Things that ruin a comedy show - jumping the shark thread

[dead-ced-dead]

I love the first two and a half seasons of Raising Hope. It's sweet, silly and continues Greg Garcia's run of empathetic depiction of lower class Americans.

The shark jump comes when they push the central focus of the show from the show's title (ie Raising Hope) to the parents.

On paper this makes sense. The lead, Jimmy, played by Lucas Neff is likable but compared to the supporting cast, not only his character less funny but he's not nearly as good of an actor. Fair enough, the supporting cast are played by Martha Plimpton, Garret Dillahunt and Cloris Leachman, three of the best American character actors of their respective ages, BUT....

In my opinion, you often need a 7/10 bland everyman to keep the kookier, funnier 10/10 characters grounded and to stop the show from becoming a quirkfest. Otherwise there's a risk that a TV show can overdose on too much of a good thing. Also, by shifting focus on a show about a hapless loser raising a child to a show about the parents who are funny but settled in their lives, the show starts to feel aimless.

Raising Hope isn't the only example of this. The American Office is certainly this when the supporting office workers like Phyllis, Oscar, Creed, Angela etc. go from characters who are good for an occasional good gag to just overwhelming, I lose interest really quickly. I just happened to be re-watching Raising Hope, so that's the example I went for.

But that's just one example - what are some shark jump moments for you?

[Famous Mortimer]

Whatever moment in "How I Met Your Mother" when they decided to go with their pre-episode-1 endgame rather than take advantage of any of the perfectly decent characters Ted had chemistry with

[Utter Shit]

Whatever moment in "How I Met Your Mother" when they decided to go with their pre-episode-1 endgame rather than take advantage of any of the perfectly decent characters Ted had chemistry with

My exit point on HIMYM was when they went back to the well on Ted/Robyn for maybe the third or fourth time. I don't even remember feeling like the show had gone downhill especially, or was struggling for ideas (can't remember exactly when it was - maybe season 6/7 at a guess?), but that whole relationship had become so boring that when it became clear the writers were going down that road again, I instantly bailed and never went back to it.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Comedy black hole Billy Eichner first appears in Parks and Rec

[Chollis]

The American Office is certainly this when the supporting office workers like Phyllis, Oscar, Creed, Angela etc. go from characters who are good for an occasional good gag to just overwhelming, I lose interest really quickly. I just happened to be re-watching Raising Hope, so that's the example I went for.

biggest one in The US Office that made everyone go "oh fuck off" was in Season 9 when they try to introduce one of the camera crew into the story, after 9 years of having their presence barely acknowledged, let alone as characters in the show. The show was already dead by this point but this particular moment always stands out for being universally hated.

[dead-ced-dead]

Comedy black hole Billy Eichner first appears in Parks and Rec

He's also incredibly annoying in New Girl, but it's only for one episode so it bounces back nicely.

[Famous Mortimer]

My exit point on HIMYM was when they went back to the well on Ted/Robyn for maybe the third or fourth time. I don't even remember feeling like the show had gone downhill especially, or was struggling for ideas (can't remember exactly when it was - maybe season 6/7 at a guess?), but that whole relationship had become so boring that when it became clear the writers were going down that road again, I instantly bailed and never went back to it.

I also stopped watching around that time. Weird how irritated I still am at how badly they messed that show up.

When they brought back Dwayne Dibley on "Red Dwarf".

[Icehaven]

Rachel and Joey briefly getting together in Friends is sort of an example of this, although it was already known it was the last season anyway so it seemed like a "what if?" from when Joey had a crush on her in season 8. Thinking viewers actually wanted to see how it'd have played out if she'd reciprocated his feelings, like it was unfinished business or something, was a misstep though, because they really didn't.

[bigfatheart]

People always say Niles and Daphne getting together in Frasier because "the show was always really about them", but I don't quite agree with that. Niles' attraction to Daphne was a running joke/feature, but rarely the central focus of more than an episode or two per series for the first few years. It was never at Sam and Diane levels, to use an obvious comparison, until the sixth series, when they introduced Donny and made it into a love triangle. Not coincidentally, that's the series where it took Seinfeld's time slot and NBC started putting pressure on them to bring in more viewers.

