so did most of the really goofy, preachy and downright dumb episodes. The fact that a show still has good episodes does not mean it isn't in decline.

A shark jump doesn't have to look like a show is desperately trying to revitalize itself with new characters or a new setting or something ridiculously sensational. It could be something really awesome that leaves a show trying in vain to top itself. It could be a show finally delivering what fans have been waiting for, like the male and female lead getting together. Seems like their finest hour until you realize that the sexual tension and all of the will-they-won't-they speculation is what you enjoyed. The show doesn't suddenly suck, it's just never quite as good after that.

It would appear as I was composing my epistle, Jim H was beating me to the punch. As you can see, I agree. :teddyr:

hehe Happy Days was really failing because it was focus towards the generation that was teenagers in the 1950's and it worked for almost 4 years or so because it had a memorabilia feeling. Than new sitcoms were born (Welcome Back, Kotter, Three's Company, Good Times, Taxi, WKRP in Cincinnati, etc.) and targeted their show towards a more current teenagers/young adults that can relate towards the humor.

The changes made in Happy Days was an attempt to retarget the viewers (naturally) and we end up with episodes of Fonzie become a teacher, a co-owner and a 'slapstick' problems with his fear of liver. I'm not quite sure if the show was going bad or it seemed going down hill after the shark jump becaues of the quility of the material afterwords, but I really think the show had a limited run feel and it seemed that some network executive kept pushing 'Happy Days' until there was nothing left (or somebody has finally call for a doctor with a butterfly net... Geeeees 'Happy Day' lasted until 1984.)

Happy Days was already jumping before the actual "jump." It was already going downhill before Richie left. I mean, come on, Mork from Ork?

The shark jumping episode came before both of those things.

I stand corrected. I thought it was after.

Hey, didn't Fonzie jump a bunch of buses or something like that with his motorcycle very early on, like when Pat Morita was still on the show? Precursor perhaps?

Yep, that happened back in Season 3, when they were still trying to set the show in the 50s. Fonz jumped his bike over 14 garbage cans, on a TV show based on "You Asked for It." I remember it having the actual host, Jack Smith, essentially playing himself.

Looking it up on Wikipedia, it was apparently Arnold's first appearance on the show. Weird how the timeline gets all mixed up in your memory. I could have sworn Arnold was around from the beginning, but he showed up partway into the third season. I guess they had Arnold's as a setting before that, with the owner unseen. I will admit it was a stroke of genius to have "Arnold" turn out to be a little Japanese guy who kept the name when he bought Arnold's because a sign that said "Takahashi" would be too expensive.

Season 3 also started with Fonzie moving in with the Cunninhams, so that might well be where it all started to turn. I do think the show continued to get better for a season or two after that though. The monkeying around by the writers and producers did work out at first, but it never stopped, and I think it increased after Season 5. So maybe the shark jump was the real beginning of the end.

I have to agree once this one, it seems like a lot of eps these days they're just like, "Well, we ran out of stuff to say, but still got a few more minutes to kill.. I know, let's throw in a long clip of some other show!  Or let's have Stewie tap dancing for several minutes!"

To me, the show has also fallen into what I call the "liberal comedian" trap.  That is, they spend less time being funny and creative and more time being being a mouth piece for whatever political views they have (in this case, Seth McFarlane's liberal views.)  I mean, yes, the show has always had some political jokes here and there (Peter, while riding an elephant, "Hey, honey, look, the two symbols of the Republican party: an elephant and a fat white guy who's afraid of change!")  But it's just gotten ridiculous, even to where they've changed the character personalities and constructed entire plots just to drive home whatever "message" they want to preach about this week.

Example: Mayor West, trying to distract people from his outrageously wasteful spending, bans gay marriage from Quahog.  Funny, I didn't know a city mayor would have the power to do that.  Another ep: Brian reveals he's an atheist, Lois reacts with shock and begins to distance herself from him.  Wait, we you mean in the YEARS Brian's lived with the Griffins, this conversation has never come up?  Especially with the Griffins (supposedly) being Catholic and all?  

I could go on, but you get my point.

I think even liberals would agree it's getting way too out of hand.  

BTM -

I will have to respectfully disagree. I just picked up the most recent volume of Family Guy and most of it is good, and some eps are among the best the show has produced thus far. I agree that the writing has struggled from time to time, and filler material has reared it's ugly head. I know you're not sticking up for The Simpsons, because you haven't brought the show up, but I think that show wears it's politics on it's sleeve far more than Family Guy. The show pokes fun at the far right, this is true, so what? It also pokes fun at the far left. I mean, Ben Stein was on the show for crying out loud. I think Family Guy leans to the left a bit, in terms of lampooning, but then South Park leans slightly to the right in it's lampooning, but they do it largely because they hate that the liberal left tends to think they are above ridicule. The Simpsons is so boldly on the left that it's blatantly obvious. During the bulk of Family Guy's run, G.W. was in the white house, so the political jokes tend to follow who's in office. Remember at the beginning of the show they also lampooned Clinton.

