Whore City —  Lucy and Desi did it when they moved to Connecticut.
"Bewitched" did it when Dick York was replaced by Dick Sargent.
Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis did it when they did it.
Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser did it when they had baby Mabel.
Laverne and Shirley did it when they moved from Milwaukee to Los Angeles.
"Ally McBeal" did it when the Biscuit's frog got flushed down the toilet.
"Friends" did it when Rachel and Ross got together for the third time.
CNN did it when Darth Vader kept reminding us "This is CNN."
The Weather Channel did it when it started producing full-length tropical storm programs.
"Scooby-Doo" did it when Scrappy-Doo joined the cast.

"The Rockford Files," "The Simpsons" and "The Larry Sanders Show" never did it.
A debate still rages over whether "Seinfeld" never did it, or succumbed when Susan
died licking invitations, or during the navel-gazing finale.

The hip and popular Web site www.jumptheshark.com tries to pinpoint that ineffable
moment when hit TV shows overreach, when a new character, guest star or plot device
signals a loss of innocence.

Jon Hein, a 33-year-old New Yorker who owns a computer training company, named
the Web site after a "Happy Days" episode in which Fonzie, wearing his leather jacket as
he water-skis, jumps over a shark. It is, he says, "that precise moment when you know it
is all downhill from there. You know it in your gut."

He plans new Web sites to debate tipping points in music, sports and movies.
(The Greatest Generation definitely jumped the shark with "Pearl Harbor.")
Mr. Hein also eventually wants to do politics.
"There are tons — Gary Hart is obvious, the Monkey Business."

May we tender some ideas about shark-hurdling on the Potomac?

Paradoxically, politicians, unlike television shows, can sometimes become more intriguing,
if less electable, once they jump the shark, as Mr. Hart did. Who can forget the
spectacular shark-jump of Crybaby Newt, who shut down the government in a pique
after Bill Clinton ignored him on Air Force One?

Ronald Reagan never did jump the shark. Bill Clinton alternated between somersaulting
over the shark and seducing the shark, until he finally made one last leap over that baby
with the Marc Rich pardon.

Clarence Thomas jumped the shark watching pornography, and Ken Starr writing it.

The House Republicans sank to the bottom when they impeached President Clinton for
doing what many of them were doing themselves.

Jimmy Carter jumped the shark when his aides bought him that conservation-minded gray
cardigan. And Dick Cheney jumped the shark when he went to Toronto and called
conservation merely "a personal virtue."

Michael Dukakis jumped the shark in the tank. And Al Gore let the shark out of the
lockbox when he bragged, falsely, in the first debate that he had traveled to Texas with
the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Only in Washington would you
feel the need to prove your bona fides as a FEMA roadie.

W. jumped the self-deprecating shark at Yale last month, when his incessant, self-satisfied
references to his slacker college daze provided a curious example for the nation's children (and his own).

Karl Rove vaulted Jaws by keeping conservatives so purring that he scared Jim Jeffords
and large chunks of the American public.

Trent Lott jumped the shark before he ever got here, the first time he put on that
cheerleader outfit and sang out "Hotty, toddy, gosh almighty, who in the hell are we?
Hey! Flim flam, bim bam, Ole Miss, by damn!"

Tom Daschle is riding the tiger, not jumping the shark. And Ari Fleischer, the sultan of the
oily and useless press conference, has never even managed to get into the water.

The Bush twins, blessedly immune to Mr. Rove's message discipline and evoking the
sizzle of the soap opera "Dallas," are perfect shark bait. But they are nautical miles away
from an encounter with the Great White.

And Hillary? Was it the bloated health care plan? The Yankee cap?
The great White House gift heist?

Nah. The New York senator transcends mere jumping.
She is the shark.

What a slut.
She went thru all that just so she could call Hillary a shark?

Have you run out of ideas, Maureen?
One column a week and that's all you've got?
Has the well gone completely dry, Maureen?

You took a week to think of all those TV cliches?
Or did you just steal every idea from  www.jumptheshark.com?

And they give you Pulitzers for stealing crap?
 

Oh, I forgot, ...it's the New York Whore Times,
the old, grey whore nobody wants to hire anymore.