Sharks were not exclusive to Happy Days. February 22, 1981.

The length had me worried, but turns out it's this person's only video and clearly a passion project so it's not a grifting "outrage merchant" type of video. And honestly, most of their points are spot on, like how Carmen's character arc was botched, how abysmal Zack and Ivy are in every way, the iffyness of Shadow-san that was never properly addressed, the waste of Player's potential by keeping him so ridiculously flat, the fact that separating Chase and Julia for so long did both characters no favor, Gray being one of the better characters despite being misused and ultimately rendered kind of pointless, and the second half of the series and its finale being a letdown that mostly failed in delivering on what the first half had set up.

Wait, it feels like I've heard this story before...

Jumping The Shark: Matched with the Space Shark special edition book box!!!!

Surprise!!! I've launched a Kickstarter to fund a special, signed ebook and paperback edition of my new book Jumping The Shark. On top of the book, backers will also be getting a bomb ass swag pack with stickers, prints, and a bookmark!

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My hope as a writer is that you will read the very good, very intense and grounded intro to my graphic novel when it comes out....

And you will be intrigued by my bangin' art and/or my killer audiobook as you eagerly move on to the next arc...

At which point you will feel me, the writer, take you by the hand, look you in the eye, and then point at a passing shark and go "okay so first things first, we jump that fucker." And without waiting for a response, the gay sky pirates are here and the "fan fiction tropes" light will REMAIN ON FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE FLIGHT. SHARK! SHARK! SHARK! SHARK!

And then we go goof around with some silly little guys for a couple story arcs. David and Kuruk save a literal puppy. Build a friendship. Meet the Amazing Armadillo Woman. Normal stuff. And then the most devastating shit I can possibly conjure up with all my power and heart as a storyteller and an artist. And then! More silly little blorbos! :D And then both at the same time!

The metaphorical shark is now your inner child! we are befriending the shark! we are jumping over cars in a monster truck with the shark! 😌🌸💖

Look at me. Look at your man. Your man is now you. You are now me. We are all one and yet deeply individual. Trans women are women. I have made you another himbo. The narrative is RADICALLY LEFTIST. /tone indicator: Old Spice reference. HE'S DONE IT. Jack's done a joke! #WRITERSKILLZ

Anyway, next thing you know, I've made you care about my characters with my trickery and overall silly vibes. And then you'll be all like, "ohhHHHh, Jaaaack! I feel like when David learns to love himself for his own inherent worth, I also come closer to giving myself permission to do the same."

And I'll be like, "haha, fool, you've fallen right into my trap! Get HELD by the NARRATIVE, bitch! Get VALIDATED, why don't you! I bet you're feeling CATHARSIS right now, you absolute SUNFLOWER! Hahahahaha!!!!

So anyway, that's the general goal, I think. It's good to have goals.

I think I'm jumping the shark soon.

OK, here’s something that fans of the modern “Nomura fanfiction”-dominant KH series seem to miss - Kingdom Hearts, as a project, was not concieved as some “massive, convoluted Shonen anime JRPG but with Mickey Mouse and other Disney stuff thrown in there”. Originally, the complex lore and anime JRPGisms were intended to exist in service of Mickey Mouse and other Disney stuff every bit as that Disney stuff was there to service the anime JRPG stuff, with the literal Final Fantasy character guest stars being there for extra seasoning. It was a Disney fantasy epic first and a Shonen series second, as opposed to a pure Shonen series with Disney stuff as increasingly diminished window dressing and filler fluff that barely matters to anything in the convoluted-as-fuck Shonen series plotline aside from a few key characters (King Mickey, Donald and Goofy, and Yen Sid), a plotline that’s gone so far up Nomura’s own ass that it’s unintelligable and bears no resemblence to what KH begun as.

This Lily Orchard endorsed view of the franchise from 2010 onward as being deliberately and charmingly campy and “funny” cause “lol Disney cartoon characters in a big serious, sprawling, convoluted animu saga”, if you want to cling to it, fine, you do you, but to me it really fails to convey just how meandering and out-there bonkers in a frustrating, unpleasant, asinine, not-very-fun way the KH lore has gotten since “Nomura’s fanfiction” became the number one priority.