Anyway, that means that Niles and Daphne do start to become the chief focus of the show, and then they get together the next series, which does cause a problem, not because the show had nowhere to go, but because they seemed to forget that there was a time when the show was largely free of overarching plots and could just be a comedy. They kept trying to crowbar relationship drama in for Frasier, which didn't have any of the heft that Niles and Daphne did, because that had had some build-up to it.

So I suppose I do agree with the consensus on the show, just that the conclusion that is usually drawn ("It's because the show was really about them!") is wrong.

[neveragain]

Never heard anyone say the show was always really about them. Only ever heard the complaints.

[Icehaven]

I liked Niles and Daphne getting together because it didn't follow the having cake and eating it pattern of them still being "will they won't they/on off" just to try and keep it dramatic/ambiguous etc., they just got together and that was it. Obviously we only know that in hindsight though, at the time we were probably anticipating them breaking up every week.

[gilbertharding]

As this thread has already mentioned Friends and Frasier, something occurred to me when watching Frasier recently:

It's quite often mentioned how it's hard to believe the CoffeeFriends afford those massive flats in central NY, but no-one, apparently, questions how Frasier, a person who hosts a radio show for an hour five days a week (is it?) affords his lifestyle - or, more to the point, how KACL affords to pay the eponymous shrink enough that he doesn't need to take on any actual patients at all.

I dunno - perhaps it does add up. We must know, from his discussions with his agent, how much he's paid.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Frasier always had dogshit elements (Daphne's family, mostly) but I don't think it ever truly jumped the shark, did it?

[neveragain]

As this thread has already mentioned Friends and Frasier, something occurred to me when watching Frasier recently:

It's quite often mentioned how it's hard to believe the CoffeeFriends afford those massive flats in central NY, but no-one, apparently, questions how Frasier, a person who hosts a radio show for an hour five days a week (is it?) affords his lifestyle - or, more to the point, how KACL affords to pay the eponymous shrink enough that he doesn't need to take on any actual patients at all.

I dunno - perhaps it does add up. We must know, from his discussions with his agent, how much he's paid.

There's been a bit of discussion about that on Frasier forums over the years. Apparently one (or some) of the writers has said he was lucky on the stock market.

[Famous Mortimer]

He showed up in an episode of "Wings", along with Lilith, running a workshop of some sort, so he could well have been doing one of them a week and making a tidy sum.

[BritishHobo]

How I Met Your Mother is a great one 'cos it has loads of these. Another big hallmark of the downturn was when they realised how popular Barney was and really leaned into the hype. He went from a character who was funny because he wasn't as cool as he thought he was, to a character that the show clearly thought was the coolest person ever. If you're reading this and you bought a copy of The Bro Code then I'm sorry but please have a long hard think about what you did.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

In the case of Are You Being Served, continuing after 1979.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

harold's long lost half brother turning up in steptoe and son feels like watching several eras end all at once

[Famous Mortimer]

How I Met Your Mother is a great one 'cos it has loads of these. Another big hallmark of the downturn was when they realised how popular Barney was and really leaned into the hype. He went from a character who was funny because he wasn't as cool as he thought he was, to a character that the show clearly thought was the coolest person ever. If you're reading this and you bought a copy of The Bro Code then I'm sorry but please have a long hard think about what you did.

I was bought one. The only bit I remember was "Lebanese girls? Leba-please girls!", indicating how much he wanted to have sex with the women of that fair country.

80s Norman Lear-created sitcom "One Day At A Time" (featuring Mackenzie Phillips, who's had somewhat of a troubled life) had the classic example of the breakout supporting character who was never over-exposed. Building super Schneider (Pat Harrington Jr, who won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the role), even though he probably could have had his own spin-off, stayed at about the same level of activity on the show throughout its run. Kind of amazing, given the challenges the show had (Mackenzie Phillips being fired twice for drug abuse, introduction of crappy supporting characters) it kept righting the ship and was still strong at the end.

But there's another one from the same era that had the "change of location" and "horrible child actor" shark-jumping, at the same time. Nell Carter, better known as a singer (before she took the gig) starred in "Gimme A Break!" as...well, her best friend dies, and she was married to a police chief with three daughters, so out of a weird sense of obligation she moves in with the family to become the housekeeper. It's fine. Then, in season 3, Joey "Blossom" Lawrence joins the cast, with one of the more pathetic hand-wavey introductions of a new character ever. But Lawrence was an okay actor so it wasn't as awful as it could have been. Co-star Dolph Sweet died just before the end of season 4, but they continued with the grandfather moving in permanently in season 5. Still not terrible. Even Jonathan Silverman in the main cast didn't entirely spoil its charms.

