Things that ruin a comedy show - jumping the shark thread

[ajsmith2]

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.

Nah, it got better when the supporting cast was more fleshed out imo, it's one of the reasons why ultimately US Office >>> UK Office for me. After the richness of the US ensemble, I just can't go back to the UK Office with it's '4 main characters and the rest are paste' dynamic. Also, I would argue that Creed never got enough exposure to become overwhelming, they were always very careful to tastefully underuse him and never make the mistake of giving him a focus storyline, even in the last series or so when the wheels were coming off on a lot of other fronts.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Little Britain thinking incontinence was a fitting running sketch, no pun intended.

[phantom_power]

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.

That just seemed like a natural progression for that type of mockumentary comedy. I am surprised it didn't happen sooner

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.

I thought New Girl got better then more extreme the characters got and the more divorced from reality it became

[dead-ced-dead]

I thought New Girl got better then more extreme the characters got and the more divorced from reality it became

I agree. Winston going from regular dude to a Looney Tunes character was such a good idea.

[lazyhour]

How can we be talking about The American Office and not bring up the arrival of Catherine Tate??

[Famous Mortimer]

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

I am a huge idiot. I saw Noir and thought that other fellow.

[Twilkes]

Friends had some badly written episodes in the latter seasons and the great episodes were more sporadic but I don't think it declined significantly. Chandler and Monica were pretty much the only ones to realistically act their age after about season 5 and kept the comedy going too; Phoebe was kind of the same throughout the ten years; Joey was individually funnier in S6-10 than S1-5, maybe why he got his own series.

But Rachel was still acting like an early-20s citygirl to the end, and making her have a baby and then ignoring its existence most of the time so she could carry on being the same person was rubbish.

Ross though, for all his physical adroit and gaucheness, turned into an awful character possibly after he got put on sabbatical from his job. He would get worked up over tiny insignificant things and make the decisions and observations of someone with a quarter of the intelligence of someone who held a professorship at a university.

I wonder if there was a shark sitcom that sharks watched whether they would do an episode about a shark swimming under a human and everyone would whinge about it.

[twosclues]

Nah, it got better when the supporting cast was more fleshed out imo, it's one of the reasons why ultimately US Office >>> UK Office for me. After the richness of the US ensemble, I just can't go back to the UK Office with it's '4 main characters and the rest are paste' dynamic.

I was actually the opposite with the US Office, I felt like once it reached the same point as the UK one with Jim and Pam at the end of season 3, it reached its natural endpoint for me. But, I've recently fallen into a rewatch and seasons 4 and 5 hold up so much better than I had remembered. A lot of that is to do with Amy Ryan coming in, and I may end up skipping the season or so where she leaves again.

I never got the Creed love though, a bridge too far for me.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Maybe not a jump the shark moment exactly but that season of Modern Family where Cam and Mitch take care of Cam's nephew Calhoun for a bunch of episodes comes close. The only thing I remember about him is that he's a massive child for the age he's supposed to be and this is waved off as 'lol farm strong' or something. He left no impression on me and I don't even remember if he served any story purpose.

It was the second time the show added a new child to the family, not counting Lily who's adopted in the first episode. When Joe was born to Jay and Gloria, it spurred Jay to re-examine and improve his attitude to and method of parenting. Cal? Drawing a blank.

[MojoJojo]

i never liked the phrase "jumping the shark" because I generally don't think a show is ruined after one over-the-top moment.

I think with sitcoms, you often watch to enjoy the familiar world and characters as much as the jokes. So often shoddy writing can be overlooked for awhile. A Jumping the shark moment breaks that familiarity, and makes you realise none of the characters make sense anymore and you haven't laughed at a joke in 2 seasons. It's a bit like when your suspension of disbelief gets broken.

Or maybe it's more a case a show can go down hill for awhile, but you stick with it out of the accumulated good will, and hope the past enjoyment will return. Then the shark jumping moment happens, and your accumulated goodwill runs out and the hope it will get good again disappears.

[dissolute ocelot]

Maybe not a jump the shark moment exactly but that season of Modern Family where Cam and Mitch take care of Cam's nephew Calhoun for a bunch of episodes comes close. The only thing I remember about him is that he's a massive child for the age he's supposed to be and this is waved off as 'lol farm strong' or something. He left no impression on me and I don't even remember if he served any story purpose.

It was the second time the show added a new child to the family, not counting Lily who's adopted in the first episode. When Joe was born to Jay and Gloria, it spurred Jay to re-examine and improve his attitude to and method of parenting. Cal? Drawing a blank.

I stopped regularly watching later series of Modern Family, but every time I tuned in there seemed to be another child. Why would a sitcom even want young kids? They do nothing, they can't be on set for long, it's totally pointless.

Although another big problem for family sitcoms is the kids growing up, which to be fair Modern Family handled quite well as Alex, Haley, and Manny were all sufficiently interesting characters. But in other shows, where in real life kids would be away doing their own stuff (or at least avoiding their parents as hard as possible), it becomes utterly pointless having them keep pop up. My Family seemed to continue till Kris Marshall was about 30. And the dynamic changes - DJ in Roseanne started out as a weird Munster but did become a human being.

[dead-ced-dead]

I stopped regularly watching later series of Modern Family, but every time I tuned in there seemed to be another child. Why would a sitcom even want young kids? They do nothing, they can't be on set for long, it's totally pointless.

Although another big problem for family sitcoms is the kids growing up, which to be fair Modern Family handled quite well as Alex, Haley, and Manny were all sufficiently interesting characters. But in other shows, where in real life kids would be away doing their own stuff (or at least avoiding their parents as hard as possible), it becomes utterly pointless having them keep pop up. My Family seemed to continue till Kris Marshall was about 30. And the dynamic changes - DJ in Roseanne started out as a weird Munster but did become a human being.

Malcolm in the Middle (and for the most part Bob's Burgers) seems to buck this trend by having the kids getting into their own weird side adventures.

[JesusAndYourBush]

It did a extra-weird special "My Favourite Orkan" in '78 which not only started Mork & Mindy, but launched the career of Robin Williams.

I can imagine an alternate universe where that episode didn't spawn Mork & Mindy and this is now the "jump the shark" episode.

[idunnosomename]

The Great Gazoo in The Flintstones is much more emblematic of a tired show taking increasingly desperate avenues that take it further away from the original premise

[Phoenix Lazarus]

The Great Gazoo in The Flintstones

That rings a bell.  Do remind us.

[Icehaven]

When Troy left Community.

[neveragain]

That rings a bell.  Do remind us.

Green alien that only Fred can see.

[Ignatius_S]

Maybe not a jump the shark moment exactly but that season of Modern Family where Cam and Mitch take care of Cam's nephew Calhoun for a bunch of episodes comes close. The only thing I remember about him is that he's a massive child for the age he's supposed to be and this is waved off as 'lol farm strong' or something. He left no impression on me and I don't even remember if he served any story purpose.

It was the second time the show added a new child to the family, not counting Lily who's adopted in the first episode. When Joe was born to Jay and Gloria, it spurred Jay to re-examine and improve his attitude to and method of parenting. Cal? Drawing a blank.

I needed to revise my view of Cal (and of other elements of the show) quite substantially after rewatching the entire run in a relatively short timeframe at the end of last year and beginning of this year with a friend. Now, I have a very different view to you - Cal's inclusion provided a very satisfactory storyline that called back to much earlier in the show, set up a conclusion in the next season and was effective in the characterisation on Cam and Mitchell. Also, this happened in a season where the show got its mojo back.

Re-watching the series made me appreciate with just how consistent it was/is and my memory of it starting to tail off and continue to do so (although still an entertaining show) was not correct.

By the end of season nine, although very enjoyable, I was feeling that although the show was hardly running on fumes, it had a great innings but the law of diminishing returns was setting in and it was better ending the show sooner, rather than later. I wouldn't say I was unique in that and the following season was meant to be the last. However, with season ten (the one with Cal) they just knocked it out of the park and they got one more season - which was a nice resolution and ended things nicely, but didn't hit the heights of season ten.

If Cal's inclusion hadn't worked, we would be in the situation where the season was still superior to the one before (and arguably the one before that and possibly, the one before that.) However, I was pleasantly surprised by how well he worked.

