Nuked the Fridge is the New Jumped the Shark
July 29th, 2008, 1 Comment »
Apparently there’s a new phrase in town for TV shows and movies that have crossed the event horizon of just plain silly:
In recent weeks, a similarly ridiculous episode — in this case from the movie “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” — has produced a similar term, “nuked the fridge,” that is gaining traction online. A Google search comes up with 64,000 hits.
In “Indiana Jones,” the hero’s improbable achievement was to survive a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. Hence, “to nuke the fridge” means to introduce a wildly implausible element to a once-respected franchise, or more generally, to signal the abandonment of past standards of quality.
There are already battling websites: Nuked the Fridge and Nuking the Fridge. Two will enter, one will leave.
I’m not sure we really needed a new phrase, but what the heck? ‘Nuked the fridge’ is a suitable replacement, as it seems even more improbably and ridiculous than ‘jumped the shark’.