The biggest thing ever to have Jumped the Shark is the United States.

[kpete]

Final shark jump

Looking back in time just a little ways reveals that the biggest thing ever to have Jumped the Shark is the United States.

What was the exact moment? I would say 1998, when General Motors, in the euphoria of SUV mania, bought the brand and started selling the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or Hummer, for personal transportation purposes. This is the moment when the country gave in to its cultural self-definition of the Ultimate Consumer Society, gave up every pretense of thoughtful, measured behavior, and capitulated completely to excess. We at last knelt down before the gilded Behemoth. The behemoth of transport, the behemoth of the McMansion, the behemoth Shopping Mall, the behemoth rates of stock returns for some, behemoth levels of personal debt for the rest.

If you liked this particular moment of U.S. history, well, good for you. But it's over, and it won't be coming back. There was simply no place left for it to go down this road, because it didn't really fit on the road to begin with. Don't ask me what comes next for the United States, but whatever it is, it won't be that. --Tom Toles

more:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/?nid=roll_toonsvid

[eleny]

1. When right wingers talk about American exceptionalsim and such....

That might be a good time to ask them what happened to the Hummer if things are so dazzling.

[leveymg]

5. Chinese produced a copy, but declined to buy the rights from GM

Surprise!

[obxhead]

7. That's a copy of the real hummer too.

Notice the independent suspension in the front. The GM highway model was just an over sized gas guzzling POS hardly capable of anything the original was.

[leveymg]

8. Here's the military version.

Delete the fancy headlights. Check other options: Chinese copy of TOW missile launcher

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. I wonder why they would have bothered to copy it when we all know

that its weakness is its underbelly? Simply toss an IED under it and it's done.

[Gman]

2. And by design, he won't need it.

[InvisibleTouch]

3. If there was a shark-jump moment...

...I would say it was the stolen election of 2000.

[Uncle Joe]

10. +Infinity with a cherry on top. n/t

[snot]

11. +1

[NoGOPZone]

13. yep. nt

[hlthe2b]

4. Roman Empire? British Empire?

I think the US is on a trajectory that history could have predicted, quite frankly.

[L0oniX]

6. +1 ...not enough value placed on history.

[MemeSmith]

12. 1845

Manifest Destiny.

As soon as you sign up to an idea like that, it's just a question of watching the game play out.

[Kablooie]

14. This is beside the point but Henry Winkler thought jumping the shark was just fine entertainment.

He disagrees that it was a moment where the show took a nose dive.