Although the joke about him being to enormously grown for his age wasn't that great in itself (and can see why it wore thin for some) it really played in with a key aspect of the storyline line - Cam and Mitchell wanting another baby. By the end of the storyline, they've realised that this is something that they need to think about more - it's a lot harder and far more exhausting than they remembered, particularly with Cal being such a handful. This presented one of those opportunities in the show to portray to two characters a little more seriously and gives them depth.

Similarly, by agreeing to look after Pam's son, it's a reminder that just how lovely the two are - they are genuinely good people and why we care about them, not just find them funny. Mitch's instincts in these type of situations is to say no - mainly because he's cautious and can be pessimistic - Cam brings (or arguably drags) another side of him. Throughout the series, we see how well each complements the other and this is an example of this.

At the same time, they can't help themselves and want to be the perfect parents. When faking a video to show Pam just how fast Cal is coming on under their care, it's a callback to when they take Lily to a playgroup and Mitch, worried that she is developing slowly compared to others, steals the blocks from another child to make out Lily has been spelling words. There's also an element of 'we're better than you' to Pam, I would say, which I find interesting. They have done a good thing in looking after Cal, but they are human.

The storyline also works well with the later confrontation between Pam and Mitchell, after the other in good conscience could not write a letter on her behalf. Pam focusses on that, rather than what he has done with Cam looking after Pam.

The actual screen-time that Cal gets is actually very small and I found this happened with a lot of characters that were introduced, even though the perception is that they were in a lot more. A fair bit of that is to do with pretty clever writing and how characters are referred to, in a way that seems natural and feels like we might see them later. That said, this wasn't so effective with Pepper towards the end. Pepper is only in a dozen episodes or less, but feels a far more dominant character - partly this is through set-ups like Cam and Mitch having to desperately search for Christmas presents for Pepper's party after first misreading the invite, it works brilliantly and helps build the world that the main characters live in. Much later on, when Ronaldo features on his own, there are elaborate, faintly amusing explanations that aren't anywhere as effective.

Previously I remember the loud family, typically described as rednecks, moving next door as not working but on the rewatch, found they were in just four episodes and thought they actually actually were very effective. There were quite a few things like that I found.

[Ignatius_S]

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/

Yes, it's quite problematic as a concept and there has been a fair bit of good discussion about this here in the past.

One of the issues, for me, is that - as with most things - something doesn't just happen, but a number of factors are at play and have been leading up to it. I remember a lot of friends citing elements like celebrity cameos, Homer gets a new job etc. as why they went off The Simpsons, but these were in evidence in what they considered the peak of the show. Also, I recall one of my mates saying that The Cartridge Family showed that the series had never been funnier (at the time, I said although I did find it funny, it had lost aspects that I really liked) but now thinks it's terrible - I feel that this happens a fair bit. At the time, people might actually really enjoy but with hindsight, they don't look upon it as fondly.

There was an article about the jumping the shark episode in Happy Days that I found interesting as it highlighted that people forget about there was some decent stuff going on:

...And all three of these episodes devote most of their scenes to the relationship between Richie and Fonzie, and how Cunningham gets a different perspective on what's really important in life from the down-to-earth Fonzarelli, but is also astute enough to recognize and manage The Fonz's insecurities.

That Ron Howard/Henry Winkler dynamic was a big reason why Happy Days turned a corner in the ratings in its third season. As Richie moved beyond mere hero worship, Fonzie too became more than just colorful comic relief. There's a real touch of genius to the way Winkler played The Fonz: seemingly unflappable, but also often defensive, irritated, or nervous. It's a nuanced performance, capturing both the cartoonishly capable and confident side of the character, along with the working-class kid who worries that other people are trying to make a fool of him.

Two scenes in "Hollywood: Part 2" show Winkler's range. In one, Richie tells Fonzie that the studio isn't going to give him a contract, and Winkler goes from angry to stunned to muted to despondent in about a minute of screen time. In the other, The California Kid goads The Fonz into making a water-ski jump over a pen containing a man-eating shark. Ralph and Potsie pretty much accept the challenge on Fonzie's behalf, while Winkler plays his Fonzarelli as both cocky daredevil and frightened little kid...

He (Fred Fox Jr., writer and producer) went on to add that the show ran for 164 more episodes after "Hollywood: Part 3" (which was Happy Days' 91st), and that it remained in the Top 25 for five of its six remaining seasons. In two of those, seasons five and six, it finished the year in Nielsen's Top 5. I'd also note that after the shark jump, there are 12 more minutes left in "Hollywood: Part 3," wrapping up all the rest of the story that fills up this three-parter. Really, the jump is just a cliffhanger introduced at the end of part two and then fairly quickly resolved in part three. It's not really the main driving action of "Hollywood," and to focus on it exclusively is to misremember what these episodes were actually about.
https://www.avclub.com/in-the-three-part-hollywood-happy-days-literally-jum-1798283333

Also, I do feel that the term is often used as an overly simplistic critique and this part of the article, I would lean to:

I was never much of a fan of the "Jump The Shark" concept. Reviewing the book version of the website back in 2002, I wrote:

Hein leaves contemporary relevance and critical acuity aside in the name of snarky nitpicking, even writing, "We all grew up with these shows and feel betrayed when they jump," as though the addition of Cousin Oliver to the Brady Bunch cast somehow constituted an act of criminal deceit. The "Jump The Shark" worldview ultimately strains to transform every misstep into an outrage, which is a habit that becomes easier and easier, if that's all a person wants to do. It's a sour legacy.

I stand by that. As Fox noted in his Los Angeles Times piece, the singling out of Fonzie's shark jump ignores everything else that was good about the "Hollywood" episodes and Happy Days in general. It disregards the tastes of TV audiences in 1977 and the history of the show to that point.

[wrec]

I saw the jumping the shark scene recently and hadn't realised the great fish is confined in an underwater pen, so it's not that ridiculous. Prior to that I was trying with difficulty to picture The Fonz somehow doing a water-ski jump over a shark that was just swimming around freely.

[Famous Mortimer]

How about we deal with the first half of the thread's title, just talk about examples of things ruining comedy shows, and not have this debate for the twentieth time?

[This isnt witty sorry]

Things that ruin a comedy chat topic - jumping the shark thread

[dead-ced-dead]

To be honest, I didn't realise it was a hot button debate round 'ere. I just thought it made for a punchier thread title. It's too late to edit it, but yeah, I was thinking more about an individual show basis.

[famethrowa]

oh im so sad someone made fun of the quality of my favourite tv show from 50 FUCKING YEARS AGO a bloo bloo bloo

[dead-ced-dead]

oh im so sad someone made fun of the quality of my favourite tv show from 50 FUCKING YEARS AGO a bloo bloo bloo

[Minami Minegishi]

I think that the moment Brent treats his blind date like a piece of shit for being larger than he was expecting, I just didn't care about him anymore. The date he brings to the xmas party bit and the Finchy bit doesn't work for me because by that point I just think he's a cunt. It's a tonal moment that drags the character down for me.

Same goes for Michael Scott when they repreoduce that scene in the American Office. I'm amazed they decided that Michael needed to be the same cunt as Brent when they had been careful for so many seasons.

[dissolute ocelot]

Definitely a bad sign is when a show becomes more interested in the main characters' romantic lives than in jokes. It's very hard to write romantic comedy that is romantic and funny and (hardest of all) believable, but once a show has created characters that people like, it's easy to fall back on having them fall in and out of love, as something that provides a constant plot motivation and everyone will be super-involved with that. But sustaining a "will they, won't they" relationship is really hard, and few shows are able to develop a relationship from first dating through marriage/living together, kids, etc. (OFAH lasted longer than most.)

On the other hand, it's definitely a case where things done well are good, things done badly are bad because e.g. Friends had the rom-com element right from series 1 with Ross and Rachel but initially it was very funny, and then it stopped being funny. There's also the risk, as with something like The Mindy Show, that if you're not involved in the relationship or think the guy's an asshole, you're not going to watch.

(Things that ruin a comedy show and things that turn you off a show you previously liked are slightly different topics, but this is all a matter of taste.)

[The Mollusk]

The pilot episode of every comedy show should have a shark jumping scene right at the start just to get it out of the way. Then whatever comes afterwards is sure to be gold by comparison. Problem solved, you're welcome.

[beanheadmcginty]

That late series of the A-Team where they changed the theme tune and added Dishpan and Robert Vaughan to the team.

[Cold Meat Platter]

That late series of the A-Team where they changed the theme tune and added Dishpan and Robert Vaughan to the team.

Think this might have pre-dated that. Anyway, The A-Team is a gritty drama