Jumping the Shark

[Jim H]

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.  

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.

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.

[AndyC]

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

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.

[AndyC]

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

[Skull]

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.)

[Flick James]

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

[AndyC]

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.

[Flick James]

I stand corrected. I thought it was after.

[Flick James]

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?

[AndyC]

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.

[BTM]

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.

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.  

[Flick James]

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. 

[Jim H]

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.

[WingedSerpent]

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? 

[Cthulhu]

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

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

[vukxfiles]

When Mulder came back to life in The X-Files

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

American Pie, when making so many damb sequels.