Jump the Shark episodes

In this episode Felicity, who's hairstyle in the first season became iconic like "The Rachael" on Friends and Farrah Fawcett's on "Charlies Angels", is suddenly cut short. It's like her hairstyle was a character of it's own and was half the reason to watch the show, but you didn't realize it until it was gone.

The episode that started the term "jump the shark". The Fonz goes water-skiing but the writers of the show still keep him in his trademark leather jacket, making us not take his coolness or the show seriously again. The stories just seemed to be silly after that. Ron Howard would leave the show two years later taking away the heart of the show but it would still somehow continue for even five years after that, but the stories with the magic of the show set in the 50's was gone.

This episode starting the ninth season of the show shows Roseanne winning the lottery which changes the dynamic of the show and the characters seem out-of-character after that.

The first 5 seasons of "The Andy Griffith Show" were in black and white, this episode starts the last three seasons which are in color. That makes it easy to know when one of the greatest shows on television jumped the shark. With Don Knotts gone from the show starting this season the show was barely a comedy anymore, and the other characters besides Andy, Opie, and Aunt Bee seemed bland or annoying compared to Barney.

It took until the last episode of this series that lasted nine years for it to jump the shark. One of the most laugh out loud comedies has an episode where they go to court and various guest-stars from earlier great shows show up that make you at first excited but then do or say things that make you wish they never made this episode. The previous show was a retrospective looking back at the previous great moments which seems like it should have been the last episode made to make a great ending to this excellent show.

Many seem to consider seasons 11 and 12 of "The Simpsons" as some of the worst. This episode in the 12th season seems to be a point where it jumped the shark. For one thing it recycled some of it's own old plotlines and there is an incident when Homer wears a panda costume. Before this episode the writers seemed to write jokes specifically for certain characters and their specific personality, after this episode it seems jokes are just written and given to any character in the story at the time, not caring if the joke does not fit their personality. Of course the show is now in it's 28th season because they have so many and new writers that they can get better. After a few years the show was able to get over jumping the shark probably because new talent on the show wanted it to get back to how they remembered it.

This is from about halfway through the fifth of six seasons, in which Beaver realizes he is not as cute and adorable as he was as a little kid and wonders if anybody actually likes him anymore. His teacher Miss Landers who he had a great relationship with in seasons 2-4 is no longer on the show but we get to see her one last time when he comes to visit her at his old grade school hoping it makes him feel better. Then he does the same by visiting Gus the fireman like he did as a kid. The episode actually makes you realize what you have been missing from the show this season. In the first 3 seasons in school Beaver sat by Judy the tall, smart, tattletale who we love to hate (sort of like J.R. Ewing on "Dallas"). In the next 1 1/2 seasons he sits by Penny who he can't decide if she annoys him or if he has a crush on her. In one of the best episodes about 5 episodes before this one she moves away, so that magic is gone.

After this episode Beaver all of a sudden is interested in girls, likes to dress up, go to dances, and wants to hang out with Wally and his older friends. Although this episode is not bad, it is like the last episode of the Beaver we have known but a little saddish. (If you want your Jump the Shark episode to be bad, it is two episodes after this when Beaver and his two friends buy a burro, obviously not originally written for this show.) So I would say the episode 5 before this called "Farewell to Penny" is the last great episode of the show with Beaver still the kid were used to and could have been a great ending to the series.

Starting in season 8 Julie the Cruise Director (actress Lauren Tewes) is no longer on the show and replaced by her sister (actress Pat Klouse) who is very likable and adorable in this her first episode but by the next episode it feels like the heart of the show is gone. In future seasons they try to make up for it by adding a handsome ships photographer, beautiful dancing mermaids, and a sexy aerobics instructor but all of them cannot compare to one of Julie's smiles.

In the middle of season 7 Miles and Corky start dating. Instead of being funny it just creates awkward moments. They don't seem like a couple but they drag the storyline along for a year and a half and anytime you see them they are just talking about what they did as a couple before they came to work instead of Miles trying to run the show and Corky trying to get a great segment piece. At the end of season 7 there is a fun episode with a real reporter doing a retrospective on the whole show Murphy Brown which would have been the perfect ending to the show but there is three more seasons with a different feel to it.

Into the fifth season of Jimmy Fallon taking over "The Tonight Show" it does not seem like "The Tonight Show", just "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" in a different time slot. They moved his studio to a former Tonight Show location from when it used to be done in New York but then designed it to look exactly like his Late Night studio. No new Tonight Show theme song was made, still just singing hey hey hey hey like on Late Show. No more attempt to make the opening monologue seem like it was a classy show, he dives straight into one-sided political jokes like the un-classy shows. This episode is what finally makes it jump the shark and is no longer a watch every night show but only a if there is a guest on you like show. Jimmy makes singer Cardi B. a co-host for every part of the show, even stands next to him during the monologue. She clearly has done nothing like that before which Jimmy knows and thinks that will make everyone think it is hilarious. Plus her unusual singing style is actually the same way she talks so when she says one of the jokes the audience does not seem to know what she said and if they should laugh and Jimmy seems to be delighted by that. Plus whenever he tells one of the jokes she keeps looking at him like she doesn't understand the joke and he loves it, it is like the whole show is an inside joke only funny to him and Cardi's close friends. It is definitely not made for the Johnny Carson and Jay Leno fans anymore and not even the show those who never missed Late Night with Jimmy Fallon was anymore for his clever comedy.

