Sophia’s favorite show, hands down, is “Dora the Explorer.” Dora, Boots the Monkey, the Backpack…they’re all close friends of ours in this house. I even took her to see Dora Live!
I sense that Dora’s popularity has been waxing something fierce—no Dora lunch boxes at her preschool last year; lots of them this year.
So this year the show has had a bit of an overhaul, with new opening titles and a couple of small changes to the format, which for the most part have been good. But there’s been one annoying addition: there are now “explorer stars,” which are ostensibly to help Dora and Boots in their quests. The explorer stars are not so much “new characters” though as “marketing opportunities.” It’s hard not to hear the execs saying, “And the kids will have to collect ’em all!”
Oy.
However, Darin noticed something funny in the premiere episode that introduced the explorer stars: Dora and Boots are in a boat, and the light-up star shines a light on the water ahead of them, which is full of sharks. Oh no! So Dora says, “We’re going to have to jump over them!”
And Darin said, “Is Dora actually jumping the shark?”
In the same episode they introduce this annoying marketing ploy, Dora jumps the shark. Is this a little joke from the Dora folks? Were they completely unaware of this phrase?
We must know.
Uh… I haven’t heard the of phrase… Do tell.
Have a look at http://www.jumptheshark.com/about.htm. They claim to have originated the phrase.
Briefly: it’s a point in a show where you just know it has declined past the point of being worth watching. In the origin case, Fonzie in Happy Days literally jumped over a shark, though there appears to be some dispute, on the site above, about the exact details of the scene.
I guarantee you they’re aware of the phrase. I assume it’s an example of black humor from writers who are aware of the likely reaction to the introduction of the marketing-mandated characters.
I noticed the same thing. My husband and I had a good laugh over it at dinner the other night.