Writer of Happy Days "Jump The Shark" episode says it doesn't deserve its fate

[Amerigo Vespucci]

First Person: In defense of 'Happy Days' ' 'Jump the Shark' episode
Contrary to pop culture belief, when Fonzie jumped the shark, it hardly marked the demise of the show.

By Fred Fox Jr., Special to the Los Angeles Times

September 3, 2010



In 1987, Jon Hein and his roommates at the University of Michigan were drinking beer and had Nick at Nite playing in the background. They started talking about classic TV shows when someone asked, "What was the precise moment you knew it was downhill for your favorite show?" One said it was when Vicki came on board "The Love Boat." Another thought it was when the Great Gazoo appeared on "The Flintstones." Sean Connolly offered, "That's easy: It was when Fonzie jumped the shark." As Hein later recounted, there was silence in the room: "No explanation necessary, the phrase said it all."

Thus was born an expression that would quickly make its way into the pop culture mainstream, defined by Hein as "a moment. A defining moment when you know from now on … it's all downhill … it will never be the same." If I had been in the room, however, I would have broken that silence of self-assuredness, for I wrote that now infamous episode of "Happy Days."

And more than three decades later, I still don't believe that the series "jumped the shark" when Fonzie jumped the shark.

Get breaking entertainment news, delivered to your mobile phone. Text ENTERTAIN to 52669.

Little did the show's writers and producers know as we gathered in a conference room at Paramount Studios that spring day in 1977 that we would be creating a little piece of history. "Happy Days" was finishing the 1976-77 season as the most popular series on television, an accomplishment we were all proud of. That year had begun with a highly rated three-part story in which Fonzie ( Henry Winkler) rekindled the flame of a former love, Pinky Tuscadero. Because of this success, ABC and Paramount wanted us to open the next season, our fifth, with another three-part story.

After discussing different scenarios, we decided to take the "Happy Days" gang to Hollywood, with Fonzie invited for a screen test. One of the plot lines would be Fonzie clashing with "The California Kid," a cocky local beach boy. Since Henry water skied in real life, it was suggested the characters race and then, as a tiebreaker, have to jump a shark in a netted area in the ocean.

Now, whose idea was it for Fonzie to jump the shark? Amazingly, I can't remember — which is frustrating, as I can usually watch a "Happy Days" episode from any season, hear a joke and recall who wrote it. My friend Brian Levant, then a talented new member of the writing staff, believes that Garry Marshall, the show's co-creator and executive producer, and Bob Brunner, the show runner at the time, made the suggestion. But what I definitely remember is that no one protested vehemently; not one of us said, "Fonzie, jump a shark? Are you out of your mind?"

After the stories for the three opening episodes were blocked out, it was time to see who would write them. Often the writer who came up with the story would write the teleplay, while other times the script assignments were given out by the show runner. Bob gave me the final part to write.

There were no objections from the cast, the studio or the network concerning "Hollywood 3," as it came to be titled. It aired Sept. 20, 1977, and was a huge hit, ranking No. 3 for the week with a 50-plus share (unheard of today) and an audience of more than 30 million viewers.

And that was that until Hein and his roommates appeared a decade later. Not long after their initial bull session, Hein launched http://www.jumptheshark.com, listing about 200 television shows and inviting visitors to suggest the moment they knew a show was on the decline. Incredibly, the three words took off like wildfire and over the years the phrase has been used in television shows, video games and countless newspapers, magazines and blogs — applied to practically anything: sports, music, celebrities, politics. It even found its way into the Oxford English Dictionary as British journalists pondered whether Tony Blair had jumped the shark. I saw a post on examiner.com a few weeks ago suggesting President Obama was about to do the same thing by appearing on "The View."

Which brings us to the question: Was the "Hollywood 3" episode of "Happy Days" deserving of its fate?

No, it wasn't. All successful shows eventually start to decline, but this was not "Happy Days'" time. Consider: It was the 91st episode and the fifth season. If this was really the beginning of a downward spiral, why did the show stay on the air for six more seasons and shoot an additional 164 episodes? Why did we rank among the Top 25 in five of those six seasons?

That's why, when I first heard the phrase and found out what it meant, I was incredulous. Then my incredulity turned into amazement. I started thinking about the thousands of television shows that had been on the air since the medium began. And out of all of those, the "Happy Days" episode in which Fonzie jumps over a shark is the one to be singled out? This made no sense.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-jump-the-shark-20100903,0,6800871.story

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. awesome

:bounce:

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. He's confusing ratings decline with quality decline. nt

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. basically, he is just confused.

;)

I think the leather jacket is what did it.

there is water skiing

and then there are leather jackets

and the two should never meet.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. I just looked at the JumpTheShark site. I had no idea how badly TV Gude screwed it up.

All the old postings are gone. They use the original JTS categories to promote new shows but there's no context left.

[EFerrari]

11. It's beautifully American -- like aisling and breaking news instead of reporting it.

lol

[Biker13]

9. +1000

Perfectly stated. It's amazing what the masses will watch!

Biker's Old Lady

[deutsey]

14. Yeah, MASH was on for about 3 or 4 years after it should've gone off

The final episode had the largest ratings ever until that moment, and even though I was a big fan of MASH, I was as disappointed in it as I was in the last few seasons.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

15. Oh, HELL, yeah. Though MASH suffered from different problems.

[jobycom]

16. I don't think so. Most TV shows can't really decline in quality.

They never have much to start with.

I think what the whole "Jump the shark" thing indicated was the Bubba who came up the meme was suddenly old enough by that episode to see how dumb the show was in the first place. It's a corollary of the old "The just don't write them like they used to" line in music, books, movies, tv, etc. They write them the way they used to. Heck, if anything, most are written better now than ever before. But as we get older, we aren't as satisfied with their low quality, and we assume the quality declined. Really, our tastes just more sophisticated.

Bubba Shark Dude just grew up enough to realize that television was written to appeal to people under ten.

[NewJeffCT]

4. It's a wee bit late to offer a defense now

Jump the Shark has been around for years... it's stuck.

[kentauros]

6. Personally, I can't stand that "jump the shark" meme.

Too often, it gives people the right to trash a series simply because they perceive that a show failed from this one thing. Or they accept everyone else's assessment that the "jump the shark" killed the show instead of looking deeper.

A good writer, given the freedom they should get, could write any show out of that perception, no matter the circumstances, even overbearing control by the suits ;)

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. Can't look it up anymore (see Post 5) but as I recall...

... the "jump the shark" moment wasn't so much the event or episode that killed a show as it was an identifiable moment when a show's decline in quality became impossible to ignore.

[kentauros]

8. Nonetheless,

my point is that it's really unfair. If it's important to those that own the show to keep the quality up, then they will, and with quality writing. You can have the best cast in the world, but if the writing sucks, quality actors won't be able to save it.

Maybe I just need to state it again in different words. Most people I have seen online using the term use it in reference to a specific moment in a series that has been determined by the majority as the "jump the shark" moment and why I usually object to their assessment.

[Bucky]

13. You just threw jump the shark under the bus to the extreme. Oh Snap!

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. Same thing with the guy who wrote the Carrotman episode of Lost in Space.

At least he had the integrity to admit that he was absolutely out of ideas :rofl:

[chrisa]

12. www.jumptheshark.com has jumped the shark.

I used to go there for laughs at how people thought different shows were "Jumping the shark" before TVGuide, the biggest abomination on TV and Magazines, turned it into their personal blog (and got rid of user comments). *Sigh... :(

[CreekDog]

17. It jumped the shark when Potsie started singing

or turned 30, whichever happened first. :dilemma: