Incredible but true: Just the Ten of Us has a page at Jump the Shark! The good news, friends, is that 19 of the voters claim the show never jumped (and they’re darn tootin’) – but the “Singing (The Lubbock Girls)” got 13 votes.
I have to admit that when a musical group is introduced on a show, the show generally gets lamer. But let’s be honest here: when you’ve got a character like Coach Lubbock involved (who once taught Carol Seaver about Shakespeare – meditate on that one) even a singing sister supergroup can’t sink the JTTOU ship. And come on, 13 people thought the show Jumped on day one? That’s ridiculous. Just ridiculous.
More importantly though is the very first comment on JtS, wherein series co-creator Steve Marshall responds to some of the lamer comments:
Steve Marshall here, co-creator of Just the Ten of Us. Been reading the posts, some of which have a good point with others tending to be a bit out there. For example — the “unbelievable nature” of an attractive woman having sex with an overweight man (who, by the way, happens to be her husband) — well, I guess we should tell CBS to cancel KING OF QUEENS immediately, given this caveat. Also, I think those of you who said we had the girls singing too much were probably right. They just enjoyed doing it so much that we let them — probably a bit too often. (Oh, but they sang in a neighborhood pizza place, not a “sleazy nightclub,” as someone else posted. As for the believability of our premise, (having the coach’s daughters attending an otherwise all boys school), we covered that base early on when the school administrator, Father Hargis (Frank Bonner) was ordered by the church to make the school coed. His admission of the five girls was his way around going fully coed. It was a fun show that consistently won its time slot but was killed by the network for political reasons. They wanted us out to make room for a show by the producers who provided them with the rest of the TGIF sitcoms, Miller-Boyett. That show died in just a few episodes. About a year later, the president of ABC confided to the president of Warner Bros. Television, “I think we probably moved too soon in canceling JUST THE TEN OF US.”
Political reasons. All the best things die due to political reasons.
Anyway, let’s take a moment to reflect on the mighty mighty JTTOU and what Could Have Been if the show didn’t get run over by the Miller-Boyett train. Jumped the shark? I think not.
Posted in Television, Movies, and Music
Maria January 6, 2007, 5:51 pm
Your JtToU pings never fail to remind me of the day I transcribed an entire episode (the one where the girls have a crush on their teacher) by hand and then re-enacted it with my Barbies.
Robert January 7, 2007, 12:54 am
By definition of jumping the shark, a show can’t jump the shark on day one. Shame on those dolts who’ve said otherwise.
JTTOU definitely jumped the shark, though. Don’t ask me to remember when, because too many lonely Friday nights have passed.
Ryan Buslovich January 12, 2007, 7:14 pm
I’d just like to apologize for voting for JTTOU “jumping the shark” when the smart young girl’s character smoked cigarettes (Her name escapes me at the moment).
I’d also like to point out that they misquoted my e-mail, I guess they just don’t copy and paste the entries they receive.
On a serious note though, I don’t think the show really Jumped The Shark, but some of the episodes were kind of ridiculous. I still think though their cancellation was known ahead of time because each older child (The five sisters J.R.) had an episode in the last season that featured them prominently, as well as a two-part travel episode where they go to some tropical island, like every show in existence from T.G.I.F.