Off Topic… This looks a little bit staged, but still, it’s a man at a hockey game… and yes, it was a Friday… and since this is April Fool’s Day, lets see someone making a fool of themselves in public.
And since it is a Friday, and this is a Friday related post, here’s Dallas Friday on a boat…
Yes, she’s a wakeboarder, but I’ll let anyone in my boat that loves to be on the water… just as long as they save some glass calm water for me to do some footing on. It helps if they can drive the boat… anything else is just a bonus.
Off topic… A man is in trouble from Australian authorities for spending the day water skiing with his son on the Victoria River. The authorities have an issue with it because he wasn’t using a boat. He was towing his son with a helicopter.
A quote from the article…
Blooby nanny state. For gods sake get a life or get back under your rock you bunch of kill joy grannies. Piss off and let people be themselves, get a life or take the next plane out of here. Wankers.
I found this story via Slashdot. Read the full story here (it even has a little bit of video). I’m sure the creative writers over at The CRB will come up with a witty article about this.
Hopefully, you all know what that phrase means and where it comes from. If not, you’ve been hiding under a rock since 1977 when the phrase began to take form. For those that still don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the Happy Days episode when Fonzy jumped the shark on a pair of skis. It is widely regarding as the episode when the show started it’s decline (however, it stayed on the air for 6 more seasons). Now, when a show is said to have jumped the shark, it’s on it’s decline.
The phrase even has it’s own entry in Wikipedia. And as always (in case you didn’t notice), the Fonze is wearing his black leather jacket (yes, even out on the ocean, he’s wearing his black leather jacket.) Plus, he’s got a yellow banana for flotation. Yes, the little drawing above is correct, he’s rocking a banana. It even comes included with the action figure. Jumping the shark hasn’t been limited to just Fonzie doing it. Even Homer has gotten in on the action…
Now, if you watch the scene closely, you can see so many things wrong…
First off, if you look at the jump and “shark cage”, it looks to be about 60-70 feet that he needs to jump to clear the cage. Not saying it can’t be done, but he doesn’t appear to going very fast when he makes the jump.
The show a large shark swimming in about 4, maybe 5 feet, of water with no sign of the under water “cage”. Later they show a much deeper underwater view. Serious lack of continuity, but not the only one.
Richie Cunningham is driving the boat and asks the Fonze, who’s skiing behind the boat, if he’s sure he wants to do it. The Fonze gives him a thumbs up… I’ve been behind a boat a lot, and rarely have ever heard the people in the boat talking.
Finally, at the 1:21 point in the clip above, you see a good shot of the jump, the shark cage, and what can only be an incredibly large pier just on the other side of the shark cage. Who sets up a ski jump to that as the skier hits the ramp, the boat runs into a pier?
Just after the Fonze crushes on his landing, they switch to a shot showing him skiing away from the front. See anything missing? Like maybe a “shark cage” and possibly a jump ramp? They are both mysteriously gone.
Meanwhile, Richie, who’s driving the boat, continues to look at the Fonze, giving him a thumbs up, and really by now, should have driven the boat into the pillars holding up the pier.
The show the boat turning to the right to whip the Fonze up to the beach, however he cuts out on the right to ski to the beach?
Amazingly, his leather jacket appears to be undamaged by the salt water?
Horton over at the Ball of Spray posted this article from TV Guide where they (the writers) defended their decision to write the scene. My take… if they can make action figures from it, it can’t be all bad… plus, it gave me an excuse to find some goofy jump the shark pictures with Google Image Search.
Someone recreated the scene using Legos...
There is rumor of a new phrase taking form to replace “Jump the Shark” (or at least be the movie equivalent), but off the top of your head, who knows where the phrase “Nuke the Fridge” comes from? Anyone? Anyone? The answer is below the last funny jump the shark image I found…
The answer is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Didn’t see it? Not many people did… it wasn’t a good movie. The phrase refers to an early scene where Indy jumps into a lead lined fridge to save himself from a nuclear detonation. The explosion hurls the fridge (and him) along ways away, far enough that he can exit the fridge and look at the mushroom cloud. Surprisingly, the fridge appears to be the only thing to survive the blast. Everything else has been demolished. Sadly, the scene didn’t make into the trailer (although you do see the nuclear bomb).
A little off topic here, but thought I’d pass this along anyways…
There’s a new world record (recognized by Guinness World Records) in water skiing… The most water skiers towed behind a single boat is 114 by the Horsehead Water Ski Club (Australia) in Strahan, Tasmania, Australia, on March 28, 2010.
I know it’s not barefooting, but it is still one hell of a record. If you check out their website, near the top the have a very wide picture that’ll give you an idea of just how many people 114 people are.
Also, (currently) near the top of the website you can find a link to download the footage taken from The Eagle (the boat that pulled the skiers). You can see that it was a very slow pull.
I’d like to take a brief moment to thank everyone for visiting my little corner of the internet. My little website still isn’t nearly as popular as The Creaky Rowboat (the nearly always entertaining, often non-nonsensical, general water skiing blog), but it’s gone from the 10-20 visitors a day, to the 40-50 visitors a day. For those of you wondering, you can’t make a living running a website with 40-50 visitors a day, this is strictly a hobby. It’s been fun though. I’ve heard from people all over the USA (and the rest of the world) and met lots of people.
You may start to see the occasional non-barefoot post here and there on the site, but the site’s focus will always stay on barefooting. There are just occasionally other things of note in the world of water skiing worth noting, or that I manage to witness, that I’ll want to share.
As always, the site has never been intended to be just about my opinion on barefooting and what I’ve seen. I’m just one man, who’s very active on a show skiing team (yes, I’m also a show skier) so I only have so much time in my day. So if you have something you want to share (an event, a story, cool barefooting pictures, a slick video you made/found or whatever) drop me a line by sending an email to wedge [at] talesfromthefoot.com. That email address is always in the sidebar in the contact area, you’ll just need to replace that [at] with the actual @ sign (I’m trying to cut down on spam bots finding the address.) If it’s just a one off, I can post that for you. Or if you feel like you want to be a regular (or semi-regular) contributor, we can probably even work that out.
Ever wonder if you’re the only one showing up besides me, you’re host? Well, I’d like to let you know that you are not alone. According to Google Analytics, over the past month, the site has had a little over 800 visitors, from 65 different countries spanning all of the continents (I’m even going to count Antarctica since there are 10 visits with an unspecified continent:)) Since the site launched in January 2008, there have been about 9000 visitors.
So, if you’d like to let the world know that you’re stopping by here, just drop a comment down below and say hi to everyone. You can always comment on all of the posts. I’ve also made it easier for people to spread the word about the website. See something you like, just click on the little Facebook share button in the post to tell all of your Facebook friends about what you saw here. Chances are, you have a whole lot of friends who barefoot too.
So once again, thanks for stopping by. Come on back soon.
I know it’s not a barefooting event, but it is a water skiing event done right. Big crowd, great atmosphere, awesome jumping. That’s a recipe for success. I personally haven’t made it down to the event yet, but a good friend made the trip and was definitely impressed. So even though its not footing, I’ll still be a tiny little promoter for it because it is that cool. Watch the promo…
So if you happen to be in the Tri Lakes, Zachary, Louisiana area come Saturday, June 5, make the effort to attend the Night Jam, you won’t be disappointed.
Mad-City Wedge 