I have a friend who is the archetypal “Early Adopter of the Next Big Thing that won’t be”.
Yep, Betamax. And bought albums on Reel-To-Reel Tapes. Then Laser Discs. And most recently invested heavily in replacing those Laser Discs with… HD DVDs. $500 for the player, almost as much to replace his best 'Discs with high-end Criterion HD DVDs. Now that he’s replaced those with Blu-Ray, you just know there’s new technology right around the corner.
And if there are two competing “Hi-Def 360º 4D Holographic Films Streaming from The Cloud” brands, he’ll pick the wrong one.
Actually, if you noticed, he’ll pick the one that’s technically superior, while the rest of the world ignores it for the cheaper, good enough version.
His two most recent movies were Public Enemies and Avatar and according to IMDB he’s got six more movies in post-production so I don’t think he’s disappeared.
Ok most of you won’t have ever heard of this guy but I distinctly remember the very short period in the 80s when he was touted as “The most Beautiful Man in the World” way back , with a big poster campaign, as Sheffield’s answer to Boy George -
(Real name Trevor Jones) I present to you:
“HOWCHER”:
They also did “Good Girls Don’t” which has become a staple for cheesy strippers everywhere. In fact, i don’t think I have heard the song anywhere else.
Travolta WAS a big thing for a few years in the late 1970s and mid-1990s. I remember when the movie *One Fine Day *flopped in 1996, it’s star, Geoge Clooney, said that the studio shouldn’t have launched it opposite the megahit Michael, becuase there was no way he could compete with a huge star like Travolta.
Y’all beat me to both my choices, Badfinger and the Segway.
But I’m in the car business and one I remember is the Pontiac Aztek. After it became pretty clear it was a flop I remember one review starting “Pontiac Aztek owners love them. Both of them”
GM planned on selling 60,000 a year and the retail sales for the first 6 months was 800 odd units.
Fall 2006: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was going to be another grand success for Aaron Sorkin, coming off the magical run of The West Wing. 30 Rock? Come on, SNL alums never amount to much…
The Chevy Chase Show. Heir apparent to the Late Night scene after Carson retired, on FOX, to go head-to-head with Letterman’s move to CBS. And nobody had even heard of Conan, which aired a few days later IIRC.
It was supposed to be a huge hit…and was terrible, and was cancelled after five weeks. Worst of all was at the time everybody still loved Chevy Chase, but he was very very bad. Nervous, unfunny…ugh.