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"Schoolhouse Rock" was saturday morning greatness! Here's a link with the lyrics and some .au files...
Schoolhouse Rock
Does anyone else remember the saturday morning newsbyte series, with Christopher Glen, called "In the News" ?
In The News
Time was you might actually get edu-ma-cated on saturday morning, or at the very least, entertained. Now all the cartoons are just 30 minute blipverts for whatever toy they're hawking.

I think this officially qualifies as jumping the shark. There's even a new hair style.

Furthermore, the dangerous Delphic Expanse, likened to the Bermuda Triangle, causes those who enter to "become anatomically inverted (skin on the inside, organs on the outside)."

Okay, whose third-grade son came up with that plotline?

I think this officially qualifies as jumping the shark. There's even a new hair style.

Furthermore, the dangerous Delphic Expanse, likened to the Bermuda Triangle, causes those who enter to "become anatomically inverted (skin on the inside, organs on the outside)."

Okay, whose third-grade son came up with that plotline?

Hey, since it's built by a lone guy out in the desert, just be glad it's not called "Salvage One"! (No slight intended to Mr. Rutan)

Not quite what you're looking for, but I thought Jump The Shark would be relevant here.

Troy McClure, aka Phil Hartman, explains the food chain, which shows a Shark jumping out of the water and eating a Gorilla hanging from a tree.

Could it be said, then, that that's when the Simpsons jumped the shark?

The last Simpsons episode I found funny was the one where Marge tried to close down the town's brothel. The Simpsons need to be put out of their misery. They jumped the shark 5 years ago. (Yeah they're on the "never jumped" list but they don't belong there) I suppose they are trying to go for some sort of record for longevity but damn, man...give it a rest. Just my not-so-humble opinion.

I'd kind of like to see other niche sites be ported to the world of video games. For instance, imagine a Jump the Shark site about games and game developers. And imagine a game series that shot itself in the foot by introducing Ted McGinley! That could be another good way to amuse myself on my employer's time. Any other sites that would serve well if it's main ingredient were games?

The John and Erin(sp?) romance is kinda getting stale anyway. I just want to scream "Fuck already David and Mattie!"

interesting choice of analogy there: Moonlighting 'Jumped the Shark' when David and Maddie got it on, no matter how rosy your memories of the show are, the blunt fact is that after season 3 the show just wasn't itself anymore.

Personally I lost the plot with Farscape when my cable went out for two months and I came back to find half the caharcters gone and a bunch of new ones, but the consensus seems to be that (as yet) it's remained innovative, fresh, and insanely watchable.

For my money bowing the show out now is probably best. Sure it's sad when things end, but end they must eventually, and it's FAR better when they do it before they've started to rot.

PS the (sp?) - you got Erin right but Maddie wrong: it's two 'd's not two 't's ... There should be a David Addison-esque line there but I can't think of one...

It was.

Wait until Jon Katz takes apart an X10 camera, straps it to a dirt bike, and jumps a shark.

these people.

Metallica jumped the shark with Napster, no doubt about it.

go to www.jumptheshark.com

I would also suggest this link as a good place to look for info about the term.
The page is titled "Chronicling The Moments When TV Shows Go Downhill"

http://www.jumptheshark.com

Jumping the shark. A good explanation of that is at Jump the Shark.

Anti-cliche of a lone band of outlaws who are actually "good guys" and find a girl in a box who winds up being the most empowered woman in the universe is sooo cliche. All I want is good story telling, even if it is a rehashed fomula.

That being said, can anyone send me a VCD of it? I don't have Tivo, and I'll be away from my TV tonight attending a wedding.

Look.

though I'm rooting for Nick Cage to kick his ass in the upcoming Ghost Rider.

To have "jumped the shark" pretty much means to have "gone to hell"

Mmmm, not quite. The point at which something has jummped the shark is that precise moment where you know that the 'golden days' are over. You know that from that point, it's all downhill.

There's a good web site about jumping the shark as applied to TV shows here.

people may mark you a troll for that, and i love linux myself, but i already see it happening with Lindows, united linux (what a joke), and the whole transgaming/debian debacle. Linux still has some years to go, but i feel that it may have just jumped the shark

Big money,
big money,
no whammies....

Note that the name "Vaio" is very difficult for the Japanese to pronounce; the phonetic spelling is "Baio"

Laptops from Scott Baio? You better watch out. That bastard gave me pinkeye.

Everyone? I see at the tabulation page on jumptheshark.com that 1,345 users voted that it never jumped (many adding in the comments: Never jumped, never will), the next closest category has 96 votes.

Furthermore: 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 Jump the Shark.com.

