I think it came from some old TV show. Laverne and Shirley maybe? Joanie loves Chachi? Something like that. Perhaps Lenny and Squiggy did some beach thing.
[QUOTE=CookingWithGas]
Didja read post #9?
[/QUOTE]
Er… no. I just scanned for URLs and didn’t notice that someone had referenced the website without actually linking to it. :smack:
I like the phrase. I like how it’s become so widespread, and unofficially official as a way to describe a phenomenon. I think it will be around for a long time yet, maybe for decades.
Not quite. More precisely, jumping the shark happens some time after the series becomes stale. The shark-jumping is a gimmick that’s used to try to bring back the freshness of the show, by doing something new and different. More often, it’s something like a wedding between two characters who have had a lot of romantic tension over the course of the show.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
It’s complaints about complaints about over-used catchphrases that bug me the most.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but it’s the third round that really jumps the shark.
Tris
[QUOTE=hajario]
It’s not an SDMB catch phrase at all. It’s been around for quite a while and predates the Dope.
[/QUOTE]
No it hasn’t. Happy Days and the “Jump the Shark” episode predates the Dope, the modern phrase “Jumped the Shark” referring to that episode does not.
[QUOTE=muttrox]
No it hasn’t. Happy Days and the “Jump the Shark” episode predates the Dope, the modern phrase “Jumped the Shark” referring to that episode does not.
[/QUOTE]
The phrase began with the website in 1997. This message board started in 1999.
I guess that’s what I get for being nitpicky. You said the Dope, I read it as The Straight Dope, which proclaims in big letters “since 1973”. But you did say SDMB just before that… so never mind! Nitpick retracted.