Jumping the Shark

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | 12/18/2005 | Salena Zito

[NorthEasterner]

Jumping the shark By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, December 18, 2005 Pop culture, like politics, has a language all its own, adopted from a multitude of sources. The most influential is television, which provides news, information and cultural influences in a constant stream. So it's fitting that we often use pop slang to describe political milestones.

"Jumping the shark" refers to the moment when something once-great ends, or even tumbles into free-fall. Its origin is the "Happy Days" episode in which the Fonz, on water skis, jumps a shark, marking the decline of the show.

Now take a moment to think of some Washington Beltway types who jumped the shark.

First up might be former President Jimmy Carter. Some would say he jumped the shark when he sat with Michael Moore at the 2004 Democrat convention -- a worthy moment, to be sure, but his demise actually was of a more serious nature. Carter's jump came with his inept handling of the hostage-taking in Iran, which in turn laid the groundwork for today's Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Re: Jimmy Carter - anyone remember the time he ran the Peachtree Road Race and collapsed from the heat? There were some great wire photos of him like a limp noodle being assisted away by the Secret Service. That was totally jumpin' the shark.

[NorthEasterner]

ha forgot that one great stuff

[luvbach1]

I think Jimmah "jumped the shark" much earlier when he expressed puzzlement that the Soviets could not be trusted to keep their word.

[Brett66]

I think one of Carter's great JTS moment was sitting in his chair with a sweater on telling us all to do the same, or his "malaise" comment.

[wita]

Excellent point. Though it is now much harder to fool the populace, apparently, there is still a great opportunity to do so or there are a great many who are easily fooled, or both.

[PROTESTBYPROXY]

Please don't forget the joke about Montezuma's revenge to the President and dinner guests of Mexico in Mexico. What a dork.

[sayfer bullets]

Helmet, meet Lei.

[sirchtruth]

You mean about using a psychic to find a lost airplane and having seen a red, white and blue UFO?

LOL! No, I haven't even heard about those!!! I was just referring to him being anti-war and making dumbass comments.

[Williams]

Well, if you add the whole administration, you had Jodie Powell kissing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's wife (a religious no no), looking down at her breasts, and announcing "now I have seen the pyramids!"

Powell and some others also publicly urinated at the base of the great pyramid (the real one).

And brother Billy Carter, a beer drinking hick, was paid $100,000 by Khadaffi as an "international consultant."

Then you had Jimmy Carter personally scheduling who could play tennis on the White House courts.

It's a long list, many younger people don't know that Carter started out with a lot of public good will as a decent guy, but his administration was one embarrassment after another, leading to his defeat in a record landslide.

[albee]

Bump for later read! This is going to be a FR Classic!

[rock58seg]

Are you saving your Billy Beer for a Party wake when Carter dies. I am. The only reason I ask is, I noticed that can was still unopened.

[Mia T]

bump

CINDY SHEEHAN'S JUMP-THE-SHARK MOMENT?
(metaphor--Jon Hein via PJ-Comix, logo--Jon Hein)

by Mia T, 9.01.05

(viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)

PLAY MOVIE

THE GREAT FISH moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tail. The mouth was open just enough to permit a rush of water over the gills. There was little other motion: an occasional correction of the apparently aimless course by the slight raising or lowering of a pectoral fin--as a bird changes direction by dipping one wing and lifting the other. The eyes were sightless in the black, and the other senses transmitted nothing extraordinary to the small, primitive brain. The fish might have been asleep, save for the movement dictated by countless millions of years of instinctive continuity: lacking the flotation bladder common to other fish and the fluttering flaps to push oxygen-bearing water through its gills, it survived only by moving. Once stopped, it would sink to the bottom and die of anoxia.

Peter Benchley, Jaws

[rock58seg]

Ford = His pardon of non crimes for RMN.

Carter = Rabbit, Olympic athletes, panama canal, malaise speech, gas lines, Iran, lusted in his heart.

Clinton = When we got to the "Character doesn't matter" part by his supporters.

Bush 41 = Read my lips, no new taxes.

Gore = No legal controlling authority

Kerry = His post Viet Nam treachery

Dean = Never followed his antics very much, so the scream will do

Of course I do recognise a boilerplate overall JTS moment. It goes, "Hi I'm running on the Democratic ticket for...."

[Capt. Tom]

What a great picture. I like the catch-phrase too.

Freeper, Orbiting_Rosie's_Head, is the originator of "Riding the tank."

I like that expression to describe a politician's going over the cliff. - tom

[Verginius Rufus]

Ron Brown's plane crashed on April 25, 1996, in the fourth year of Clinton's first term. As revealing as Clinton's fake tears at the funeral were, he had done plenty of other things to reveal his true self by then, not all of which the mainstream media managed to hide from the public...notably the Waco massacre to stop the public relations problem the standoff was causing, which was already in his first months in office...and his bungling in Somalia and his sabotaging the efforts to prevent genocide in Rwanda...the list is endless.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Just searched for this and realized that he collapsed in a race in MD, not the Peachtree.

Here's a very sympathetic link:

http://www.runningtimes.com/issues/79/rtcarter19792.htm

But note how they control access to the photos.

[GreenHornet]

I admit it. I ALWAYS wondered at the origin of that saying, "Jump the Shark"...:)

If you're a TV fan, the "Jump The Shark" web site is very entertaining. (I don't know if I'm allowed to post the link here, but if you do a search on "Jump The Shark", you'll find it with no problem).

[1L]

>>jumps a shark, marking the decline of the show<<

This is a pet peeve of mine, as that episode did not mark the decline of the show. The show started declining when Howard left.

[don-o]

. I ALWAYS wondered at the origin of that saying, "Jump the Shark"...:)

I also. But, I was told it was Evil Keneval.(sp) In Vegas