It’s what @themattress​ stated here:

“Forcing Mickey Mouse into a massive, convoluted Shonen anime JRPG” is like a joke that was funny for a while but has long since worn out its welcome; in this case because that “massive, convoluted Shonen anime JRPG” never knew when to quit when it was ahead.”

I can’t pretend it’s high stakes TV, but the L word Generation Q feeds my need for nostalgia really well. And seeing her show up this last episode got me crying the hard tears

Full-body leak of Miraculous Ladybug villain Monarch.

I think as a culture we really need to retire the idea that a show can "jump the shark" or "die". That if a show makes one wrong move it can never be good again

It really doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you realise that a TV show is made by artists, artists who can leave, be replaced or find new inspiration

A long time ago it was a very convenient way to explain why later episodes of a show didn't feel right. But like most scientific theories it's not quite correct

If the entire creative team of a series leaves, and is replaced with people who have lots of passion for the project and fresh ideas, there's absolutely no reason that a show or franchise can't be good again someday.

I would have thought that we had matured past this idea, but I see a lot of video essays with the title " the day that ___ died" and some of them probably mean that sincerely and are not just doing clickbait

I've seen plenty of TV shows and anime where things get really shitty for like a season or two and then the creators are able to pull themselves together and turn the ship around.

In the Modern Age of television we have direct feedback between fans and creators, as well as television Seasons taking multiple years to produce, and smaller episode orders. More than ever artists have the opportunity to take several steps back, and look at things in a way that they weren't able to before. With shows like The Simpsons they had to make 20 episodes a year, but most modern TV shows are lucky to get eight.

This might be a good way to explain sitcoms from the 70s and '80s that were in constant overlapping production, never taking breaks and just getting into weird habits. but that's not the case for modern television.

This may be partially thanks to the proliferation of serialized television, if a show has to reset completely at the end of every episode then there are only so many times you can do that before it starts to get dull, but the modern television show has massive status quo changes that can cause Ripple effects for seasons and give people lots of opportunities d

For creative storytelling

Looking at a show like Rick and Morty I think is a perfect example of the opposite of a show dying. Rick and Morty started to get crappy in season 3 then it got good again then it got crappy then it got good again then it got crappy.

I think it would be really really stupid to say that a show that lasts for 50 years could make one wrong move at season 4 and then be bad for the rest of the series no matter how many creative teams try to work on a show.

There are people who try to argue that Saturday Night Live stopped being good in 1978 and I bet there are people who argue that doctor who stopped being good in 1970. I would like to think that we can agree that that is a silly thing to say, so why is it the people are taken seriously when they say that about The Simpsons, that it can never be good again?

The only time you can write several decades of a show off as bad is if the creative team just refuses to leave. I think people who don't know a lot of about The Simpsons think that the show was just kind of magically good until season 9 and then suddenly it was bad because they ran out of ideas. but what really happened was around season 12 all of the people who worked on the first four seasons came back to the show and they just refuse to leave, they mandated that everything has to return to the status quo at the end of every episode , threw away character development that happened in the in between seasons and just generally made it really hard for any new and creative ideas to flourish ( not impossible but very hard)

The simpsons has only just recently begun it to turn itself around again, I think largely because the person who's been in charge since season 12 has been working on less and less episofes, and his successor is in charge of more and more of them.

When I was younger, I took tennis lessons, and really the only thing I remember is the importance of follow through. It’s not just when you hit the ball. You have to keep swinging your racket to complete the arc. I adore 911 Lonestar, or at least parts of it. There are honestly some characters that I just fast forward through. I have two issues with the show. The first one is that some of the characters feel like they’re becoming caricatures of themselves, but the real issue is the follow through. Here are a list of questions I have in no specific order:

1. Is Judd still going to therapy?

2. Whatever happened to the British 911 dude?

3.Did Marjan get another arranged marriage?