Ok, what is so difficult about this? Jumping the Shark is not, "when the show is clearly bad." JTS is that moment that stands as the pinnacle of the show such that all following episodes are lesser in comparison. Now, the Simpsons may get really bad but it's probably that it will never Jump the Shark because it has (so far) always hit on moments of genius even in this last season.

But if it did Jump the Shark, it's definitely already happened and my favorite contender is the first episode of "Who Shot Mister Burns?".

You're right, everyone clearly agrees.

When did it jump? I think I know, but everyone agrees it's happened already.

As soon as I saw the episode where Marge is
kidnapped by a biker gang, I said "This is so
incredibly forced and predictable. They're not
trying any more. I bet this show ends soon."
I got 2 out of 3.

Does anyone else find an eerie similarity between the subject matter at hand and the old sequences on Square One in which shots of the commission of simple arithmetical errors were juxtaposed with engineering disaster footage and a voiceover saying something like "If this mistake hadn't been made...THIS wouldn't have happened"?

It's now used to describe the episode in a series where long time fans give up watching a long running series because it has just become too much of a joke, too much of a cliche, or so far from the original premise that it doesn't warrant watching anymore.

No no no! The phrase "jump the shark" is used to describe a specific episode in which the series in question peaked, leaving the show nowhere to go but down unless they "jump back."

Don't just trust me on it: check out the Jump the Shark FAQ.

I believe he actually jumps the shark with water skis.

See http://www.jumptheshark.com/

While I agree it's annoying and kind of dumb, I don't think it's a media term, per se. The web site Jump the Shark has been around for about 5 years, and I really think it's a fan term. It may be that the media types have just caught on to it recently though, and the phrase is now in vogue.

Ah yes this reminds me of Jump The Shark. Basically when a show jumps the shark it goes to hell in a handbasket. to me it was when Mulder left. I mean he WAS the x-files... oh and incase you don't know 'Jumping the shark' was coined from happy days... after the fateful episode when The Fonz jumped the shark the show went to hell.

Actually this was mentioned weeks ago on aint-it-cool-news.com. The episode title is "Jump the Shark", a reference to jumptheshark.com.

But then again, I have been living 23 minutes into the future lately. (I watched the Star Trek episode of Futurama with full end credit this morning.)

Always proud to raise the (slightly) younger generation's awareness of the TV shows that time forgot, which is why I sign myself...

--AnonymousCoward

I am going to burn in karma hell for this but here goes:
You odviously only watched the ones up to the introduction of Smurfette. After that we had Baby Smurf and then all those damn kids. This is my opinion where they Jumped the Shark Remember also that there is a new smurf deliverd by stork every blue moon. Figure on one blue moon every year (except 1999 which had two) and the number of years since they canceled it (13) and we are looking at almost a 14 new smurfs. An increase of almost 15%! Not including any that Gargamel has made since then.
Not that I keep up on these types of things.

When do you think X-files lost it's groove? Or as it's know, jump the shark?

Again, well said. =)

You may have misinterpretted me, however. I wasn't suggesting that you have to run a homogeneous MS environment for their products to retain core functionality. I was merely pointing out how they use 'features' which will only work with other MS products as leverage.

I agree, anything to improve and ease development with robust solutions like we hope Mono to be is a good thing. I also agree with your initial statement that .NET may succeed where Java did not, in bringing cross-platform compatability to full-scale applications.

I respectfully disagree with the contention that MS is prepared to give away what they've worked so hard to achieve (fairly or not =). Yes, Microsoft is the proverbial drum-playing octopus of the software world. But it's only because one tentacle knows what the other is doing that they are so successful. (Okay, enough of that analogy, I know. =) Here are some numbers from a quick search I did on Google. Microsoft market share:

• 79% of the office suite market.
• 87% of the desktop OS market.

However, it is not realistic to believe Microsoft will sacrifice their other markets to gain share with its office suite. The reason is simple; control. The only way a company as large as Microsoft can maintain relevance is with control. If they didn't have it, they'd be quickly overtaken by smaller, more adaptable companies producing higher quality products. They've been able to stiffle such upstarts by buying them outright, or changing the rules of the game. The second Microsoft lets its control of the OS market slip, is the second they jump the shark. Microsoft is a smart company, and they learned this lesson early-on by watching IBM. The chances are mighty slim they would do something so daft.

I'll finish off by saying that I think we might be arguing different points. I agree with you on many issues. The only one I can't forsee is Microsoft giving anything up. I understand they are trying to change the direction of their company. And you may be right, true cross-platform compatability might be the first step in that direction. Though it is hard to fathom Microsoft shooting out a tire just to change the direction of the car. My (somewhat more pessimistic than your) predictions: Office will remain within the Windows/Mac domain, mostly because of 'enhancements' like those mentioned in the sibling to this post. Failing that MS would have to pull an ace out of it's sleeve to save it's OS business from utter ruin. Mono will become a great development platform, though we won't be able to run the majority of full-scale .NET applications, again because of the larger feature-set and integration abilities offered by MS. Though of course, all the applications we develop will be able to run on Windows (this may or may not be a bad thing).

