Skin In The Gane> jump

[James Harbeck]

Jumping the shark has become an epidemic meme in a rather short
amount of time, really -- although it was supposedly coined in 1985,
I don't think much of anyone heard it until maybe half a decade ago.
The theory is that Fonz's jumping of the shark was the moment when it
became clear that Happy Days had lost its real juice and was just
coasting on fumes into oblivion. There are, of course, people who
disagree with that assessment of the moment (on a recent Happy Days
reuinion show, the issue was addressed and the continuing popularity
of the show long past that was pointed out), but it's now something
that "everyone knows," just like "everyone knows" that "It was a dark
and stormy night" is an awful sentence (which, of course, it's not at
all -- but the sentence that it began, somewhat longer, was an
emblematic opening for a certain kind of novel that is now merrily
deprecated). And it's something that can be observed -- or speculated
on -- in a great many popular TV shows and similar pop culture
phenomena. It's perpetuated by its eponymous website,
http://www.jumptheshark.com .

You can see from their home page that in many of these cases it's a
matter of opinion, to say the least. For MASH, it is suggested that
was when Henry Blake's plane went down, which I think is an utterly
insupportable assertion -- that was, in fact, when MASH became a show
to be taken seriously, not just a silly army sitcom. Without that, it
wouldn't have been what it was in popular culture.

The idea that "jump the shark" keys into is reflected in what Sick
Boy says in _Trainspotting_:

----
SICK BOY
Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone
for ever. All walks of life: George Best, for example, had it and
lost it, or David Bowie, or Lou Reed -

RENTON
Some of his solo stuff's not bad.

SICK BOY
No, it's not bad, but it's not great either, is it? And in your heart
you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually
just shite.
----

James Harbeck.

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