Posted on 06/22/2006 9:23:01 AM PDT by Wolfie
Jump the Shark swallowed whole by Gemstar-TV Guide
Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. said on Wednesday it has bought Jumptheshark.com, a Web site where television fans debate whether popular programs have passed their prime.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. A Gemstar spokeswoman declined to provide further details.
Jon Hein, the site's founder and proprietor, said he will run it for Gemstar-TV Guide under contract. "They made a very fair offer," he said.
Hein, 38, also will keep his job at Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. where he co-hosts a show that follows shock jock Howard Stern's program and occasionally sits in for Stern on Fridays.
Gemstar will use content produced by Hein for its own Web site, TV Guide magazine and its interactive programming guide.
Hein's Web site is named after an episode of the 1970s U.S. TV show "Happy Days" when popular character Fonzie jumped over a shark in a water-skiing stunt, which some fans felt signaled the show's demise because the writers had run out of ideas.
Visitors to Hein's site have been debating since 1997 whether or not particular TV shows have "jumped the shark," a subject Hein said provides endless fodder for argument.
"You take a show like 'M*A*S*H'... you could say it's when Henry Blake died," Hein said in an interview, referring to the 1970s show about Korean War doctors.
"You could say it's every show with Alan Alda giving us a moral lesson on something, or BJ (Hunnicut) when he shaved his mustache, or when the Korean war lasted 12 years."
Other contributors on the site maintain that popular programs lost their luster when they hired a different actor to play a well-known part, such as when Donna Reed took over from Barbara Bel Geddes as "Miss Ellie" Ewing on "Dallas."
OK, I'll say it...
Has Jump The Shark jumped the shark? ;-)
Maybe.
It gets it's name from the Happy Days episode wherein Fonzi jumped over sharks on waterskis.
I never came up with a good hobby/fan page that would amount to anything. Then again, I wasn't going to pay the $100 or so that it cost back then for a vanity web site name. (And there was the laziness factor, too.)
TS
Indeed.
It's hard to define "jumping the shark" these days because everything on the air is just sooooo out there. Nothing seems to quirky and most of it is just flat out dumb. I guess, if I had to pick one show which has "jumped," it would have to be Navy NCIS. However, like I mentioned before, it's hard to tell. NCIS started out with unbelievable scenarios and characters. That being said, it's still my favorite show on T.V.
But did the phrase begin with the site or did it exist on the net beforehand?
I've seen this trend before (especially in the mid-1990s) when things that constantly circulated the internet (going back to the 1970s and 1980s) were culled from the internet and published as quickie books (like the misheard record lyics lists).
Good to see someone make a dollar off of this. But when the tv industry adopts this ranking, maybe it HAS jumped the shark.
It's obvious they are paying attention to the rankings and feedback. Why wouldn't some studio try to spin shifts in series as a "good" thing? Hollywood has always been about PR. This site is now part of that beast.
Anyway, when Scott Shannon mentioned the phrase and sounds casual about it, "you know, they say the show has 'jumped the shark'", the others on the show didn't sound like they had a clue what he was talking about. At the time, I was less than a decade out of college, where I had been a CIS major and I had never heard the phrase before. And I had been doing the BBS thing for a few years and hadn't come across it.
So I'll give the guy credit for coining the phrase when he created the site. Doesn't mean that I'm not wrong, but I think I would've heard someone tell me a different origin of the phrase by this point.
The phrase "Jumped the Shark" has "Climbed the Piano."
I like the website. I read the Simpsons comments often. The posters vary between the delusional "the show is still hilarious" and the morose "the show is horrendous and should be cancelled NOW" types.
Hein has said that it was a buddy in college who coined the phrase.
I did see the episode of Happy Days when it was first telecast -- that was quite a few years before the show was cancelled, so if the writers had run out of ideas, it took the viewing public a long time to figure that out. I think I immediately knew what it meant.... I have heard the phrase more than I care to in recent weeks though.
I guess the deal is Hein will still work on the website, but gradually turn it over to them as they learn what it is he does. Not bad for a million dollar payday.
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