Ah, the dreaded gambol over the oceanic apex predator.
It's often the death knell in episodic television. But how many Millennials, Gen Z or Gen Alpha know the etymology of the oft used phrase?
The idiom "jump the shark" traces back to 1985 when radio personality Jon Hein responded to a question about when people thought their favorite TV show started to decline. Hein's reference was about Happy Days.
Set in the 1950s-early 1960s, Happy Days was a show based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin created by Garry Marshall—the Ryan Murphy or Shonda Rhimes of his day—that premiered in 1974. It was so popular it spawned six spin-offs with two—Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy—becoming hits in their own right.
In a 1977 multi-episode premiere for the 5th season, the entire cast of characters is in California where breakout star Henry Winkler's leather jacket wearing, motorcycle riding character Arthur "The Fonz" or "Fonzie" Fonzarelli dons water skis to jump a shark.
The phrase came to mean when a show reaches a point where it has exhausted stories from its core premise and begins introducing absurd scenarios to keep the show alive.
Like, why are a Milwaukee middle class family and all of their friends and associates on a beach in California where a (presumably) Great White Shark is in a pen within jumping distance of a water skiing ramp?
In the case of Happy Days, the core group of high schoolers were now in college by the 5th season, Jaws was a box office smash in the summer of 1975, the sequel Jaws 2 was slated for 1978, the USA market was still in a shark content frenzy, and there aren't any sharks in Wisconsin.
Ta da! Character road trip for shark jumping time.
And just in case you missed the magic moment...
- YouTubeyoutu.be
But Happy Days—like Fonzie—actually survived the stunt.
It went on to last for 11 seasons before finally ending in 1984—that's six more seasons post shark jump. So while the phrase means a show that is in decline, the show the phrase originated from wasn't even half way through its run.
Reddit user Feisty_Drummer2570 asked:
"What's a 'red flag' in a TV show that tells you it's about to go downhill?"
Dumbing It Down
"When characters start ignoring earlier developments/start getting dumbed down from established norms simply to push an arc forward."
~ MaestroLogical
"I'm rewatching Game of Thrones and one thing that really bothers me is how the dumbed down Little Finger and Varys."
"In the first 2 or 3 seasons, they really establish how clever they both are. They are 5 steps ahead and cautious about how they move. Then in the last seasons they're just doing whatever with no back up plans."
~ esoteric_enigma
Love Child
"Secret child that shows up right when a character’s life is just about to come together. I’m looking at you, Gilmore Girls."
~ Asleep_Agent5050
"I thought you meant Grey's Anatomy when Lexi showed up—Meredith's younger sister that she never knew about..."
"But wait, then the 2nd secret sister shows up. I still watch it, but that was so far-fetched."
~ RulingHighness
Evil-ish
"Villain decay. When a villain loses so many times in a row you can’t take them seriously anymore, you know too much about them and their weaknesses, etc..."
~ redbo
"Damn, you called out all the CW shows at once."
~ TheRiteGuy
"Sci-fi does so much of this. An alien spaceship comes out of nowhere, and they disable the good guys' ship with one shot. The good guys only win because of some super clever tricks."
"Then next season the same aliens are nothing but couple of lightwave interphasing torpedo hits away from being vaporized."
~ aamurusko79
Netflix, Fox
"The show is really good and about to get a third season on Netflix."
~ almightymra
"I quit watching Netflix shows years ago because of that. The final straw for me was Santa Clarita Diet."
"I've never started another Netflix show. They really screwed themselves over with that."
~ PissesOverMyHammie
"The show is really good, and it's on Fox."
~ MMohawMais
OOC
"When characters suddenly act out of character for plot convenience, it's a red flag."
~ FierceAiden
"Forced storytelling is such a mood killer..."
~ CrystalRedCynthia
"And there's a huge difference between someone normally smart/rational doing something out of anger as a one off..."
"...AND..."
"...suddenly it's like a fanfic and only the name is in common. The personality is completely different."
~ PepperFinn
Cue The Kid
"They introduce a younger, cuter version of the 'baby of the family'."
~ onaplinth
"Good old cousin Oliver [on The Brady Bunch final season]."
~ DrocketX
"The reason this never works is because they don't truly invest in that new young character."
"They can't, really, because by the time this happens, all the other children are grown with their own storylines that you're still trying to follow awkwardly."
~ esoteric_enigma
They Were On A Break
"Random hookups that make no sense."
~ tea8030
"Joey and Rachel. That screamed desperation from the writers for me. It was a stupid storyline."
~ thugarth
Flashback Fridays
"They start flashback episodes."
~ MrScarabNephtys
"Ugh, flashback episodes… One of my least favorite types of filler in Naruto."
~ coinpile
"Old sitcoms got flashback episodes every two or three years. Because back then you did 25+ episodes per year."
"It was sort of a reward for the writers and part of the mark of the success of a show."
"Nowadays seasons are too short for most episodic shows to even contemplate it."
~ remarkablewhitebored
OOO
"The main protagonist(s) leaves, and they keep it going."
~ smugfruitplate
"When Eric left That 70s Show..."
"A group of kids continuing to hang out in the basement at their friend's house after that friend moved away and it's only their parents there. It is unintentionally hilarious."
"There isn't a believable explanation possible. They gotta do it cause they can't justify paying for so many new sets for a dying show."
~ chain_letter
Drama Trauma
"Ruining the main character's character growth for the sake of drama."
~ LighthouseonSaturn
"Andy in The Office is the most infuriating to me. It was partly because of Ed Helms' filming schedule, but they could have written around it in a much better way."
~ Mrsericmatthews
Stephane Urquelle
"A normal, realistic show getting sci-fi esque. Like someone coming back from the dead, a ghost, whatever."
~ psychcrime
"Family Matters got weird in the end."
~ Waste_Coat_4506
"I never got why Carl never just asked Urkel to leave."
"Even if Carl wasn't a cop, Urkel's a guy who comes into your house, harasses your daughter, breaks all your furniture, has a robot version of himself, trapped your spirit in a doll, sent you into another dimension, and ate all your cheese."
~ thispartyrules
Switcheroo
"They move it to like Friday night."
~ GoLionsJD107
"Oldest industry trick is to constantly change the scheduling so viewers never knew when it would be showing, then network executives be like, 'Neilsons are down!'."
~ Fahernheit98
Baby Blues
"When they make one of the lead characters have a baby."
"Nothing wrong with babies, but when a show decides that lead needs to have a baby, they are running out of plot ideas."
~ SparrowLikeBird
"Then they carry on their lives as if the baby doesn't exist apart from one or two episodes per series."
~ AccidentalSirens
Let's Get It On
"When the main characters have all slept with/dated each other."
~ gtroyal_stacks
"How do they find time to work?"
~ Big_Double_8357
"In Parks And Rec, Ann Perkins—Rashida Jones's character—had ended up dating 4 out of the 7 possible men in the cast."
~ marrolllll
Special Guest Star
"When they bring on a guest star who was big a decade ago and hasn't been really active since."
~ Barbarian_818
"Any time I saw Jason Priestley show up in a show I'd figure it was time to stop watching. Years later it seemed my interest killer was Jennifer Love Hewitt."
~ paisleymanticore
"Even bigger red flag if that guest star is Ted McGinley."
~ brimstone404
What's your TV series quality red flag?
