Jump the shark?

It’s rather funny that neither Happy Days or Laverne & Shirley seem to be in any kind of heavy, rerun rotation.It’s been a while since I’ve seen Happy Days , I do remember L&S reappearing somewhere around the time of Marshall’s death. I can’t remember the last time Happy Days was on Nick at Night etc..

I think L&S reruns are on Logo right now, though I could be wrong about that.

I think HAPPY DAYS will also be remembered for introducing the thumbs-up sign.

I read an article about a website called JUMP THE SHARK. The producer of that site first heard the term when his college roommate used it about HAPPY DAYS.

R3, Happy Days didn’t introduce the thumbs up sign.

I loved Laverne & Shirley as a kid but as an adult, it's totally unwatchable. Too loud and too slapstick

The phrase I remember most from Happy Days is:

SIT ON IT!

It was instructive and opened me up to the possibilities.

I'm 31 and have never seen Happy Days, but I definitely know the idiom "Jump the Shark" (I know it is FROM happy days, and the context of the shark jumping episode, but that's only because I looked it up after learning the idiom itself). It's a great phrase that we need in our heavily media-saturated world, with shows lingering much too long past their shelf life, not to mention that "Jump the Shark" is highly adaptable to non-media contexts as well, it's great!

Henry Winkler was very sexy with a beard.

He's on BARRY, and neither he nor the program have jumped the shark.

I read an article or read it on the JUMP THE SHARK website that some of the tropes used when a series jumps the shark are:

a. pregnancy (and then the baby grows up very quickly so it can have his/ her own story lines). b. a talent show or stage performance during an episode c. wedding d. dream sequences e. all the main characters take a vacation together. f. a very special episode that needs a disclaimer

R10

To add to the first one: Adding a new child to the cast via some sort of adoption. The benefit of doing it that way is that you don't have to wait for the kid to grow up; he/she can start annoying the audience right away.

You're right. Good point R11.

R11 Actually, there is a well know name for that, it’s called the Cousin Oliver Syndrome. It comes from the last six episodes of the Brady Bunch when even the youngest one’s cuteness was waning and they introduced cousin Oliver as a desperate attempt to lure back viewers, but to no avail.

Obviously, this predates “jump the shark” and was the forerunner to this device. Now the Cousin Oliver Syndrome is basically a subtype of “jump the shark.” Of course the most famous of all cousin Olivers is Leonardo DiCaprio who joined Growing Pains as Mike and Ben got long in the tooth and some new teen idol boy meat was needed.

Jump the shark reveals your age. The new phrase is "Heard the Bells"

We watched the Paul Lynde Halloween special this year and the ame Pinky Tuscadero didn’t mean anything to our guests so we explained it to them by saying “You know the term ‘ jump the shark’ .....well”

The old shows are on cable and most young people don’t watch much TV. Hulu has a lot of old shows, I’m currently binging The Lucy Show and Bob Newhart from there but it doesn’t seem to be as popular with my friends as Netflix and HBO. I had turned a few friends onto Maude when the episodes were on YT but they got taken down and I haven’t seen it streaming anywhere.

That’s life I guess. My mother just said the other day that the biggest shock of her life was that Elizabeth Taylor died with a whimper. My mother at one time thought the world would come to a standstill if certain people passed and Liz was one of them. Time’s a bitch. I like that streaming can give old stuff a niche audience again but there’s so much new content everywhere I don’t think people have any need to go looking for Happy Days or Rhoda. A 19 year old I work with knows every line of The Nanny and she says it’s very popular with girls her age. She ever has “ironic” Fran Drescher merch on her desk. Go figure.

[quote]My mother at one time thought the world would come to a standstill if certain people passed and Liz was one of them.

My mother did, too! She passed shortly afterwards (same age, same lack of self-care). To me, the loss of Liz is intertwined with the death of my mum. To this day, whenever I feel depressed and want to be with my mother, I stream an old movie of Liz, one where she really looked like Mother. Like the classic "Elephant Walk." I have several photo albums of mother looking just like that - before I was even born. It is so strange.

BTW, the old shows are slow compared to the new ones. If you put them on 1.25 speed they're better. A show before my time, that I discovered in an old flickering UHF station in LA, [italic]The Fugitive[/italic], mesmerized me.