# "One hit wonders" outside of pop culture **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 19, 2010, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691 "2010-12-19T06:22:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/41 "2010-12-20T04:04:08Z")
Incidentally, are there any true examples of child prodigies who “didn’t live up to their potential”? I’m not talking about ones who died young, ones who got screwed over by society (like Sidis), or ones who had fine careers without being considered utter geniuses in later life. I’m talking about real burn-outs. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/42 "2010-12-20T04:30:47Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > Yes, and Mary Shelley also wrote **Gormenghast** , as influential in its way as that other book of hers. [Mervyn Peake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyn_Peake) wrote the [Gormenghast](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gormenghast) books. About a century after Mary Shelley died. Am I missing some kind of in-joke here? ---
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/43 "2010-12-20T04:33:15Z")
I hit a home run in Little League once… ETA: Oops…I just remembered a second time. Guess I don’t belong in this thread. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/44 "2010-12-20T04:57:50Z")
Emily Bronte wrote **Wuthering Heights** , which was her one & only novel. She had begun work on another, but died before getting anywhere with it. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/45 "2010-12-20T06:59:48Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Albert Einstein won one Nobel Prize. Nobody could possibly say Einstein was a “one-hit wonder” though. Heck, his Nobel was for his work on the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon for which the practical applications are of [some popular interest](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoelectric_effect#Uses_and_effects), but are really not the thing for which Einstein is famous. In [1905](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_Papers) he had no less than _four_ major scientific articles published, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and matter-energy equivalence, the last of which yielded what is probably the most famous (to laypeople) equation of all time, _E = mc[sup]2[/sup]_. And then he followed all of _that_ up with general relativity–_E = mc[sup]2[/sup]_ and all that “relativity” stuff being the things which most lay people associate with Einstein. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2010, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/46 "2010-12-20T13:15:28Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > I’ve also seem a lot of Munch coffee table books, so SOMEBODY must be a fan of his other stuff. I have too but I couldn’t name a single one besides The Scream. Apparently he did one of [Mary having sex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_%28Edvard_Munch%29)! (technically NSFW, but come on, it’s art!) ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/47 "2010-12-20T13:43:49Z")
In art, would Robert Indiana and his ‘LOVE’ painting/sculpture/silkscreen/greeting card/postage stamp/etc count? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/48 "2010-12-20T15:00:18Z")
> [@minlokwat](#): > > **Jonathan Larson** wrote and composed **Rent**. His earlier work [tick…tick…BOOM](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick,_Tick..._Boom!) has been performed several times and become well known. The writers of HAIR never had another successful musical. Ken Kesey never equalled the success of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/49 "2010-12-20T15:55:27Z")
Sara Josepha Hale was a 19th century editor & abolitionist writer who also wrote some children’s poems, one of which was “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/50 "2010-12-21T15:31:31Z")
Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Richard Hooker’s M_A_S\*H ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/51 "2010-12-22T01:04:34Z")
Clarence Day. Wrote the semi-autobiographical “_Life With Father_” The book sold amazingly well and was made into one of the longest-running Broadway plays. He did write a few other things but none of them did very well. I happened onto one of his other, long-out-of-print books once at a used bookstore. “_This Simian World_”, which I personally think is a masterpiece, but which no one else has ever heard of. SS ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/52 "2010-12-22T01:13:35Z")
> [@SeldomSeen](#): > > Clarence Day. Wrote the semi-autobiographical “_Life With Father_” The book sold amazingly well and was made into one of the longest-running Broadway plays. He did write a few other things but none of them did very well. > > I happened onto one of his other, long-out-of-print books once at a used bookstore. “_This Simian World_”, which I personally think is a masterpiece, but which no one else has ever heard of. > SS Missed the Edit: ETA: Interestingly, a google search turned up the fact that this book was reissued in 1981…over sixty years after it’s first publication, at the personal insistance of Alfred A. Knopf who loved it. Guess I was wrong to say, no one had heard of it. [Day’s “Simian world” is back again](http://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/18/books/day-s-simian-world-is-back-again.html) \* ‘‘It is possible that our race may be an accident, in a meaningless universe, living its brief life uncared-for, on this dark, cooling star: but even so - and all the more -what marvelous creatures we are! A universe capable of giving birth to so many such accidents - blind or not -is a good world to live in, a promising universe.’’ \* -Clarence Day ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/53 "2010-12-22T01:19:29Z")
How about [John Gillespie Magee, Jr.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee,_Jr.)? ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/54 "2010-12-22T01:23:22Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Don’t forget \*Sometimes a Great Notion \*. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2010, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/55 "2010-12-24T06:33:36Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > [Mervyn Peake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mervyn_Peake) wrote the [Gormenghast](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gormenghast) books. About a century after Mary Shelley died. > > Am I missing some kind of in-joke here? I misremembered the title of **Valperga** , and at any rate, **The Last Man** would have been a much better example. Freakin’ hilarious, no? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/56 "2010-12-30T16:03:13Z")
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster never again equalled the success of creating Superman. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/57 "2010-12-30T16:21:26Z")
[Remo Giazotto](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remo_Giazotto) - a one-hit wonder who doesn’t even get credit for his extremely well-known Adagio in G minor, but it’s his own damn fault for trying to pass it off as being by Tomaso Albinoni. Yes, _that_ Adagio. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/58 "2010-12-31T10:34:50Z")
Most people would have problems recognizing the name “Joaquín Rodrigo”. But I managed to catch the Figure Skating World Championship last weekend, and his Concierto de Aranjuez was featured several times, as usual; it’s one of those pieces I’d expect anybody to recognize, even if they can’t quite place it (among other things, because some of the interpretations are, uh, quite interpretative). Fantasía para un Gentilhombre is the only other one of his works that I can tell for sure I’ve also heard. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/59 "2010-12-31T11:06:24Z")
> [@Nobody](#): > > [Heh](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrNy2Z6ZfIA) Heh, Heh back.😉 [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/f3mx0Czyk2A/hqdefault.jpg "Antidote for Pachelbel's Rant for Solo Cello") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3mx0Czyk2A) ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691/60 "2010-12-31T16:40:55Z")
In the world of sports, I can think of a number of guys who had ONE spectacular day or moment in a career that, otherwise, never amounted to much. Don Larsen Clint Longley Al Weis Jack Squirek Max McGee [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-wonders-outside-of-pop-culture/564691.md?page=2)