Think the Fonz’s Shark Jump Ruined ‘Happy Days’? Blame Henry Winkler’s Dad

Dan Clarendon September 20, 12:06 pm

UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 20: HAPPY DAYS - — ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

These days, it’s common parlance for TV fans to talk about a show “jumping the shark” when it starts declining in quality, usually due to some unexpected plot point or storyline. The origins of the expression date back nearly half a century, to the Happy Days episode “Hollywood, Part 3,” which aired on September 20, 1977 — the episode in which Henry Winkler’s Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli accepts a challenge to jump over a shark while waterskiing. The episode has long baffled fans — but as it turns out, one of classic TV’s oddest moments was set into motion by Winkler’s father, who insisted his son tell producers about his waterskiing skills.

For some fans, including comedian Jon Hein, that episode was the beginning of the end of Happy Days. Hein popularized the phrase “jump the shark” through his website of the same name, after recalling a college discussion with friends about when shows started going downhill, as he told Michigan Today in 2016. During that chat, Hein’s roommate said, “When Fonzie jumped the shark.”

The years later, when Hein had a computer training company, he created the Jump the Shark website to practice his HTML programming, and fan lingo was born. But as for the actual waterskiing itself…

Winkler’s father who got the waterskiing moment on Happy Days

As Winkler recalled on NPR’s Fresh Air in 2019, his father hounded him to get his waterskiing skills on Happy Days. “[My father] said to me every day for years, ‘Tell [creator] Garry Marshall that you waterski.’ ‘Dad, I don’t think I’m going to do that.’ ‘No, no, no, tell him you waterski. It’s very important.’ I finally tell Garry, ‘My father wants you to know I waterski.’”

Winkler said on the NPR show he had worked as a waterski instructor at Blue Mountain Camps in East Stroudsburg, Pennslyvania, and he would also water-ski on Mahopac Lake, just north of New York. So when it came time for the stunt in Happy Days, he did all the waterskiing himself — except for the jump itself, which a stunt performer executed.

And Winkler had no issues with people criticizing his shark-jumping moment on Happy Days. “To them, the Fonz waterskiing was just like the last straw. The only thing is, it wasn’t to the audience, because we were No. 1 for years after that. So it didn’t much matter to anybody. … I don’t care. I think it is wonderful. And we’re still talking about it in 2019. I think this is all great. This is America.”

Winkler is “very proud” of the scene — and his legs

The Fonz portrayer also discussed the infamous scene during a 2018 interview with TheWrap. “Newspapers would mention jumping the shark, and they would show a picture of me in my leather jacket and swim shorts water-skiing,” he said. “And at that time I had great legs.”

Decades later, on Arrested Development, Winkler jumped another shark — this one dead, and lying on a pier — in character as Barry Zuckerkorn.

“There was a book, there was a board game, and it is an expression that is still used today,” Winkler told TheWrap. “And I’m very proud that I am the only actor, maybe in the world, that has jumped the shark twice — once on Happy Days, and once on Arrested Development.”

Ron Howard also thought the episode was fine

In a 2006 interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Happy Days costar Ron Howard, who played Richie Cunningham on the show, admitted that he didn’t think “Hollywood: Part 3” was the show’s best episode, creatively.

“But I thought it was a pretty good stunt, and I understood why they wanted to do it,” he said. “And what I remember the most is, it was fun actually driving the speedboat, which I did a bit of, noticing that Henry was really a pretty good waterskier.” (Howard also got a bad sunburn filming that scene, he said.)

Like Winkler, though, Howard pointed out that Happy Days had continued success after its shark jump. “So it’s a fun expression, and I get a kick out of the fact that they identified that episode, because, granted, maybe it was pushing things a little too far,” he said. “But I think a lot of good work was still done after that show, and audiences seemed to really respond to it,” he said.

Don Most, however, was most unhappy about that script

Howard also revealed that costar Don Most, who played Ralph Malph on Happy Days, was upset about the episode. “He said, ‘Oh man, look at what our show has devolved into. It’s not even very funny, and Fonz is jumping over a shark,’” Howard remembered. “And I kept saying, ‘Hey Donny, we’re a hit show. Relax. It’s hard to have great episodes one after another. Fonzie jumping over a shark, it’s gonna be funny and great.’”

But even Howard seemed to think Happy Days might have been on the decline at the time. “Donny had a clearer sense, I suppose, of the direction [that] the quality [and] the tone of the show was taking after that episode,” he said.