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30 Pop-Culture Landmarks That Kind of Flopped at First

By:: Brian C. Miller; Cracked Writers

December 13, 2023

30 Pop-Culture Landmarks That Kind of Flopped at First

Sometimes it takes awhile for something to find its audience. Even some of the most popular shows that have ever been on television weren’t immediate hits. Game of Thrones was received lukewarmly by critics initially, and international sitcom phenomenon Friends was actually torn apart.

The examples aren’t restricted to television either. We probably only know how important Night of the Living Dead is to horror cinema because it accidentally slipped into the public domain due to the copyright being left off of the title screen. Similarly, A Christmas Story and It’s a Wonderful Life didn’t become holiday staples until they played endlessly on TV as cheap filler programming.

So hey, if your creative project isn't beloved at first, take this list as inspiration that it could just be a matter of time.

30 A Christmas Story

A CHRISTMAS STORY TOOK YEARS TO BECOME A HOLIDAY CLASSIC. While the movie did somewhat OK in theaters, it completely vanished from screens after a few weeks. Its popularity slowly grew over the years on television, though - eventually becoming inescapable if you turned on your TV during Christmas season. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

29 Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here

CRACKED.COM Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here 20 In 1975, the band's follow-up to The Dark Side of the Moon left many critics wishing for something better. Rolling Stone magazine declared that the epic song Shine on You Crazy Diamond, about their original lead singer, Syd Barrett, was so boring that they might as well be singing about Roger Waters's brother-in-law getting a parking ticket. — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

28 The Godfather Part II

Reviews were The not good for GodfatherII In 1974 The NYTimes claimed it was unoriginal and disjointed, particularly disliking its non-linear form. The review even goes so far as describing the dialogue as 'dumb' and 'cartoon captions'. CRACKED.COM — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

27 The Beatles

Despite their popularity with the younger generation, early critics HATED this mop-top STEADY band. Not even their a huge joke mothers would ChicagoTribune claim that they near disaster Newsweek sing well. they are god awful LosAngeles Times Boston Globe BEATLES THE GRACKED COM — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

26 Breaking Bad

BREAKING BAD BECAME BIG ON NETFLIX. For most of its run, Breaking Bad was just another AMC show. It got most of its fanbase when the first four seasons were released on Netflix - and over Season 5, audience numbers climbed from just 2 million to 10 million. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

25 The Wizard of Oz

THE WIZARD OF OZ WASN'T PROFITABLE FOR YEARS. Fantasy movies are a big draw today - but in 1939, audiences weren't too keen on magical tornado rides to alternate universes. It didn't help that the movie cost a ton of money to make. MGM didn't turn a profit on it until the 1949 re-release. CRACKED COM — Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

24 Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin's debut was slaughtered by critics. Rolling Stone's John Mendelsohn bashed Jimmy Page's weak, unimaginative songs and called Robert Plant prissy. John Paul Jones later said, In our naïveté we thought we'd done a good album, and then this venom comes flying out. CRACKED.COM — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

23 The Sound of Music

GRAGKED.COM When The Sound of Music was released in 1965, the critics tore it apart. ROBERT THE - WISE SOUND RODGERS -HAMMERSTEINS OF MUSiC cellus JULIE ANDREWS CREATOPRES PLUMMER RICHARD - Richard HAYDN - ELEANOR PARKER - - I Robert Whe Rodgers - Oscar Hammerstein II Production KALORE - - سلام Active - Ernest Lehman We have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs. was one of the harshest reviews. — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

22 It's a Wonderful Life

CRACKED.COM THE BELOVED CHRISTMAS CLASSIC IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE FLOPPED AT THE BOX OFFICE BANKRUPTED ITS STUDIO ESSENTIALLY ENDED FRANK CAPRA'S CAREER WAS LARGELY IGNORED BY THE PUBLIC ...UNTIL 1974, WHEN A CLERICAL ERROR ALLOWED THE FILM'S COPYRIGHT TO EXPIRE, FREEING LOCAL TV STATIONS AND VIDEO DISTRIBUTORS TO PICK IT UP, AND BEGIN BROADCASTING AND SELLING COPIES OF IT, AD INFINITUM. — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

21 Friends

CRACKED.COM Most reviews shredded Friends when it premiered. They complained the characters just aimlessly drank coffee and chatted, and that the show used pop culture references too much. — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

20 Arrested Development

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT WAS CONSTANTLY ONE STEP AWAY FROM CANCELLATION. MATCHO Every episode ... was like a gift, because nobody was watching it, Michael Cera has been quoted as saying. Seasons kept getting shorter and shorter, until the show was cancelled after Season 3. Only then did it become really popular on DVD. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

19 Labyrinth

Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

18 Dazed and Confused

DAZED AND CONFUSED WENT MOSTLY UNNOTICED. For a movie legendary for giving us both Matthew McConaughey and his Alright, alright, alright, Dazed and Confused barely made a profit - and only because it was very cheaply made. Compared to other movies released in 1993, it was less than a blip on the radar. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

