# Huge successes then, completely forgotten now **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 5, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315 "2010-08-05T19:32:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/81 "2010-08-06T14:35:52Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > > [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](#): > > > > A couple more writers: Pearl S. Buck, novellist, winner of a Pulitzer prize and a Nobel prize for her novels about China and biographical writing. > > You can still find _The Good Earth_ in most bookstores, but that’s it, and most people aren’t even aware TGE is part one of a trilogy as you never see the sequels in bookstores. Aah, being in the UK I thought she had disappeared completely. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/82 "2010-08-06T14:49:18Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > _Independence Day_ was a huge hit, grossed hundreds of millions, most talked about movie of the summer and yadda yadda. Fourteen years later (damn- has it been that long?) there’s no nostalgia or cult following and there’s never been a sequel. **Independence Day** is still pretty loved by a lot of people. You just wouldn’t know it from reading the IMDB. Every year or so, Roland Emmerich gives an interview where he mentions his plans for **Independence Day 2**. Then you see him look off into space and do the calculations in his head on just how fucking expensive it would be to top the first one. And remember, Will Smith was just a supporting character in the movie, now he’s WILL SMITH, MOVIE STAR. So nothing ever comes of it. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/83 "2010-08-06T15:08:32Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Little Richard is in the same book; he’s still known to the middle aged and over but I doubt many people under 30 know who he is. Of course they do: he’s a Geico pitchman. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/84 "2010-08-06T15:18:37Z")
Milli Vanilli. People might know what they did, but when’s the last time anyone played their music, even ironically? Philip Michael Thomas, and arguably all of Miami Vice (given how huge it was at the time). C&C Music Factory and that whole subgenre, though it’s hard for me to put a finger on exactly what it was. But that peppy light hip hop of the early 90s, I’d know it when I heard it (if I ever heard it, which I don’t) Young MC. There’s a lot of fluffy pop culture I associate with the Bush Sr. presidency that got thrown by the wayside. ---
**Author:** ![Brandus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@Brandus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brandus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/85 "2010-08-06T15:25:40Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > A lot of alternative and post grunge bands from the 90s - The Gin Blossoms, Candlebox, Goo Goo Dolls, Collective Soul, Hootie and the Blowfish. Wiggum: Your mission is to find the fireworks smugglers, and get them to say something incriminating on this tape. [holds up a cassette tape] Bart: [reading the tape label] “Hootie and the Blowfish”? Wiggum: Yeah. It’s cheaper than blank tape. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/86 "2010-08-06T15:36:43Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > There’s a lot of fluffy pop culture I associate with the Bush Sr. presidency that got thrown by the wayside. So true. There was a lot of feelgood crap like Lisa & the Cult Jam and Miami Sound Machine or movies like Kevin Costner’s **Robin Hood- Prince of Thieves** ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/87 "2010-08-06T15:50:46Z")
Oh yeah . . . and Wilson Philips, and Nenah Cherry, and Jody Watley . . . now you’re making me all nostalgic. ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/88 "2010-08-06T15:58:08Z")
> [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](#): > > Religious kitsch cinema doesn’t seem to have much staying power. Who remembers any of these films…? > > \*\*Samson and Delilah > David and Bathsheba > The Robe > The Egyptian > Solomon and Sheba > \*\* > > The first three were the number one top grossing films of their year; the other two ranked in the top ten. And these were color movies from the '50s, not ancient silent films. > > In the field of music, a lot of easy listening titans qualify. Aside from the aforementioned Percy Faith, there were Ray Conniff, Mantovani, Ferrante & Teicher, Horst Jankowski, Bert Kaempfert, Enoch Light, 101 Strings, Roger Williams, and Hugo Winterhalter. Billboard Magazine tells us these artists were once massively popular, and this is confirmed by what we find in second-hand stores and the garage sales of older people. > > In terms of pop music, Paul Revere & the Raiders were once a huge deal & today seem to maintain a pretty low profile to the extent they are known at all. In 1968 they were at least ten times as popular as the Velvet Underground, whereas today, among people under 45 the reverse is probably true. These are all awesome examples. Perhaps also, cold war informed stuff like Doctor Zhivago or Moscow on the Hudson. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/89 "2010-08-06T16:00:46Z")
If it weren’t for the Beatles and \*Bye Bye Birdie, \*who would remember Ed Sullivan? ---
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/90 "2010-08-06T16:11:15Z")
> [@LC\_Strawhouse](#): > > How about Ivy League sports? I’ve read many times that Harvard and Yale were the kings of the football world through the 1930s or so. People have accused me of lying or being confused if I mention it, though. That’s because the Ivy League now specializes in “rich white people sports” like hockey and lacrosse (and basketball to a degree, but that doesn’t fit in with the other two). They can’t compete in football because they can’t give athletic scholarships. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/91 "2010-08-06T16:20:28Z")
