Monday, Sept. 16, 2002 | 8:23 a.m.
Jon Hein is adamant he never set out to create a catchphrase.
It was just he and a group of friends at the University of Michigan hanging out one night in 1987, discussing the precise moment when various TV shows permanently went south.
"Love Boat?" "Vicki?" "The Flintstones?" "The Great Gazoo?"
"Happy Days?"
Hein's roommate, Sean Connolly, spoke up.
"That's easy," he said. "That's when Fonzie jumped the shark."
There was a pause.
"We all knew what he was talking about," Hein said in a recent interview from his office in New York. "And we proceeded to apply (that phrase) to everything in sight from that point on."
And thus one of the 21st century's first catchphrases was born.
At first the saying was used only by Hein and his friends until Christmas 1997.
That's when Hein created jumptheshark.com. He posted 200 TV programs on the website and provided comments on when he thought the shows had "jumped the shark." His college friends also posted their shark-jumping opinions.
Several months later The Los Angeles Times referenced the phrase in a story, wondering if an April Fool's prank that turned sour had caused the popular (and some say tasteless) animated series "South Park" to "jump the shark."
Other media outlets across the country took it from there.
National Public Radio has interviewed Hein about his site, he has been a guest on Howard Stern's radio show on several occasions and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has written about jumping the shark.
Hein has been mentioned in several magazines, including Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone.
The website has also gained in popularity, with 2,300 TV shows listed, accompanied by millions (so says Hein) of postings.
Jump the shark is no longer merely a clever catchphrase. It's a cultural phenomenon. It was only natural, then, that the 34-year-old Hein would spin his success into a new book, "Jump the Shark" (Dutton, $19.95), and an abridged CD and audio-tape version of the book (Listen and Live Audio Inc., $23.95), which he also narrates.
"Originally I wanted to do a book and not the website," said the first-time author, whose primary job is a partner in the computer-training company PC and Mac Central.
"The Web was great because it could get other people's feedback. You could post and you could read (other opinions). It was perfect for the TV side of it. But I always applied (jump the shark) to more than TV, going back to Michigan, like, 'The Beatles jumped with Yoko.' "
For the book Hein delves deeper into "the point of no return" than simply opining when "All in the Family" ceased being a groundbreaking series and became just another situation comedy. (Although that discussion is included, too.)
Hein cleverly uses the phrase on other institutions: celebrities, music, sports and politics.
For example: Woody Allen jumped the shark when "he married his stepdaughter" and Garth Brooks when he unveiled his "evil twin Chris Gaines."
The Dallas Cowboys permanently crossed over when Jerry Jones purchased the club, and the Red Sox have never been the same since they dealt Babe Ruth to the Yankees.
Hein also hammers Ted Kennedy for Chappaquiddick, Dan Quayle for "potatoe," Florida for "The Recount," the Republican Party for Watergate and the Democratic Party for Mondale-Ferraro.
And that's just for starters.
Hein wonders why Kevin Costner, a onetime superstar, dove headfirst over the shark with the actor's ego-driven, "Road Warrior"-on-the-high-seas flick "Waterworld."
Hein chronicles how John Travolta jumped the shark with a string of flops in the '80s, made a comeback with "Pulp Fiction," thereby leaping back over the fish (Hein calls it "pulling a Travolta"), only to jump the man-eater again with "Battlefield Earth."
And he snickers at 1948 Republican presidential nominee Thomas Dewey for the famous Chicago Tribune banner headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN," when, in fact, Truman won the election.
"I think (a) reason that the concept works is because there are no right or wrong answers," Hein said of jump the shark's popularity. "Everyone's entitled to their opinion. I guess I have some credibility because this is what I do and I have a lot of experience at it."
Of course, Hein is fully aware that, by writing this book and helping to produce a jump-the-shark game show to air sometime next year, he leaves himself vulnerable to the same criticism he dishes.
Is it possible, then, that jump the shark has also jumped the shark?
"Every day I worry about that," Hein said. "The day I put up the site I worried about it. I try and stay true to what it is; I don't pretend that it's more than what it is. As long as you don't see (the phrase) slapped on T-shirts and hats everywhere and it becomes a cliche, I think I'll keep it from jumping.
"(But) if you see me with a 'Greatest Hits' album, you'll know that I have."
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