What we read while surviving Hurricane Earl…
- The New York Times managed to write about “Fuck You” by Cee Lo Green without ever actually using the phrase. It was a feat both mocked and praised by the less refined media. Meanwhile, Green himself released the official video for the crudely named song, to replace the text-only viral hit. (Remember Cee Lo, no one’s gonna love you more than we do.)
- The NYT Magazine tries to capture our generation. Our response? Meh.
- We’d have already bought a few of these literary posters if not for their strict “Canadian currency only” policy.
- Another reason to love McDonald’s.
- We don’t know about you, but we don’t care if driving slower alleviates traffic. We’re going fast anyway.
- Headline of the week, stupid teenage mistake of the week, and cutest story of the week. And can you believe this story didn’t qualify for any of those awards?
- If there were ever a reason to spend $22 on pencils, then this is it.
- We totally want a friend to move to Oregon just so we can copy this cake.
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Tim
John S
Pierre Menard
Josh
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Jake
Posted by Douglas on September 10, 2010 at 8:34 PM
I refer you to Sean Connolly’s own words:
“It’s a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on…it’s all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it ‘Jumping the Shark.’ From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
Fred Fox (partially) misses the point. While he spends much of his weakly composed piece constructing a whiny defense of the episode, he fails to even nod at another interpretation of Connolly’s quotation: that the “Jumping the Shark” episode was the greatest of all time. Fox is justified in arguing that the show did not subsequently decline for a while, but the more interesting argument is whether or not that moment marked the peak of the show. For the show to peak at that point does not rule out continued success, but would still technically constitute a decline. To “jump the shark” is not necessarily to “nuke the fridge”. The idea behind Connolly’s words, in my opinion, is really more: “How do you go about topping an episode like that?”
Thoughts?
Posted by John S on September 14, 2010 at 10:42 PM
I’m not so sure that that’s really the commonly accepted definition of a “jump the shark” moment. Although the quote does seem to suggest that the moment is the climax, most people use the term to refer to a point where the audience realizes that the peak has already happened. For example, you know when Fonzi jumps the shark that the show has changed in a irrevocable way and will never again be quite the Happy Days that you know and remember. Although, having never seen the episode, perhaps it is the best ever….
Posted by james Schneider on October 10, 2010 at 11:59 PM
Is Les Miles=the Johnny bananas(you know, from the real world) of football coaches an unfair claim?