I honestly don't care about the politics of a show's creator, as long as it doesn't lean too far either way. I'm a libertarian who distrusts both of the big parties, so it's all good to me. My dislike of the Simpsons goes beyond the leftist bent, there are more important reasons why the show sucks IMHO. But the show has always struck me as having a political agenda much more than either South Park or Family Guy, and is a contributing factor. 

The bad thing about the Simpsons is it used to be relatively balanced.  It certainly leaned left, but even in eps that point to this, they didn't ignore the other side.  Probably because of the significant number of conservative writers and producers the show has had.  That's another problem the show has had in the more recent seasons, that they've moved away from this.  It wouldn't be so bad if Lisa, the champion of liberalism on the show, didn't come across as whiney and obnoxious so much.

Family Guy, on the other hand, has never really even attempted to have balance when presenting an issue.  MacFarlane just doesn't care.  Let's put it this way: have you ever seen an issue presented on Family Guy where the left leaning side isn't, in the end, presented as correct?  I can't recall one.  Compare this to, say, The Cartridge Family, where no conclusion at all is reached on the actual political issue (guns) involved.  I might add I don't think a comedic show being biased is always a bad thing either, it just depends on how it is presented.

On a final note, I will actually agree that overall the newer Family Guy seasons have improved over the seasons immediately after the show returned from cancellation.  I just don't find any of the newer seasons nearly as consistent as the first two seasons.

Example: Mayor West, trying to distract people from his outrageously wasteful spending, bans gay marriage from Quahog.  Funny, I didn't know a city mayor would have the power to do that.  Another ep: Brian reveals he's an atheist, Lois reacts with shock and begins to distance herself from him.  Wait, we you mean in the YEARS Brian's lived with the Griffins, this conversation has never come up?  Especially with the Griffins (supposedly) being Catholic and all? 


I'm sorry my replies to your post have been negative jib67, but are people actually complaining about plot holes, continuity, and realism on FAMILY GUY?  This is a show that plays fast and loose with rules of reality.  Talking animals. Embodiments of outside forces (Death). And how many different and unrealistic jobs has Peter had? 

For me, when Eric Cartman singed pokerface in South park.

That...that was horrible.
I think that they've sold out.

When Mulder came back to life in The X-Files :tongueout:

When Saw 4 was made, even when the main villain died in Saw 3

American Pie, when making so many damb sequels.

Although it is an anime/manga, tons of fanboys said Naruto jumped the shark when they brought back a lot of the main characters back to life when they died.

Fanboys also say Death Note jumped the shark when L was killed.  I personally don't think the shows/mangas jumped the shark at those points, but I can see why people would think that.

Fully agreed on all of those. I can't stand the American Pie onslaught. When will it ever stop. I used to like Eugene Levy.

Here's one I just thought of that Eugene Levy reminded me of. LESLIE NEILSEN. Started out as the deadpan character in Airplane and the first Naked Gun, which was brilliant, then nobody took him seriously anymore and he became an overblown, ridiculous and mediocre-at-best comedic actor.

That does remind me.  I'd say One Piece Jumped the Shark in the Crocodile arc.  Too many characters, way too slow.  It only got worse from that point on.

Interesting, I haven't gotten that far in the series yet.  I'll keep that in mind.

Law & Order: SVU has seem to have a few jumping the shark moments, but they never had really affected the show or hurt it in anyway.  Those times usually happen when they lose or get rid of an ADA since the fan base is always annoyed and upset that the next person won't be good.

You seem to like anime more than I do, so you might be more tolerant of how slow the show starts to get (you'll have like 6 fights going on at once, and it'll take like an entire season to finish them all - and the leadup to the fight will be another season.  No joke.).  I will say it's more tolerable as a manga now, since the pacing is always faster in the manga than in the series.  And both are still enjoyable, they've just gotten bogged down and aren't AS enjoyable.

Speaking of SVU..  The original Law & Order...  I remember a lot of people saying the show was done when the original DA left.  I think a bigger loss than that was Michael Moriarty, I liked his assistant DA more as a character than the current one.  But, I don't think the show jumped at that point.  I think it jumped when Jerry Orbach left/died.  I think Lennie Briscoe is one of the greatest TV characters of my generation, and the loss of him killed my interest in the show.  The quality had already slipped a bit by that point, but either it didn't bother me as much or it wasn't as bad before that point.