"Jump the Shark" Thread

[Slackbot]

Muppet Babies, when in the last two seasons they started adding in more characters and had less in the way of fun team adventures. It's as if they suddenly forgot what made the show fun and charming. I enjoy most of the series, but it's very hard for me to force myself to watch any of the final two seasons.

 

[Drtooth]

The Powerpuff Girls when they switched over to *gasp* flash animation!

Actually, only the 10th Anniversary special was done in Flash. You mean digital coloring, right? I liked the crisper, cleaner look of the show by the time the movie came out. The episodes since the movie were hit or miss. They turned the Mayor into a babbling idiot (I HATE Toast of the Town). But I did love the Standards and Practice episode (especially since the prudish couple is voiced by the SAME parents from Fairly Oddparents).

So, I'd say either the show jumped the shark with the advent of the movie OR that rock opera episode. And it totally would have been better if they got Jack Black like they wanted to.

 

[minor muppetz]

I wonder what the big deal of Fonzie "jumping the shark" was. I thought that was a great sequence, I like the three-part "Hollywood" episodes which featured it, and in a way the later Richie episodes (seasons 5-7) are better than the earlier ones (though in another way the earlier ones are better). The show was on the air for six more seasons after this. In fact that was pointed out by Gary Marshall in the Happy Days 30th anniversary reunion special: "We did 100 more episodes after this, so if it made the show jump the shark, it didn't jump too badly".

Ironically, some fans tend to think the show jumped the shark with the introduction of Chachi, and he was introduced in that three-part cliffhanger. Though he was absent from part 2, making the shark-jumping episode his second appearance (just barely not his debut episode, though I think Ralph vs. Potsy was his first appearance in production order).

 

[Drtooth]

Muppet Babies, when in the last two seasons they started adding in more characters and had less in the way of fun team adventures. It's as if they suddenly forgot what made the show fun and charming. I enjoy most of the series, but it's very hard for me to force myself to watch any of the final two seasons.

I find the new animation studio from those seasons clumsy and ill suited for Muppet babies. I loved Toei's stilted, yet detailed animation (even though the first season looked a little dark).

Plus they ramped up the educational content, almost turning it into another show entirely (New Adventures of Kermo Polo and Transcontinental Whoo Whoo for 2 examples). And Bean Bunny was a lame character that even the writers didn't know what to do with. Too bad Janice was used only in one episode. She was actually the best new character... plus they desperately needed more female characters (even if they were played by men).

 

[Slackbot]

I didn't like Janice at all. Her voice really threw me. But I prefer her to Statler and Waldorf. IMO, they just aren't themselves if they're not heckling the Muppets, and heckling the babies would just be mean. Plus, exactly why are they parking their carcasses in the nursery anyway? Feh, let the babies have their own adventures based on their imaginations, not be weighed down by the presence of adults.

 

[charlietheowl]

I think that Seinfeld may have jumped the shark after Larry David left at the end of the seventh season. The last two seasons are still really funny, but they're a bit of a step down from the prime-era seasons. I personally think that the seventh season was the best of the show, as they combined the serial plotting of the fourth season with the awkward humor of the fifth and sixth season, and the last two seasons could only pale in the wake of that.

 

[D'Snowth]

On the subject of All That, I'd say it jumped the shark when it became "The NEW All That", when pretty much the entire cast was replaced... but then again, that's like all these old codgers and middle-agers who say, "Oh, Saturday Night Live was the never the same again after the original cast"... but I mean, without the likes of Kenan and Kel, Amanda Bynes, Lori Beth Denberg, Danny Tamberelli, Josh Server, and them, the show just wasn't worth watching.

As for Seinfeld, I feel the reverse, I feel the first three and a half seasons jumped the shark, if only because there was so much network scrutiny, too much network control, not enough creative freedom, etc. By the latter half of Season Four and onward is when the show kept getting better, and with a few exceptions (such as the episode that plays backwards), I think the last couple of seasons were the best... of course, that could be because that's when I remember first watching the show (I was only a kid when it first came on), so that could be why those episodes feel stronger to me than earlier ones. Yes, Larry David's departure was a blow, but there's a number of series that still go strong after the creator walks away: M*A*S*H went on for seven more seasons after creator Larry Gelbart left, even though the last four seasons were pretty bad.

Speaking of which, I agree with Daniel that the departure of Radar was bad for M*A*S*H, but I think with the direction Alan Alda took the writing and production staff in those last few seasons, that had Radar remained, it probably wouldn't have helped much. I do disagree a little on Frank Burns, I think Charles added new blood to the show, but he was also like Frank at times in that he was a character you could love to hate, not because he was a weasely twerp like Frank was, but because of what a heartless rich snob that he was, thinking he was better than everyone else in camp, yet every so often, Hawkeye and B.J. could pull the wool over his eyes without him realizing it (ala changing his uniforms to make him think he's losing weight, then gaining weight, etc).

 

[charlietheowl]

As for Seinfeld, I feel the reverse, I feel the first three and a half seasons jumped the shark, if only because there was so much network scrutiny, too much network control, not enough creative freedom, etc. By the latter half of Season Four and onward is when the show kept getting better, and with a few exceptions (such as the episode that plays backwards), I think the last couple of seasons were the best... of course, that could be because that's when I remember first watching the show (I was only a kid when it first came on), so that could be why those episodes feel stronger to me than earlier ones. Yes, Larry David's departure was a blow, but there's a number of series that still go strong after the creator walks away: M*A*S*H went on for seven more seasons after creator Larry Gelbart left, even though the last four seasons were pretty bad.

I like the first couple seasons of the show. The third season has some classic episodes (the parking garage, the nose job, the parking spot, the one with keith hernandez), and while things were not as outrageous as in later years, they are still pretty funny. But I would agree with your point that the show really hit its stride late in season four into season five.

 

[D'Snowth]

Yes, "The Parking Garage" is one of the few earlier episodes that I really enjoy... that, and "The Bubble Boy".

 

[Drtooth]

I didn't like Janice at all. Her voice really threw me. But I prefer her to Statler and Waldorf. IMO, they just aren't themselves if they're not heckling the Muppets, and heckling the babies would just be mean. Plus, exactly why are they parking their carcasses in the nursery anyway? Feh, let the babies have their own adventures based on their imaginations, not be weighed down by the presence of adults.

I liked Janice and Statler and Waldorf... I just feel they were used wrong. I like Statler and Waldorf as "Uncles" and all, but they clearly took the burden left by the network head's daughter's wishes to get rid of Bunsen and Beaker for educational content. I think Janice should have been added earlier (albeit with a different voice), and had a role similar to Bunsen and Beaker... just a kid who comes over every so often to visit. MB should have had more of a female presence in the show. That's why they invented Skeeter. But we had Piggy as the Pretty girl, Skeeter as the sporty tom boy... Janice as the music loving free spirit would have given another angle on the female demographic. Something that wasn't quite as overused in the 1980's.

But Bean is another story. The writers not only didn't know what to do with the character, they couldn't even match the character with his puppet counterpart. Bean turned into a nonconfident, constantly depressed Eeyore type character (didn't he even play Eeyore when they parodied Pooh?) who was always the butt of jokes, rather than the overly optimistic, cloyingly cute Muppet we know and love. I don't see where they got that comparison.

But the worst episode of the series was the one with the live action cat. We DIDN'T need an episode with a live action cat.