A new “60 Minutes”/Vanity Fair poll found that 83% of respondents didn’t know what ‘jumped the shark’ means. What does this tell us about America?
• That Happy Days was canceled in 1984?
• Wow. Apparently I am the 17%
• That its population is overweight and undereducated, that its financial and military supremacy is coming to an end, and that its corporate-political-
• I’ll answer your question with a short parable: There once was a boy who peed in the pool, although instead of being in a pool of water, he was in a pool of pee, so no one noticed and everyone kept enjoying the warm pee soak that they told each other saved water and was good for the skin. But the boy was still upset. He knew that he had done something wrong, even though he couldn’t put a name to it because you can’t “pee in the pool,” when the whole pool is pee. A wise old man, who had not quite forgotten what a swimming pool once was, waded over to the child. “Little boy, why are you crying?” “I just peed in this pool,” the boy declared, “and I know it is wrong, even though this pool is mostly pee. Can you help me name this thing?” The wise old man thought for a moment, squirting the urine-scented water over his flabby arms and chest. Then he smiled: “I’ve got it, we’ll call it “Castle” 10/9CT and we’ll air it on ABC.” The boy immediately began to smile, forgetting that he had ever been distressed at all. And the moral of this story is, please don’t write us letters.
—StaffÂ