Yes this show gets more than one "Jump the Shark" episode. A good reason being some fans who started watching this show in reruns only saw the last 7 of the 12 seasons. The first 5 seasons were on ABC, then the show switched to CBS, some channels when they started to show reruns started at season 6, possibly because of the network change and possibly because they only wanted to show the episodes in color, the first 5 seasons on ABC were in black and white.

In the first 5 seasons the father Steve had three sons (Mike, Robby, and Chip) and his uncle Bub who all lived together. In this first episode of season 6, Mike the oldest son gets married and moves away and then is only mentioned 3 times over the last 7 seasons. The show can keep the title "My Three Sons" because right after this Steve adopts foster child Ernie who had become Chips friend in season 4. Grumpy but lovable Bub also moves out and is replaced by Steve's cousin Charlie, who had stayed with them for a while in season 5. So for many of us who started watching from the first season this is a jump the shark moment for a few reasons. 1.) The oldest son Mike who when father Steve was out of the house liked to keep his younger brothers in line so his father would be proud of him, is now gone. Robby is not that way so it is up to Charlie to keep things in line when Steve is away. 2.) Bub was cantankerous but Charlie is miserable and you are not sure he wants to be there like Bub was. 3.) Chip had a best friend in seasons 1-3 who seemed to disappear without explanation and was replaced by Ernie, and while we are hoping Chips best friend shows up again, now Ernie is in the family and we don't see Chips fun adventures outside the house anymore. 4.) The change from ABC to CBS seems to have changed the writers of the show also. The ABC show had many adventurous episodes, at least one Twilight Zonesque type episode, and dream sequences, while CBS only wrote it as a sitcom comedy except for one great 007 type episode. 5.) And a small reason for most, is at the end credits you used to be able to see Steve's car driving down the road, then they changed it to the same picture as the beginning of the show, of long arms way down by by their shoes, making you miss watching that car.

Like The Andy Griffith Show" it is easy to figure out the jump the shark episode because it is just as the show goes from black and white to color, but that is a coincidence because at the start of the Fall season in 1966 on all 3 major networks they decided to require all shows to be in color, not an individual shows decision.

"My Three Sons" gets it's second jump-the-shark episode here as the household will never be just Steve, his 3 sons and his cousin Charlie again. This is for those who started watching the show in it's first color episodes starting at season 6 (some not knowing there were 5 previous seasons in black and white), and also for those who did start watching at the very beginning but did not give up when oldest son Mike left, Steve's uncle Bub left, they adopted Chips friend foster child Ernie, and the show changed networks all at the beginning of season 6.

**Spoilers to seasons 6-9 in this paragraph** We are now used to Robbie being the oldest son in the family, Chip being second oldest, adopted son Ernie (who in real life is Chips brother also) being the youngest, and father Steve with his cousin Charlie taking care of them. That is how things are in seasons 6 and 7, then at the beginning of season 8 we are introduced to Katie, Robbie's very like-able beautiful girl-next-door type college classmate who Robbie soon marries and moves in with the family. In the seventh episode of season 9 titled "My Three Grandsons" Katie and Robbie have triplets and they could have changed the title of the show to "My Three Sons and three grandsons", but we don't mind because we get to see more of the delightful Katie (actress Tina Cole).

**Spoilers to seasons 10-12 in this paragraph** Now we come to the beginning of season 10 of the 12 seasons which is where this jump the shark episode is. Instead of Steve, his three sons and Uncle Bub from seasons 1-5, or Steve, his three sons and cousin Charlie from seasons 6-9, this starts where Steve meets Ernie's teacher Barbara, they fall for each other, and soon she and her little daughter are in the household. One problem is Barbara does not seem to be Steve's type. Another is Barbara's daughter Dodie seems so young considering how mature Barbara is, and why does she talk in the manner she does? Dodie is considered by some as the most annoying child character in television. We have come to find out it is because the actress playing her was told to play her even younger than she was, much like the youngest actress in "The Brady Bunch" was told to keep her cute little girl voice. She ends up sounding like the character Dennis did in "Dennis the Menace" did talking loud to Mr. Wilson and one-word-at-a-time so every word is understood. They also dressed her for someone who was younger, leading to confusion for the audience who didn't know the character was supposed to be younger than the actress was. This led to some later thinking she was actress Dana Hill, who when on about 5 appearances on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" in 1982 seemed to act and talk just like her. But it was actress Dawn Lyn, who was in an episode of "Circle of Fear" the same year after the show "My Three Sons" ended, where we get to see she is a good actress who talks and acts like a normal girl her age in real life. (She played the sister to a young Leif Garrett, who is actually her real-life brother also. After that they also played brother and sister in the 3 "Walking Tall" movies of the 70's. Then they were in a two-part "Wonder Woman" episode where Leif Garrett played a teen-idol singer and Dawn played a super-fan of his.) So don't blame Dawn Lyn for how the character Dodie was portrayed, blame whoever told her to portray Dodie as a younger girl and had her continue to act that way for the three whole last years of the show.

If I could do it all over again for the first time, I would watch the first black and white 5 seasons, and then check in later to watch seasons 8 and 9 to see Robbie meet Katie and how she fits in living in the same house. Then if I started watching seasons 10-12 a few years after they aired when Leif Garrett became famous knowing that the actress playing Dodie was his sister and she was allowed to play the character talking and acting her own age it might have been fun, but they didn't let her so it was not fun to watch.

So starting in this first episode of season 10 we come to the point where nothing is the same in the household again, and by season 12 there are an extra three wives, a step-daughter, and three triplet grandsons under the same roof, never having the same feeling to the show again.