I agree with Heart in general, except These Dreams is actually my favorite post-70s Heart song. It would have been pretty good as a deep cut 70s track had it been produced and performed like them instead of 80s glitz. All their other post-70s singles, on the other hand, range from bland to horrible.
How about Allan Burns? Co-creator of My Mother the Car but also of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Powers &8^]
Haven’t seen it. But thanks for letting me know what to avoid.
Ah, thanks, that explains a lot, but now I do dimly recall that that was indeed the reason. It’s a while since I saw it, but I equally dimly recall that it had little or no connection with the book. The incoherence started with the script, or substitute thereof. Call it a prime example of a parody that became farcical.
Sounds grim. The 1967 film version is described here:
I nominate Kevin Costner. While “Dances With Wolves” hasn’t really kept its reputation as both film-making and social consciousness have changed, it definitely had a moment in the sun of being hailed as a masterpiece and the rebirth of the epic as a genre.
“Waterworld” and “The Postman” had equally (but oppositely) superlative reputations.
Nicholas Cage also springs to mind, although I think it’s tough to pin bad movies solely on the actor. But he is somebody who has given performances ranging from awful to great in movies that range from awful to great.
Second. There should be a special category in this thread for “Best AND Worst by A Single Artist Recording the Same Song.”
And perhaps Pericles. The first two acts are pretty bad, some scholars believe Shakespeare only wrote the third.
That is perhaps the only answer that is correct by the terms of the OP. 
I’ll assume you haven’t seen The Happening.
It ain’t happening.
Otherwise, Shymalan is a legit addition to this.
My thought was John Travolta: Pulp Fiction & Battlefield Earth.
Monty Python has the same problem Saturday Night Live has—people remember all the great sketches the shows did but if you had to binge a whole season of either show there is unfunny dreck and filler.
MP was ever hit and miss.
I saw a tweet recently that mentioned how Sandler makes an absolutely amazing movie about every 15 years and then goes back to playing fart wizards the rest of the time.
Adam Sandler has made some great movies. Funny People, Reign Over Me, Punch Drunk Love, and the most recent one. He absolutely possesses the capability to deliver great performances in “real” movies. He’s also either a. greedy and will whore himself out in shitty movies just to make more money, or b. actually enjoys playing these lowbrow roles and relishes the opportunity to act ridiculous and wallow in shit. Either way, the fact remains that he does have the acting chops when he deigns to utilize them.
The problem with greatness is it often comes from taking big chances and doing something different. Something might catch on, or not. Groups like The Beatles or Bowie tried to do new things all the time, and not everything worked. But it isn’t surprising that there is dreck among people who tried new things and sometimes achieved greatness.
I like The Beatles so don’t dwell on Revolution #9. Most things that have gone on forever jump the shark; I mostly stopped watching The Simpsons years ago.
BARNEY: I’m taking barbershop to new and interesting places. Number 8. BURP! Number 8. BURP!
I was going to mention Punchdrunk Love myself, as I have never seen the other movies. I can’t remember how in the hell I ended up renting it, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see him playing a quirky, but believable and serious rather than over-the-top buffoonish, role and pulling it off so well. At that point, I didn’t think he had it in him to play these types of roles. He was perfect in that movie.
From what I understand, it’s basically the latter. His comedy career basically funds a series of vacations for him and his friends to fly out somewhere, spend a few weeks fucking around in front of cameras by day, and partying at night.
I’d argue that his character in Punchdrunk Love is a pretty standard Sandler character - an emotionally damaged man-baby who’s largely unequipped to function in society - except he’s not in an Adam Sandler movie, so his antics are perceived by people around him as disturbed and frightening, like they would be in real life, not hilarious and endearing.
I don’t think Monty Python has produced the worst in their genre - there have been a lot worse sketches I’ve seen over the years. But I’d agree that the standard deviation in greatness was huge, since there were a lot of mediocre-but-not-execrable stuff to contrast to their moments of sheer brilliance.
I don’t think they had a lot of absolute crap: either their good presence/acting or great writing usually saved the sketch. They come close to disaster when their stuff drags on for too long. For instance, my least favorite sketch, mr German-composer-with-an-overly-long name, had an interesting premise at least even if they stretched it on beyond comfortability. And another sketch that goes on for too long, the beach changing scene, took an otherwise uninteresting bit of slapstick and rescued it at the end with the protagonist’s enthusiasm when he enters the spotlight. The Tudor Smut Police under different hands would have been interminable but they made it pleasantly tolerable IMO with both their writing and charisma despite the sketch’s length.
And a similar category, from the era of 78s and 45s, would be best and worst on sides A and B of the same disc. I’ll nominate Jan & Dean’s Drag City (worst dragster song) b/w Schlock Rod (best hotrod parody).
I’m not making it, cuz I’m knowledgeable enough in these things to know it, but you could probably make a case for the Simpsons.
Some of their earlier work is genius comedy and the best in animation (and adult animation at that), but there is also the “Problem with Apu”-response episode that, tonally, can be said it one of the most tone-deaf episodes of TV ever aired