Manly tough-guy detective shows and movies. Ubiquitous for 3 decades, they have all but disappeared as a genre. Mannix, McCloud, Rockford, Serpico, Magnum, Shaft, Ironsides, Mike Hammer, Riptide, Crockett and Tubbs…where have all of our 5-o’clock shadow heroes gone? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/92 "2010-08-06T17:02:46Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Mannix, McCloud, Rockford, Serpico, Magnum, Shaft, Ironsides, Mike Hammer, Riptide, Crockett and Tubbs…where have all of our 5-o’clock shadow heroes gone? They’re all starring in **The Expendables** , which starts August 13. I can’t wait. See also… **Machete** , starring Danny “They fucked with the wrong Mexican” Trejo. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/93 "2010-08-06T17:12:49Z")
[Arthur Godfrey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Godfrey). He was _huge_ in his day- an ancestor of Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh in terms of radio following (not in terms of shock or politics) and then television. He was perhaps the father of product-placement: if he casually mentioned liking a product or enjoying a meal at a restaurant sales of the product would explode and that restaurant would be mobbed for months; if he said he didn’t like it then product sales would plummet and that restaurant might as well close. Unfortunately he was also an obnoxious and thin skinned egomaniac and hated by most of the people who worked with him. When he left his show he thought it was temporary- he’d take a couple of years off and then come back and go right back to the top- but it didn’t work out. Nobody wanted to work with him again and the bosses didn’t decided they could make more money with somebody who was less popular but not a prima donna and didn’t demand a huge salary. He became a male Norma Desmond, a multimillionaire many times over who did penny-ante afternoon TV ads just to get in front of the camera again, but he kept his egomania: when he had a reunion with Julius LaRosa many years after firing him on air in a preliminary meeting for a big comeback special (which never happened) he was at the guy’s throat within minutes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Real\_Regency\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@The\_Real\_Regency\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Real_Regency_Elf)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/94 "2010-08-06T17:44:57Z")
What about the Fairlight Synthesizer? I remember how it was hailed as being the instrument that would change modern music forever and take over the world, but the company went out of business only a few years after it debuted. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/95 "2010-08-06T17:55:32Z")
There’s no shortage of teen idols this could be true of. Leif Garrett, Shaun Cassidy, Andy Gibb- all enormous for a season or two but now forgotten musically. (Shaun Cassidy has a successful career in producing, but Garrett’s a train wreck for the last 30 years and Andy Gibb went from screaming fans and sold out stadiums to _Punky Brewster_ guest shots in an amazingly short time). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/96 "2010-08-06T18:13:18Z")
I’m not sure some of the things listed here have been at the super-famous phenom level that I think the OP was looking for. I would suggest The Valley of the Dolls. It supposedly sold more copies than TV Guide and the Bible put together. It was a cultural milestone of its day and today no one is remotely interested in it. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/97 "2010-08-06T18:20:14Z")
Oh, also You Light Up My Life. That song was HUGE in the 70’s. It was nominated at the Grammies two years in a row. Now I never, ever hear it anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/98 "2010-08-06T18:22:18Z")
> [@Brandus](#): > > Wiggum: Your mission is to find the fireworks smugglers, and get > them to say something incriminating on this tape. [holds > up a cassette tape] > > Bart: [reading the tape label] “Hootie and the Blowfish”? > > Wiggum: Yeah. It’s cheaper than blank tape. I heard this same joke by a standup comedian long before “The Simpsons”, and the butt of was it Paul Anka. Which reminds me … Paul Anka. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/99 "2010-08-06T18:26:32Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > [Arthur Godfrey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Godfrey). He was _huge_ in his day- an ancestor of Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh in terms of radio following (not in terms of shock or politics) and then television… In the 1950s, Gore Vidal actually warned that when and if an American Hitler came, he’d be a lot like Arthur Godfrey: charming, folksy and telegenic. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315/100 "2010-08-06T18:28:04Z")
> [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](#): > > > [@Sampiro](#): > > > > You can still find _The Good Earth_ in most bookstores, but that’s it, and most people aren’t even aware TGE is part one of a trilogy as you never see the sequels in bookstores. > > Aah, being in the UK I thought she had disappeared completely. She would have except her book is taught in a lot of introducory highschool literature courses. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huge-successes-then-completely-forgotten-now/549315.md?page=6)