Only time will tell, but I don't think .NET is the holy grail of computing. Nor the messiah, nor the devil incarnate. When it comes right down to it, for the developer, .NET is another tool in my belt. For Microsoft, I have no idea what .NET is. Some people say they're betting the whole company on this. I prefer to think they're just dipping their toe in the water before jumping in head-first. =) Kudos to Miguel and the boys, and good luck to us all.

That 944 Turbo of yours is a FAST car. It's also reliable and cheap to buy and maintain. For people looking to get into Porches, the 944 Turbo may not represent, but it is a very fun car.

I'd throw my vote for the worst porsche at the forthcoming Cayenne
SUV they've been vaporously planning to launch for the last year or so. Jesus.

In pop-culture there is a term for when something great goes bad. "Jumping the shark." As in the episode of Happy Days where Fonzi jumps a shark on his motorcycle. In
Porsche's history, this SUV will be where the company Jumps the Shark much like SGI jumped the shark when it began shipping WinNT boxes. So much engineering resources have been directed at this project that they've withdrew their work on GT racing and basically let the Dodge Viper dominate where Porsche was once king. If you think it sucks working at a tech company as a developer and having to follow the Dilbertesque whims of the Product Marketing department in planning features, etc. imagine what it must have been like for those engineers working on f-ing fast race cars and having to design a 4x4 mini-van to sell to the insane SUV market in the US! For thee I shed a tear, Porsche Engineers.

There's a nifty little website out there called Jump The Shark ... "a Chronicle of the moments a TV shows goes downhill" ...

For me, I'm not sure when that momemnt happened, but I just know I haven't been watching it for the past couple of years. To me, the show lost it's "Twilight-Zone-Like" playfulness somewhere down the line and is now just another tedious soap-opera with a monster waiting to jump out of a closet.

Then again, I liked the original Lone-Gunman, and lost interest after only a couple of episodes.

This is intended to stir up a little discussion:

When do you think X-Files jumped the shark?
I say it was toast once Mulder left.

?

You have to be careful what you market to /.'ers. I would hate to see it jump the shark

stern fans will understand

So your contention is that any foreign show jumps the shark after it's been raped and dumbed down by American TV executives?

By jove, I think you've got it!

I'm sure that brief spark of originality will go completely unnoticed

Musical TV episodes are hardly original. In fact, they are a major category for when a show "jumps the shark", i.e. when everything in a series after a specific episode goes downhill. Have they run out of original ideas and now have to stoop to recycled gimmicks from other shows? Only time will tell...

www.jumptheshark.com


It's tragic, but nobody forced them to make a musical...

Buffy just jumped the Shark with that episode. Once a TV show realizes its a TV show, it sucks. The only way the show can ever regain its dignity back is a "All Naked Buffy" episode.

Newsforge doesn't want to load on my end, so I can't see the summary yet. I just hope and pray that Blueboy is involved somehow, or at least a debate about the issue with Howard Hessemann.

I would have like to have had the chance to participate in this discussion, but I was asleep :(

If there is anyone still reading, let me ask you this. Do you watch TV? If so, is there anything that you like to watch religiously? Enterprise? Coronation Street? Friends back before it Jumped the Shark? And did you ever go out and forget to tape it, then ring your mom or your mate, ask them to tape it? Well unless they can break into your house, say goodbye to that.

Because DRM will also apply to TV. Programs will be copy protected. So you will be able to tape a first-run episode of The Sopranos, but only if you don't watch it at the same time, and you will only be able to watch it once. Or that old Friends episode, that's been on loads of times, so you will be able to tape it and watch it however many times you want, but don't expect to be able to lend it to your girlfriend's dad so he can watch it too.

This is not stuff that will affect geeks only. We need to be telling people about this, people outside of the napsterriffic MP3 downloaders.

Here's an idea. Find out your TD/MP/Congressman/Tribal leader's favourite programme. I'm sure that this sort of person regularly has to get someone to tape the News to see if theyre on it, or Bull Island to see if they're on that. Then tell them that they will not be able to do that within 3 years.

Then see how long this shit lasts...

I think that it is safe to say that X-Files has now officially Jumped the Shark, if they had not done that awhile back already.

on the exact moment the X-Files Jumped The Shark. For me, it was the movie, and the realisation that the plot was never going to have a satisfying story arc as long as they milked it like a cash cow...