Basically, somebody made you a recommendation and they framed it by comparing it to something else, except either the pitch made it seem like it was much better/worse than it actually was, or was completely inaccurate and you still remember it to this day.
My dad took me to see “Varsity Blues” when I was 13 because he said it was “The Waterboy Meets Clueless” based on the trailers/ads he saw. It was like neither of those movies (thought the nudity was good though)
Not a personal recommendation but the anime “Bleach” was often said to be “Anime Ghostbusters” in the lead-up to the show’s premiere even by Cartoon Network, when the only relation to Ghostbusters was that they fight ghosts in both and Bleach has some comedic elements at the beginning.
One of my all time favorite comedies is Wayne’s World. It’s intelligent and self-aware, with lots of classic and memorable scenes.
One of my NOT all time favorite comedies is Encino Man, starring former MTV personality and not-noted-comedic-actor Pauly Shore.
And yet I distinctly recall the VHS tapes of Encino Man being emblazoned with the quote “If you liked Wayne’s World, you’ll love Encino Man”.
Now, in fairness, I’ve never actually seen Encino Man. But nothing I’ve ever heard about it suggests that any of its humor is even in the same genre as Wayne’s World, much less exceeding it in quality.
I’ve been a Dream Theater fan since Images and Words; I’d still call them one of my favorite bands, even though their last few albums have been less than stellar.
About 15 years ago, one of my best friends was going on and on about some new band she’d found called Everessence or something. I just had to hear this amazing album, they’re a lot like Dream Theater, I’d really dig them. She insisted I borrow her CD, and I didn’t make it all the way through. It was just run-of-the-mill grunge garbage.
The worst part of the experience was that I somehow lost the CD, and had to go through the embarrassment of buying her a new copy. I bought it on Amazon so I wouldn’t have to deal with an actual person at a music store. For months afterward, Amazon thought I wanted to hear all the latest and greatest grunge. And then of course I found the CD, soon after.
They should have said, “If you liked The Magnificent Seven, you’ll love BBTS,” which actually was a pretty decent movie. And it helped to finance Return of the Secaucus Seven, which started the career of writer/director John Sayles. Plus it gave James Cameron a place to start.
A friend talked me into watching the sci-fi show Babylon 5 by telling me it was “HP Lovecraft in space.” Turned out to be one of my all time favorite shows, but I still wonder what the hell he was talking about.
This is kinda going out on a limb, but I got conned into paying actual money to see Blair Witch Project (Goddammit! I still want my money back! :mad: ) by watching the thing on free TV supposedly about the “legend”.
The TV show was cool. The movie made me want to commit violence on someone.
I can think of two instances where this happened on the local comics page. One was when Richard Thompson, who drew the strip “Cul De Sac”, had to retire for health reasons. The other was when they were re-running old “Calvin and Hobbes” strips for a while. In both cases, when they had to replace the strip, they promised the new strip would be just as good as what it was replacing. And then we wind up with crap like “WuMo”.