4. How is Paul’s sister? 

5. I know Owen got the bird, but did TK get anything one would think he would.

6. I get why they didn’t have TK go to an AA meeting or an NA meeting, but you wouldn’t think there would have at least been an offhand mention of a call to your sponsor.

7. Tell me about Carlos’s sisters! Did TK makes it to a Sunday lunch?

Obviously, I’m fine with jumping the shark or doing things that are completely bonkers, even though I am in the math profession, I thought the student driving scenario with the dad ending up driving up the guy wire, was entertaining, even if it was a bit ludicrous. But like my mental vision of the writers of the seasons is trying to spread refrigerated chunky peanut butter onto a super thin slice of bread. It’s just getting messy and torn up.

I love the show. Most people can see someone who kind of represents them. I love that TK has one Jewish parent and one non-Jewish parent. Because I do too, even if for me, it’s flip-flopped. (He would be considered Jewish where I would not be. It’s matrilineal.) I love that the main couples problems don’t stem from being gay or being in an interracial couple, but real life issues.  As someone who lives in the south, it’s also not is not to see us all look like stupid rednecks. I adore Gina Torres in any role. I love how Mateo’s insecurities with his height we’re overcome. I just don’t want the show to get ruined or canceled because of inconsistencies. 

Look at these babies! They deserve so many seasons!

As we draw ever closer to the 5th anniversary of Kingdom Hearts III, I can't help but reflect more and more upon the realization I've had as of late. For well over a decade, ever since Dream Drop Distance, I have mourned the degradation of the KH series' story and characters, which only intensified after KH3 and all the bullshit it brought to the table in regards to those aspects. But now I understand just as important as those, if not moreso, is the degradation of the KH series' universe. After all, normally in a well-established fictional universe, even if one story with one cast of characters doesn't go over well, you can still potentially look forward to a different story with a different cast of characters unconnected to that other one. And there lies the biggest problem - for all the expansion of this increasingly convoluted lore, the series' universe has shrunk in scope because nothing is unconnected.

The state of the KH universe is that in the beginning it was populated with Keyblade wielders who, due to the machinations of a certain Keyblade master, fought a war over ownership of Kingdom Hearts that plunged the universe into darkness. But then a select few Keyblade wielders restored the universe, which created many more Keyblade wielders who joined up with them, and they essentially ruled over the universe from the shadows in this super special secret world called Scala ad Caelum. Eventually, the machinations of that same Keyblade master from before corrupts a Keyblade wielder who spends his whole life - through several points in time and several different incarnations of himself - trying to take control of Kingdom Hearts so that he could destroy and remake the universe again because he isn't satisfied with how it is now. He is stopped by other Keyblade wielders assembled by a retired Keyblade master, but it caused that damn conflict-creating Keyblade master and his pupils to somehow return, and now the story is venturing into "the realm of unreality" which turns out to have been a big part of that Keyblade master's goal the whole time that he's been working toward since damn near the inception of the universe....OK, do you see what I mean? Everything, and I mean everything, that goes on in this universe that is treated as important by the narrative is directly tied to this one item (Keyblade) and one class of people (Keyblade wielders), and has been scripted by this one omnipotent douchebag (the Master of Masters). Nothing is unconnected, all events and concepts tie back into the Keyblade, the important players who shape the universe are all a part of this one, tightly-knit web of connections, and as a result the universe feels so. fucking. small. It feels so utterly limited in scope and range.

Think of all the Disney worlds in this series, which make up the majority of the universe. Worlds from classic Disney shorts, Alice in Wonderland, Hercules, Tarzan, Aladdin, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Fantasia, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lion King, Tron, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Lilo & Stitch, The Jun The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tron LEGACY, Wreck-It Ralph, Toy Story, Tangled, Monsters Inc., Frozen, and Big Hero 6. And then afterwards, ask yourself this single, all-important question:

How many of these worlds matter to this universe's grand story?

The answer: THREE.

