Shark Jumping 101

One of my favorite web sites out there is jumptheshark.com, which chronicles the point at which TV shows went over the edge and declined.  It's really turned more into a "critique-fest", for the most part, but some of the stuff people submit is pretty damn funny.  Unfortunately, one must sift through a lot of mindless crappola to get to the good stuff, so I'll save you the trouble here by periodcally posting a "Best of jumptheshark" compilation.  We begin today with the very show that inspired the website in the first place, "Happy Days".  Here's a sampling of what folks think about the show:

—When Potsie told the executive producer of the show that he had a picture of him with a farm animal and would show it to the world unless he was allowed to sing in almost every episode toward the end of the run.  It made me want to crawl under the couch.  The horror…the horror…

—What’s so great about Fonzie anyway?  He’s short, dropped out of high school, works in a garage, lives above a garage and hangs out with kids five years younger than him.  He apparently never gets beyond first base with girls, he wears the same thing every day and his office is in a bathroom.

—The gang forms a band and does absolutely horrible job faking their instruments.

—When Potsie turned from being a cool young kid trying to get women into some kind of gay showtune singer.

—Whenever Potsie would sing like the whitest man on earth…

—Fonzie’s office in the bathroom…if I walked into a men’s room and found a guy sitting behind a desk, I’d call the police and then go outside and pee behind a tree.

—One episode that I especially hated was when Potsie was in college and to pass a test on anatomy he proceeds to sing a song and prance around the classroom like an idiot while the teacher looks dumbfounded and everyone else is clapping and smiling like they are on a bad acid trip.

—Didn’t Scott Baio ever feel like saying, “Hey, I sorta look like a douche bag with these bandanas tied around my legs, and I don’t think they’re periodically accurate, either.”  Who knows, maybe he really WAS a douche bag, and the bandanas were his idea.

—Potsie couldn’t carry a tune with a handle.

—When Chachi became a basketball star…Think about it, 5’4” white guy on a 10-foot gym with bleachers that went three deep.  I’m supposed to believe this moron was the next Bob Cousy.

—I couldn’t deal with Chachi as an ever-growing presence (like a fungus).  And what the hell is this “wah-wah-wah” crap?  Is that supposed to be an infant or what?

—Chachi: Scrappy-Doo to the Fonz’s Scooby…

—Anson Williams’ name as a contributing “recording artist” along with those of Chuck Berry and Bill Haley in the show’s closing credits is a great illustration of the word “chutzpah”!  Anson Williams has to rank up there with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy as one of the truly “great” recording vocalists of American television.

—Potsie with a DIGITAL WATCH! (yup).

—Asking when “Happy Days” jumped the shark is like asking who’s in Grant’s Tomb.

—I also wonder why after a couple seasons everybody in Milwaukee was Italian…I used to live in Wisconsin.  The place is chock-full of Germans and Scandinavians, but trust me, there aren’t that many Italians there.

—When Richie began sporting a Dick Van Patten comb-over.  THAT did it for me.