At the end of season 5, one of the daughters wanted to get married and another moved away to college, so in season 6 they sold the house and Nell, along with the final daughter and Lawrence, moved from California to New York for no readily apparent reason. Matthew Lawrence, Joey's younger brother, future "Boy Meets World" star and 6-7 years old at the time, also joined the cast, for largely the same pathetic non-reason as Joey did, and was maybe the worst child actor in the history of child actors. Rosie O'Donnell and Paul Sand were also hired, and it sucked. Mercifully, they put it out of its misery at the end of that season.

Earlier on in its run, it had three different back-door pilots, none of which were picked up (another sign a show is running on fumes). Most interesting to us is the shoplifting runaway who's helped by Nell, but is then given a place to live and a job by crotchety convenience store owner Don Rickles!

[Kankurette]

Continuing long past its sell-by date. Yes, The Simpsons, I do mean you. Julie Kavner's voice has changed and the actors are all getting old and dying off. And I'll never be able to think of Homer as a '90s kid, he'll always be a Baby Boomer and Skinner will always be a Vietnam veteran.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Arrested Development - Making Buster a monster

Spoiler alert

with the reveal that he killed both Mimi and Lucille 2, which ruins the character for me, and all of the "I'm a Monster" running gags in earlier seasons, because yes Buster, you fucking are now.

[close]

When the season four announcement was made there was a lot of discussion on here as to whether or not it was a good thing, and I claimed if it was bad I'd just pretend it never happened. But however much I try, the plot twist above has really spoilt the show for me.

[Icehaven]

Continuing long past its sell-by date. Yes, The Simpsons, I do mean you. Julie Kavner's voice has changed and the actors are all getting old and dying off. And I'll never be able to think of Homer as a '90s kid, he'll always be a Baby Boomer and Skinner will always be a Vietnam veteran.

I'm 44, I grew up with The Simpsons and Homer being younger than me is just fucking ridiculous.

[Virgo76]

Comedy black hole Billy Eichner first appears in Parks and Rec

Paul Schneider also had this quality in the first series.

[jobotic]

How I Met Your Mother is a great one 'cos it has loads of these. Another big hallmark of the downturn was when they realised how popular Barney was and really leaned into the hype. He went from a character who was funny because he wasn't as cool as he thought he was, to a character that the show clearly thought was the coolest person ever. If you're reading this and you bought a copy of The Bro Code then I'm sorry but please have a long hard think about what you did.

Have never watched How I Met Your Mother but that sounds like what happened with Vince Noir.

[Famous Mortimer]

Vince Noir wasn't in The IT Crowd enough to be quite the same - Barney was always a main cast member, it's just...well, what @BritishHobo said.

[idunnosomename]

i never liked the phrase "jumping the shark" because I generally don't think a show is ruined after one over-the-top moment. also did Happy Days really decline after S5 in 1977/8? It did a extra-weird special "My Favourite Orkan" in '78 which not only started Mork & Mindy, but launched the career of Robin Williams.

anyway, travel back twenty years to this website (domain now redirects to TVguide.com/news) which was run by the inventors of the term who were determined to keep it A Thing
https://web.archive.org/web/20031206185326/http://jumptheshark.com/

[famethrowa]

Julie Kavner's voice has changed

It's awful, it's elder abuse on a grand scale and I can't listen to a word Marge croaks out without being reminded of the grim march of mortality.

[dissolute ocelot]

New Girl was another one where everyone seemed to be getting paired off with each other. Plus Schmidt went from kinda annoying roommate to most annoying person on the planet.

Any teen/high school show where they leave high school, although this applies as much to dramas as comedies.

Obviously, John Ritter dying during 8 Simple Rules. (And there's a couple of Simpsons deaths that are posited as the shark jumping.)

Getting cancelled and brought back again.

[ajsmith2]

Vince Noir wasn't in The IT Crowd enough to be quite the same - Barney was always a main cast member, it's just...well, what @BritishHobo said.

Uh? surely Jobotic meant Vince Noir in The Mighty Boosh? Fieldings character in the IT Crowd is called Richmond anyhow.

[jobotic]

I sure did