I shit you not. Disney Castle (classic Disney shorts), Yen Sid's Tower (Fantasia), and Enchanted Dominion (Sleeping Beauty) are the only worlds that hold any significance, all because of the characters who hail from there that interact with the universe's grand narrative: Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Jiminy Cricket, Chip and Dale, Pluto, Pete, Yen Sid and Maleficent. And yes, I know that Jiminy technically hails from the Pinocchio world, but nothing about his life there prior to winding up at Disney Castle and entering Mickey's service as a chronicler for Sora's adventures really matters. Every other world is visited by Keyblade wielders, but its inhabitants never gets to meaningfully contribute to the story those Keyblade wielders are caught up in.....in fact, they are mostly kept ignorant of its very existence.

And the infuriating part is that it didn't used to be this way! Before the Keyblade overtook everything and was just one important part of a larger universe, the Disney worlds and its inhabitants were able to contribute! In KH1, the story was about the Heartless and the worlds' hearts and a group of villains conspiring to capture a group of princesses to obtain ultimate power and Sora broadening his horizons and making his heart stronger through making friends, all of which were serviced through the Disney elements. In KH2, the story was about Organization XIII and the Nobodies seeking to use the Heartless and the Keyblade for their own ends of obtaining ultimate power, with doing so involving threatening worlds and friends that Sora held dear, as well as competing with Pete and a resurrected Maleficent over usage of the Heartless. So again, the Disney worlds and their inhabitants actually participated in what's going on! Even BBS could be forgiven for not having the Disney worlds connect much to the overall plot (beyond a bunch of Unversed running around and barely anyone reacting) because it was a prequel, and naturally the developers didn't want many world inhabitants getting an inkling of a larger universe before the Heartless invasion of KH1 transpired.

But then it all shifted so that everything that happened in those games were all a part of Master Xehanort's convoluted grand plan which hadn't been remotely thwarted yet, meaning that retroactively all of those aforementioned games and events the Disney worlds and characters interacted with meant jack shit...and a point is now even being made about keeping specific Disney characters (the "new Seven Lights") out of the main action and ignorant to their potential role in it! And then it shifted again so that it's all about the Keyblade wielders of the ancient past and the Master of Master's grand designs, which means that those previously important Disney worlds and characters feel even less important than they already did following the big Master Xehanort reveal! From what I can tell, the only Disney world and character that may be gaining prominence in the universe's grander narrative is Olympus and Hades respectively, and even then only because he lucked out since Nomura wants to recreate Final Fantasy Versus XIII which involved a god of the dead. Otherwise, it's still all about the OC worlds and OC characters - nearly all of them Keyblade wielders - plus those select few Disney characters from those three worlds that actually know what's up.

That's the sad state of affairs. A supposedly vast universe where the majority of its settings and population....don't actually matter. To the point where they all may as well not be part of the universe but a separate one altogether. Daybreak Town / Scala ad Caelum, the Keyblade Graveyard, the Land of Departure / Castle Oblivion, Radiant Garden / Hollow Bastion, Twilight Town, The World That Never Was, the Final World and Quadratum...those worlds and the characters who populate them are the ones that truly matter to the universe. Those worlds plus those three (soon to be four) Disney worlds mentioned before, as well as all the goddamn datascape recreations of such worlds. It's a small (and boring) universe after all.

Special Shark Daddy Book?

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Alex Cameron The Sinclair, Cambridge, MA 17 May 2022 Click here for words + more photos

*eye roll*

Oh Anon, you know specificity makes you seem even more like a total troll, right, not less? And petulance is just such a turn off.

Ah well, *manifestation* was some dumb fun for like five minutes.

Someone ping me when/if Jenna posts costume pics from her bestie's house.

