Jump The Shark Origins
Hein has explained that he and some friends at the University of Michigan were discussing when popular television shows began to decline, and his roommate Sean J. Connolly coined the phrase, referring to a Happy Days episode in which Fonzie performed a water ski jump over a shark. The phrase "jumped the shark" became code between Hein and his friends for the moment that a television show began to decline, and became inspiration for the name of the website.
Hein sold his company, Jump The Shark, Inc., to Gemstar (owners of TV Guide) on June 20, 2006 for "over $1 million". Some Stern staff have speculated that the site sold closer to $5–$10 million, however. The TV Guide website has since redirected the original jumptheshark.com website. For some time, the website was replaced with a celebrity gossip message board. As of April 2011, the tvguide.com redirect the Jump the Shark address to a TV Guide page categorizing some common show derailments.
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Famous quotes containing the words jump, shark and/or origins:
““If my head hurt a hair’s foot
Pack back the downed bone. If the unpricked ball of my breath
Bump on a spout let the bubbles jump out....””
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear—
And he shows them pearly white—
Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear—
And he keeps it out of sight.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)