"Jump the Shark" Thread

[Mo Frackle]

But...I liked All Grown Up Granted, it wasn't great. But I don't think it was as bad as everyone seems to think :/

Hey, there's nothing wrong with liking it. In fact, I haven't watched anything from All Grown Up in years. Maybe another look will give me a second opinion?

 

[D'Snowth]

I was never a really big fan of any of the Rugrats series anyway, so I couldn't give an opinion on it one way or another.

Interestingly, around the same time "All Growed Up" came into play, Recess came out with a DVD-movie thingy that reversed the process and put T.J. and the gang in kindergarten called "All Growed Down"... which I never got to see, despite being a big Recess fan.

 

[Hayley B]

I use to love Rugrats. I loved all three of the org Nicktoons.

For Rugrats I didn't care for the 2nd movie. Right when that big robot grabs Angelica and she's dangling from it in the air. I kept thinking. Angelica or not. If she was a real little girl. She would had been whaling with tears there.

 

[Drtooth]

But...I liked All Grown Up Granted, it wasn't great. But I don't think it was as bad as everyone seems to think :/

I have to admit, it wasn't terrible, just very very derivative. And Much like Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain, it would have been fun for one episode, but a whole series? I don't think they were able to keep it up. Nick wanted a Tween animated show, even though they had 2 others (the terrible Rocket Power, and the actually kinda good As Told by Ginger). They just stuck to a famous brand and saw if it would be successful as something else. Wasn't.

But then again, I can enjoy Rugrats and all... but the magic of the show was watching the adults talk about mundane things that the kids would misinterpret. Sometimes a little innuendo. That was sorely missing when they were tweenagers.

On the subject of Nick... I'm sure everyone agrees with me on this.

Ren and Stimpy... when they fired John K. There were some alright Games animated episodes when they started out (I love Stimpy's Cartoon Show). But Aloha Hoek? The one where they move into a whale carcass and they turn into Russian Spy Flinstones at the end? Even Dom Deluise couldn't save it.

Even the completely overboard with adult humor episodes with John K back weren't as terrible. Just very very VERY inside. Especially the Ralph Bakshi one.

 

[Hayley B]

As Told by Ginger.

I know As Told by Ginger use to appeal to much older people. My mother for one. It was like a 90210/soap to her.

I just keep thinking of Billy West when it comes to the later versions of Doug & Ren and Stimpy. They seem to bomb to people when he didn't continue to voice over those shows. Especially Ren and Stimpy.

 

[CensoredAlso]

But then again, I can enjoy Rugrats and all... but the magic of the show was watching the adults talk about mundane things that the kids would misinterpret. Sometimes a little innuendo. That was sorely missing when they were tweenagers.

Rugrats is the kind of jumping the shark that really broke my heart because it had started out as such a witty, clever show. The networks just run these wonderful shows into the ground until there's nothing left. It's really awful from an artistic point of view.

 

[Drtooth]

I just keep thinking of Billy West when it comes to the later versions of Doug & Ren and Stimpy. They seem to bomb to people when he didn't continue to voice over those shows. Especially Ren and Stimpy.

Billy West refused to come back for Adult Cartoon Party. I'm sure John K had problems with that as well. After all, Billy continued to work on the show when John was kicked out, even doing Ren's voice from that point on. But that's not what made ACP a mess. It was that John had too much creative freedom, and everything was out in the open, opposed to stealthily and cleverly subtle. Especially Ren and Stimpy's...eh... relationship. But then again, I'm sure if ACD kept going, he would have got the formula right. But Ren was just DETESTABLE in those cartoons. Especially the one where Stimpy is Pregnant (SPOILER: with a poop).

But still better than half the Games episodes.

Rugrats is the kind of jumping the shark that really broke my heart because it had started out as such a witty, clever show. The networks just run these wonderful shows into the ground until there's nothing left. It's really awful from an artistic point of view.

Rugrats was too popular for its own good. Would you believe that in the original line up of Rugrats, Ren and Stimpy, and Doug, Doug was the one Nick pegged to be the popular one? But Rugrats completely outshined all of them, it just took a little longer than expected. And because of that, the show ran on far longer than the other shows on Nick. They were all over the merchandise and at the over-saturation point. They had marathons every day of Rugrats. it was like the Rugrats channel at one point.

But that happens with a LOT of shows. They go on longer than they should, get too popular, change the demographic, the writing gets lazy and uninspired... I can name so many shows that did that, but Rugrats is a prime example. Family Guy is the best example.

Rugrats had some very witty stuff stealthily hidden. Like Dr. Lipschitz... a real name, but the immaturity of the writers just couldn't resist. Actually, I'm not going to bother to list them all, since TV Tropes listed most of them.

A LOT of anatomy jokes....

 

[D'Snowth]

When I think about it as far as kiddie shows go, I think Franklin starting jumping the shark after a couple of seasons or so (I don't know why, but I hated when Bear suddenly started wearing that blue vest), then it just kept spiraling downward from there... I think they realized how silly it was that Franklin was the only character with an actual name, so then we started getting a bunch of other characters with actual names.

I heard they actually started a new, and not surprisingly all-CGI, series... how does THAT compare?

 

[Sgt Floyd]

Its awful Thats aaaaallllllllll I gotta say about it

 

[D'Snowth]

Good thing I didn't even have any genuine interest in checking it out anyway.