Dancing With The Stars

by tgirsch

August 25th, 2008

It has officially jumped the shark. See if you can spot why!

Categories: I do too have a life |

18 Comments

Big U August 25th, 2008
Wow. After seeing the lineup I will be sure to catch part of it. Actually my daughter is a huge fan so it has become a father/daughter bonding time. The fact that there are beautiful and incredibly talented women on the show doesn’t hurt either.
Ted August 25th, 2008
Network TV is dead.
tgirsch August 25th, 2008
But nobody’s figured out why the shark-jump? I thought it was obvious…
Ted August 25th, 2008
To be honest, I have never learned what that term means
digglahhh August 25th, 2008
So, you are frustrated about how much you have to restrict what your daughter can watch, and how so few shows pass muster. Meanwhile, when you find one, you use your father/daughter TV-bonding time to ogle tail. Real classy…

I grew out of watching a show b/c somebody on it was hot around the Grandmaster B season of Married with Children (Even with a double-mastectomy, you are still a sex symbol to Gen X, Christina Applegate!)

In the age of high-speed internet connections, wide/flat screen monitors, and free porn as far as the mouse can click - popping wood while watching has-beens ballroom dance on network TV might as well be rubbing one out to the lingerie section of a Sears catalog that came attached to the Sunday paper…

Take this post in good fun, Big U. It is not a condemnation/judgment of you so much as it is a bubbling over my feelings that modern, stereotypical married/family life is like a freaking prison sentence. …this is what I have to look forward too

/cries self to sleep/
Big U August 25th, 2008
yup. I got it right away. “Roger” from Happy Days. I was actually looking for Henry Winkler at first.
digglahhh August 25th, 2008
Didn’t that term derive from the afore-discussed, “Happy Days” when Fonzie actually jumped a shark while water skiing in an episode? Or is that one of those myths?

C’mon, one of you smart guys, save me a trip to snopes.
Big U August 25th, 2008
hehehe. No prob Digglahhh. Trust me, it wasn’t my choice initially but once they get past the first few weeks I must admit I’m impressed by the athleticism. I’ve tried to learn dancing and to see what they do in such a short time is incredible. No wonder everyone loses a ton of weight.
digglahhh August 25th, 2008
Hey, I once watched four back-to-back (-to-back-to-back) episodes of “America’s Best Dance Crew” on MTV. Granted, I was at a friend’s house and we were stoned and couldn’t find the remote, but it was entertaining nonetheless…
tgirsch August 25th, 2008
“Jump the shark” does indeed refer to an episode of Happy Days, but that’s not (directly) why we know DWTS has done it.

For Ted’s edification, the term refers to a single moment when you realize that a show is going downhill and will never again be the same. For Happy Days, that moment was when Fonzie literally jumps a shark, on water skis. To “jump the shark,” it can’t be a gradual decline in show quality; it has to be a specific moment when you just know.

On the jump the shark web site, there are several popular categories for telling when a show has jumped, on the left side. Ted McGinley has caused so many shows to jump, he warrants his own category.
digglahhh August 25th, 2008
Just to pick nits, I’d say that “jumping the shark” is actually a bit more nuanced. First, I’d say that the jumping of the shark is not the point at which a show goes downhill, but it signifies that the show has already done so and is now irreparable. Personally, I’d say that “jumping the shark” is characterized by a show (or maybe even individual character) becoming a caricature of him/her/itself. Shows often jump the shark when they resort to wild plot twists, crazy gimmicks, out of place guest spots, etc.

I’d even argue that individual characters can jump the shark even if the show remains of high quality. For example, George Constanza jumped the shark without the show as a whole doing so. Constanza basically transformed from a guy with questionable morals and less than exemplary social grace to something resembling a low-level super villain.

Some might argue that KTK jumps the shark often in his posts, but that same person wouldn’t necessarily claim LL is going downhill. Although, as you just referenced, TG, one common way to jump the shark is to add a guy named Ted. Hmm…
tgirsch August 25th, 2008
digglahhh:

See question #2.
digglahhh August 26th, 2008
I’m familiar with the site, TG. I stick by my more nuanced definition. The downfall of a show isn’t usually precipitous and signified by one ridiculous, out of place moment. You are sick before you begin to actually show the symptoms. There’s a lot of contrived shark jumping moments referenced on that site, IMO.
tgirsch August 26th, 2008
I understand your POV, but you’ll forgive me if I defer to the guys who coined the term when considering what it actually means. More specifically, if a show just goes through a general decline, it hasn’t “jumped the shark.” It’s just sort of gone downhill.
Ted August 26th, 2008
Digg, good one at #11..

General question. Can a show unjump the shark? SNL seems to have done this several times.
tgirsch August 26th, 2008
I wouldn’t know about SNL. Every time I’ve tried to watch it in the last 20 years or more, it’s been pretty much unwatchable. Lots of chaff to get to very little wheat. Have they at least gotten back to doing political humor instead of Farley/Sandler-style stupid and gross-out humor?
digglahhh August 27th, 2008
TG,

Fair. I’m just saying, my interpretation jibes better with the original scene that spawned the term. Forget gradual vs. rapid decline - the point I want to make is that “jumping the shark” is characterized by something becoming a caricature of itself. It’s not like the the show starting to suck because the new writers aren’t as good or something. That point, I think, has been inherent in the term from its inception.

Ted,

Thanks. I think SNL is different. Since it is a rotating cast, by design, it isn’t the show as a whole that jumps the shark, but individual characters or skits - and that has certainly happened innumerable times. The show just has different casts over the years. Saying SNL jumped the shark by making certain casting decisions or putting out a poor product is kinda like saying the Yankees jumped the shark when they signed Giambi/Pavano/Damon/xxx. …Maybe Steinbrener did.

TG again,

Also, I think the romanticizing of old SNL is a little out of hand. Was it ever THAT political - I mean, as we go further back, edgy and counter-culture-esque comedy becomes more political by circumstance, but was Steve Martin ever George Carlin? I could be wrong here, I’m younger than you, but I don’t think I am.

And, FTR, the Farley/Sandler (Spade/Rock/Carvey/Meyers/Hartman/etc.) era is widely considered the other golden era of SNL. I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it as “gross out humor.”
tgirsch August 27th, 2008
Re: SNL, I know a lot of the old stuff is viewed through rose-colored glasses, remembering the really good stuff and forgetting the not so good stuff, but on balance, especially with the original cast (and, to a lesser extent, the second cast), the humor was largely intelligent and topical. During the “other golden era,” the show was often funny again, true (although often not to my liking), but the humor there was generally more of the slapstick/silly variety rather than of the topical variety.

This isn’t to say that the latter cast NEVER did topical humor, or that the former cast ALWAYS did, just that the former cast seems to have done it a lot more. And in particular, the Carvey/Meyers/Spade/Farley cast relied a lot more heavily upon recurring characters than did earlier casts.

Don’t get me wrong: the sketch where Farley is competing with Patrick Swayze for the last spot on the Chippendale’s is one of the funniest things they’ve ever done. So I’m not saying that the “newer” stuff (even that’s already something like 15 years old) is all crap, while the old stuff was all brilliant. Just that the older stuff was more to my liking, is all.