The 1980s brought us ”Jumping The Shark” to describe something that a fictional character does that’s so over-the-top and totally out of character, requiring massive suspension of disbelief. Such an event usually signals the demise of the show where it takes place.
Now a new phrase has entered our vocabulary, courtesy of that great movie hero, Indiana Jones. I actually saw The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull a couple of weeks ago, and sure enough, the situation analogous to Fonzie jumping the shark in Happy Days occurs. Indy escapes from the Russians at Area 51 and stumbles on a town nestled in a valley. He reaches a house and calls out to a family sitting in their living room watching TV.
Only the family...is a mannequin facsimile. Indy realizes ”Oh Sh******t!” when the air raid siren goes off. He scrambles to find a place to hide, finding a lead-lined refrigerator which he rips everything out of it, climbs in, locks the door, and the Bomb goes off. He survives after being tossed and turned inside the fridge a few thousand feet or so. He gets out and sees the Mushroom Cloud where the “town” once existed. Shortly thereafter, he gets picked up by AEC personnel and receives a nice decontamination shower.
And so we now have: ”Nuking The Fridge!” Do I think this movie Nuked The Fridge? Not Just No but HELL NO! C’mon, get a grip! This is Indiana Jones we’re talking about here! This flick was a 50s Sci-Fi B movie! Because of that, my rating for the film is 7.5. So There.