Jumping the Shark
In 1977, the television show “Happy Days” ended a three-episode story arc by having the popular character Fonzie perform a stunt in which he jumped over a shark on water skis. The episode changed the show’s direction, morphing it from a sunny and homey comedy about life in 1950s Milwaukee into a melange of anachronistic pop culture references.
The episode marked the beginning of the end for “Happy Days” but gave birth to the term “jumping the shark,” which is now used to describe a poorly thought-out, game-changing and out-of-the-ordinary event that eventually leads to destroying the very thing that it was meant to help save or bolster.
Circuit City jumped the shark in the spring of 2007 when in a cost-cutting move the retailer decided to fire its veteran in-store workforce in favor of cheaper workers. The plan didn’t work out.
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