Indeed it does. The term was coined by Jon Hein in reference to that fateful episode of Happy Days. He later created the website jumptheshark.com, which discussed similar moments in other shows.
In an episode of Happy Days, The Fonz goes water skiing, encounters a shark, and jumps over it in the water skis. It marked a moment of dramatic decline in the show’s overall quality, and the term has been used since for any such point in time where something is identifiably worse after a specific event.
what in the world does “jumped the shark” mean?
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The term comes from an episode of happy days
Indeed it does. The term was coined by Jon Hein in reference to that fateful episode of Happy Days. He later created the website jumptheshark.com, which discussed similar moments in other shows.
The term and reference were in colloquial use long before the website.
In an episode of Happy Days, The Fonz goes water skiing, encounters a shark, and jumps over it in the water skis. It marked a moment of dramatic decline in the show’s overall quality, and the term has been used since for any such point in time where something is identifiably worse after a specific event.
It was a stunt, not a random encounter type of thing. Very hyped at the time.
The term “jumped the shark” has jumped the shark.
It deserves a read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
That’s a cool page, but you should try this one instead: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JumpingTheShark
That’s a good read, but all the pages shown as links from that page are also very interesting.
Relevant: https://xkcd.com/609/