the Semi-Retired podcast

45 | Part Two: Stuff that jumped the shark (not us)

September 27, 2023

While trying not to jump any metaphorical sharks themselves (see below), the guys return for the second part of their investigation into this irritating cultural phenomenon. Along the way they identify the one popular movie franchise that jumped the shark, didn't like what it found lurking on the far side, and had the balls to turn around and jump back a full four decades later. Better late than never, we say, sort of like this episode. A few bonus movie reviews are tacked on at the end because, why not?

According to Wikipedia: "The idiom 'jumping the shark' is a pejorative used to argue that a creative work or entity has reached a point in which it has exhausted its core intent and is introducing new ideas that are discordant with, or an over-exaggeration of, its original purpose." The phrase was coined in 1985 by radio personality Jon Hein to describe what Henry Winkler had done, given that the stunt was his idea.

Music and image credits:
Shark jockey by Three-shots from Pixabay   
Semi-Retired “flipz” theme by tubebackr from SoundCloud
Music promoted by free-stock-music.com
Perforated steel by YuriyC from VectorStock