Has Jump the Shark Jumped the Shark?

Esquire, September, 2002 by Bryan Mealer

Granted, Jump the Shark is a brilliant cultural concept. For all you coma survivors just joining us again, the five-year-old Web site (jumptheshark.com) calculates when celebrities and TV shows passed that point of no return and began the great slide. But now the damn thing is everywhere--on its ever-expanding Web site, on Howard Stern, on its own upcoming TV show, and, this month, in a new hardcover book.

So has Jump the Shark itself taken the leap? "Fair question," says creator Jon Hein. "When jump the Shark action figures come out, that's when I'll know that I've jumped the shark."