Classic series that jumped the shark

[wonky]

@What_Exit

Not that I really care, but I was trying to think of a pre-TV classic series that had a chance to jump the shark. I watch way too much TCM.

Ooh, the Thin Man series! That one definitely went downhill.

[AHunter3]

The first Nancy Drew books are right at the 80 year mark also. While racist and simplistic, the originals written by Mildred Wirt (writing under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene) were well-written kids’ entertainment. She herself wrote some later ones that just weren’t as good, then the organization farmed the series out to another ghostwriter and it really went downhill.

I’d love to see someone make a movie of Secret of the Old Clock in black and white and cast in the 1930s with the actors recreating 30s-vintage acting riffs and postures and whatnot.

[What_Exit]

@jsgoddess

Ooh, the Thin Man series! That one definitely went downhill.

I’m trying to think, I can see where the movies were not as great as the first three or four. But the last of them, *Song of the Thin Man *(1947) was still a very good movie. IMDB has it at 6.8 rating with 1265 votes so I don’t think I would say it jumped the shark.

IMDB Thin Man titles sorted by user rating: Not scientific or authoritative but a decent guide on some of these older movies.

8.0 The Thin Man (1934)
7.5 After the Thin Man (1936)
7.3 Another Thin Man (1939)
7.2 The Thin Man Goes Home (1944)
7.1 Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
6.8 Song of the Thin Man (1947)

[Voyager]

@AHunter3

The first Nancy Drew books are right at the 80 year mark also. While racist and simplistic, the originals written by Mildred Wirt (writing under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene) were well-written kids’ entertainment. She herself wrote some later ones that just weren’t as good, then the organization farmed the series out to another ghostwriter and it really went downhill.

I’d love to see someone make a movie of Secret of the Old Clock in black and white and cast in the 1930s with the actors recreating 30s-vintage acting riffs and postures and whatnot.

You mean the original ones or the 1950s revisions? I haven’t read the later original ones to know, but I agree about the changed ones, which got all 1950ish. For instance, they’d insert something about Nancy going to church on Sunday at least once a book, just to let us know she wasn’t a godless Communist.

Oddly, a later fusion series with the Hardy Boys in the '80s was much better, with real murders and some real risk.

I read my daughter about 50 of these suckers.

[DrDeth]

Doc Savage of course, but I can’t point to the exact book where the shark was jumped.

[Tuckerfan]

Some of the last books of the John Carter of Mars series were rather pathetic rehashes of the earlier books. I can’t say exactly when the series did the shark jump, as its been so long since I read them, but as the series went on, they definately waned in quality, and I finished them solely so that I could say I’d read all of them.