Take it from Snee: Discovery jumped the shark

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m a pretty smart guy. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’m downright intelligent. I eat right, I read the same three books a lot, and I only watch educational programming on television.

So what did I see when I turned on the Discovery Channel this weekend? Sharks. Nothing but sharks. Swimming killing machines as far as the TV Guide channel would scroll.

Even when a shark program wasn’t on, there were shark-themed advertisements, including plugs for their own “Shark Week” episodes of all their regular shows. Every show involves sharks now, even non-shark shows like Dirty Jobs. (Guess what they catch on this week’s Deadliest Catch? Hint: it’s actually deadly this time.)

It was with this marketing stretch that I realized something disturbing: the Discovery Channel has jumped the shark!

As a blogger, it’s my duty to assume that you’ve never heard any of my advanced Hollywood insider lingo before. After all, you’re just a reader with an Internet connection, while I am a media darling on a blog read by tens of you.

“Jumping the shark” refers to when Internet hipsters figured out that Happy Days wasn’t cool anymore. Back in 1977, we all couldn’t get enough of this daring little network show that starred Opie from The Andy Griffith Show. It was so ironic to see a child actor all grown-up and playing a high schooler.

Unfortunately, that was when we found out on Fark that mainstream slobs were watching it, too. Only they weren’t interested in our Ron-Ho; they were watching for some background character named Fonzie.

Fonzie looked like the guy that beat us up in high school and banged our imaginary girlfriends whenever they visited Canada. We hated Fonzie: how he fixed electronics by hitting them instead of switching to a Mac, how he refused to properly pronunce foreign names like “Cunningham” and, most importantly, how he jumped sharks on waterskis.

From that point on, we referred to Happy Days as having jumped the shark and no longer all things awesome.

So, here we have Shark Week, which has now ongoing for 20 years. Every year, they parade the same animal in front of us to fill a week’s worth of programming, and they’re so desperate for material that they’ve even invented a robot shark (Robo Shark).

There are also sharks on battlefields (Shark Battlefield) and sharks bucking authority (Shark Rebellion). There may even be some go-go sharks (Great White Shark: Uncaged!). Even the Mythbusters have taped another shark spooktacular, which is pointless because they refuse to blow up any sharks.

We get it Discovery: everyone loves sharks. They love them so much that you’ll sell out yet again and waste another week on them. Unfortunately, there are only so many specials you can make about cah-razy things found in shark bellies. (A license plate in a shark?! Well, now I’ve seen everything from that time I went to a museum twenty years ago.)

You used to be cool, Discovery Channel, but it’s obvious that your writers have nowhere else to go. It’s time to pull the plug on your station before it gets really embarrassing, just like how the History Channel ran out of new Hitler specials and now show modern lumberjacks.

You’ve jumped the shark, Discovery, and I’m too cool for you now.