The Smurfs - Season 9 review

According to other sources, this season is what really caused The Smurfs to jump the shark. At the end of the 1980s decade, Hanna-Barbera decided to put them in a long time travel plot by demand of the NBC executives. It was also the last time we get to see the Smurf Village in the beginning of "The Time That Smurfs Forgot", as seventeen Smurfs and one Smoogle went back in time to return a baby dinosaur to his parents. And then, the Smurfs return home to their village, right? Nope. They end up losing the ruby key in the lava and now they have to resort putting the crystals together by hand. Which leads to the next episode, "Cave Smurfs". When Brainy Smurf tries to reconnect the time crystals, Papa Smurf is so enraged that he kicks him out of the cave (inside his own book). Okay, what just happened? In the previous seasons, Brainy Smurf was thrown out of the village normally for either making the tiniest mistakes and/or talking too much. Here, they took the abuse to cartoony extremes. Brainy pops out of his own book and addresses his disdain to the audience. Then, Greedy comes out only to reprimand Brainy for his mistake and tells him he's starved. This episode has a slow-paced beginning with just a string of gags to pad the runtime, as with most Saturday morning cartoons back in the day. So, Greedy proceeds to search for food while Brainy Smurf starts writing in a book that everyone doesn't like (except for Clumsy). And here's another issue with this episode: Greedy eats a fig larger than him in seconds. I can see why H-B wanted to do sharper timing. But the biggest issue is the overuse of sound effects in this episode. While Brainy is writing his book, he comes across a little prehistoric bird who is nice to him. Meanwhile, Greedy is kidnapped by the mother bird and the former thinks she wants to eat him. This cliche is starting to get used more than once in this season and I think the writers were attempting to add more humor than they did under Peyo's creative control. Back to Brainy, he is reading his book to the little bird. The little bird stops him, only to point out he's hungry. So, Brainy starts searching for Greedy to find out what little birds eat. Outside the cave, Papa Smurf assigned a handful of Smurfs to find Brainy and Greedy, because all Smurfs need to be back at the cave. Just then, they hear Greedy's cries for help. Wild tries to climb up the cliff, only to be pushed and tumbled away by the mother bird. The three Smurfs decide to get Papa Smurf for help and have Hefty masquerade as a male bird to distract the mother bird. Hefty tries to use bird calls, only to be smitten by another bird. The mother bird pushes Greedy out of the nest, so Hefty has to dive in order to save him. After landing on the ground, they are in the pursuit of the mother bird. The two hide into a bush, where Brainy finds the other Smurfs and the mother bird. The mother reunites with her baby, much to the delight of the Smurfs. Back at the cave, Papa Smurf puts the last piece of the time crystals together and the Smurfs drift off into another time period as the episode ends.

As the season went on, Brainy Smurf becomes more of a punching bag than he did before. Episodes such as "Small-Minded Smurfs" and "The Golden Rhino", show that the nagging remind the Smurfs of how much they hate Brainy after they rescue him. But that isn't the worst of it. The worst of it is reusing the same four villains as doppelgangers: Gargamel, Azrael, Scruple and Hogatha. Not only did the change of the basic premise affect the viewers, but the change of voice actors as well. During production, Paul Winchell had left the show to voice Tigger for Disney's Winnie the Pooh. So they had Michael Bell fill in for the role of the Gargamel doppelgangers, instead. Some have episodes on the dull side, such as "Hefty Sees A Serpent" and "No Reflection on Vanity". At this time, people were more interested in shows like Garfield and Friends and DuckTales. So, this attempt to revive a nearly decade-old show was unsuccessful. The Smurfs were no longer popular as they were in 1981, when their show first came out.

I don't mind Peyo's minimal creative control at the start of the series, but this season is more of a desperate attempt to boost ratings and it shows. The blue creatures did disappear from animation for a long time, but they continued to live on in comics and video games for two more decades until the more infamous 2011 movie came along. But I'm not going into it, since it's been done a million times with other reviewers. This is an example of a show with the creative control of the creator reversed, but it's not as worse as how Season 9 and 10 of The Fairly OddParents would turn out. If any of you haven't seen it yet, feel free to watch it if you have an interest in how the series jumped the shark or if you have an unhealthy obsession with the time-travelling season. I hereby give this season a not-so-smurfy 4 out of 10.