He was sent sailing straight over the shark.
The shark smelled blood.
The shark started to circle.
We spotted a fin.
But the damage had been done.
The shark had moved on to its next victim.
If hearing those phrases repeatedly does not bother you, then you will enjoy the abridged audiobook version of Jump the Shark, written and read by John Hein. I can’t fault him for running out of shark metaphors, and it really was my only complaint about this humorous collection. Hein walks us through several television shows, musicians, politicians, actors, and sports, detailing the exact moment when they took an irreversible turn for the worse, starting with that fateful episode of Happy Days when Fonzie literally jumped a shark on waterskis. I confess to fast-forwarding through some of the sports and politics spots, because I’m unfamiliar with most sports figures and a lot of the political commentary was kind of dated. I also had to take a break between discs to listen to something else for a while – those shark metaphors drove me crazy. I imagine it works better as a book, which you can pick up, read a couple pages, and put back down. In short, while this is a funny diversion from time to time, it gets a little tedious when listened to all at once.
Also posted on BookCrossing.