17 Blade Runner

BLADE RUNNER WAS UPSTAGED BY E.T. In summer 1982, movie screens were overtaken by the whimsical tale of a friendly, Reese's Pieces-loving alien. What chance did a ponderous examination of what it means to be human have against that? Blade Runner narrowly beat out Firefox, a Clint Eastwood movie you just learned existed. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

16 Bohemian Rhapsody

CRACKED.COM A brazen Queen's lyrics are not the stuff hodge podge. of sonnets. -Rolling Stone - TIME Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was not received well by critics during its release. It is now one of their most iconic songs. — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

15 Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo was released to a mixed reception, and barely broke even at the box office. In 1959, the British Film Institute's magazine Sight & Sound said that the plot was egg-shell thin and that Hitchcock was repeating himself in slow motion. Even famed director Orson Welles hated it. Ironically, 53 years later, Sight & Sound would rank Vertigo the greatest film of all time, dethroning the five decade reign of Welles' own film, Citizen Kane. CRACKED.COM — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

14 Predator

When Predator came out, it was called derivative, predictable, dull, and grisly. CRACKED.COM PREDATOR And the Predator's design was panned: Frankly, scarier critters have checked into Roach Motels. — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

13 The Shining

GRACKED.COM Initial reactions to the Shining were mixed to the point that... Stanley Kubrick was nominated for the first-ever Worst Director Razzie Award. — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

12 The Shawshank Redemption

CRACKED.COM 302 THE TITLE FOR THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION WAS TOO MUCH OF A MOUTHFUL. Despite being one of the most beloved prison movies (or even just movies) of all time, audiences gave it a hard pass when it came out in 1994. Both Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman have claimed (perhaps with a wink) that it failed because no one could remember the name Shawshank. — Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

11 Fight Club

CRACKED.COM FIGHT CLUB WAS BOOED BY AUDIENCES. Releasing the movie with the Columbine shooting still fresh, while marketing it as a macho flick rather than the dark satire it was intended to be, didn't do Fight Club any favors. Both audiences and critics angrily turned their backs on the film. It didn't gain its cult status until it was released on DVD. — Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

10 The Office

THE OFFICE WAS ALMOST CANCELED. The first season got a lukewarm reception, with viewers thinking WORLD'S it was just an inferior rehash of the British original. A second BEST season was greenlit only because the head of NBC really BOSS believed in the show - and because Steve Carell became a big name in comedy around that time. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

9 Game of Thrones

Some early reviews called HBO's Game of Thrones kids' fare, with things for grown-ups put in. GAMEOF THRONES It was boy fiction with a heart of geek that never lets the rest of us in, full of favorites of the infantile. CRACKED.COM — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

8 Duck Soup

THE MARX BROTHERS' DUCK SOUP IS UNIVERSALLY CONSIDERED THE CRACKED COM COMEDY TEAM'S BEST AND FUNNIEST FILM - BUT AUDIENCES AND CRITICS (AND BENITO MUSSOLINI) LOATHED IT WHEN IT WAS RELEASED. A SHARP POLITICAL SATIRE WITH A CLEAR ANTI-WAR MESSAGE, IT WAS, IN 1933, DEEMED TOO IRREVERENT IN A TIME OF GLOBAL CRISIS. IT WASN'T UNTIL THE 1960s, WHEN IT WAS DISCOVERED BY AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS EMBROILED IN THEIR OWN FIGHT AGAINST THE VIETNAM WAR, THAT THE FILM WAS RECOGNIZED AS A CLASSIC. — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

7 The Simpsons

CRACKED COM The Simpsons nearly got cancelled before it aired. YUMMYDONUES After the first viewing of the pilot episode, One Enchanted Evening, both the writers and the network executives were displeased. The writing wasn't great, but it was the animation that really turned them off. Luckily, the next episode, Bart the Genius, was better and saved the series from an early death. — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

6 Kurt Vonnegut

The New Yorker thought the prose in Slaughterhouse-Five left something to be desired. A 1969 review called its deliberate simplicity... as hazardous as the grand style, and said that Vonnegut occasionally skids into fatuousness. So it goes. D Crusade A NEW NOVEL BY KURT VONNEGUT.JR. CRACKED.COM — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

5 Monty Python's Flying Circus

Source: 15 Movies And Shows (That Started Out As Flops)

4

FANTASIA CRACKED.COM The movie was disliked by the studio that was meant to distribute it, RKO. They dismissed it as a longhair musical.

3 Akira Kurosawa

GRACKED.COM NO 15 Akira Kurosawa, the auteur behind Rashomon, was widely hated in his home country Japan for pandering to Western values. PANAVISION — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

2 Bambi

Bambi made no money early on, and critics called it stuff like entirely unpleasant. They said the movie was awful because the animals were so animal-like, unlike Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. CRACKED.COM — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

1 The Ramones

His LADY - 20a - - - AMERICAN BLUEJACKET Now recognized to be a punk rock masterpiece, the first RAMONES album was met with disgust. They had a hard time getting any radio play, and the album was compared to the sound of 10,000 toilets flushing. CRACKED.COM — Source: 24 Pop Culture Iconic Things (That Bombed Initially)

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