JUMP THE SHARK: the point in a television program's history where the plot spins off into absurd story lines or unlikely characterizations.

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It was September, 1977, and the TV show, Happy Days was waning. Viewership was down, and general interest had peaked and declined. The writers wrote a scene into a three-part series of the show in which Fonzie needed to show his bravery to retain his reputation. He mounted water skis and jumped over a shark in the waters. At the end of that season Happy Days closed. It became a classic scene, and the term jump the shark emerged as a term to depict a desperately scripted scene used to signal a memorable moment, but a slippery slope to finality.

If you happen to be one of those people who reads media magazines you will find the term employed regularly. Apart from that, however, the term jump the shark seems to have no legs. That amazes me. It is such a colorful term I would have expected it to have been adopted by other areas of life...like politics.

Think about a presidential campaign which is sluggish, losing points, and signalling defeat. In a desperate attempt to revive the campaign, the writers (substitute handlers, pols, party, etc.) make a bold move. They select a flashy, but somewhat unknown character from an unlikely setting to be the running mate for the flailing candidate. She is a vocal, sometimes off-message, populist with a colorful history and life story. The tired, depressed party pushes her into the forefront of the campaign, stirring a temporary but lively energy which captures the imagination of people who are tired of the same, old thing. Like Happy Days, it is too much, too late, and the campaign "folds" at the finish. The jump the shark event has been good for a brief uptick in the polls, but has no lasting effect on the campaign as a whole.

Doesn't that "hypothetical" story sound like a legitimate use of the term jump the shark? Wouldn't you have expected to hear it as a term batted about by talk show hosts and writers of editorials? I don't remember seeing or hearing it even once. Yet, it is a perfect description of what happened with the introduction of Sarah Palin into the Republican campaign of '08.

Couldn't the same be true for the introduction of the proposed bill to legalize same-gender marriage in New York State by Governor Paterson, whose bid for re-election is stumbling and is probably in its last moments? The bill failed, and so will the hopes for the Governor's nomination as the Democratic candidate for Governor next year.

I'm awed that the term jump the shark has remained apart from political jargon. Maybe I'll mount a campaign to introduce it in the next political season. It's too expressive a term to lie languishing in the media journals.


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