They Got Famous Because They Sucked
November 16, 2015 5:47 AM Subscribe
I love to hear stories of people who got famous simply because they were quite awful at doing something. I don't mean "x is a famous musician, and he sucks." I mean that people sought out x in droves and made up drinking games for his records because he sucks so much despite thinking himself genius. This can be in any field, any era. My favorite two examples are below the fold.
First, Robert Coates, the worst Shakespearean actor of all time. He thought he was great and would immediately re-perform his best scenes, even the ones where he died.
Next, my hero, Amanda McKittrick Ros, who named her characters after fruit, referred to legs as "bony supports," and accused harsh critics of being in love with her.
I know about William McGonagal but don't have any gems.
First, Robert Coates, the worst Shakespearean actor of all time. He thought he was great and would immediately re-perform his best scenes, even the ones where he died.
Next, my hero, Amanda McKittrick Ros, who named her characters after fruit, referred to legs as "bony supports," and accused harsh critics of being in love with her.
I know about William McGonagal but don't have any gems.
Florence Foster Jenkins comes to mind.
posted by KernalM at 5:51 AM on November 16, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by KernalM at 5:51 AM on November 16, 2015 [13 favorites]
The Mendoza Line is named after shortstop Mario Mendoza, whose mediocre batting average (200) defines the threshold of incompetent hitting. You pretty much can't be a professional baseball player (exempting pitchers) if you hit below the Mendoza line.
posted by alms at 5:51 AM on November 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by alms at 5:51 AM on November 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
Eddie the Eagle was quite bad at his sport, ski jumping.
posted by glasseyes at 5:52 AM on November 16, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by glasseyes at 5:52 AM on November 16, 2015 [11 favorites]
Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards, famously last in the ski jump, but popular for trying. See also, Eric the Eel.
All of Uwe Boll's films are crap, and he's quite well known for it.
posted by biffa at 5:53 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
All of Uwe Boll's films are crap, and he's quite well known for it.
posted by biffa at 5:53 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Nic Cage.
Now, I love Nic Cage without any hint of irony whatsoever. Raising Arizona is my favorite movie. But the mass internet phenomenon of Nic Cage is more a result of his wildly ridiculous tendency to overact than some kind of innate Nic Cage love. (cf. the supercut from Wicker Man.)
He didn't initially get famous for being terrible, but I would guess if you polled people under, oh, 20 or so, most of them would tell you he's a famous terrible actor.
posted by phunniemee at 5:56 AM on November 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
Now, I love Nic Cage without any hint of irony whatsoever. Raising Arizona is my favorite movie. But the mass internet phenomenon of Nic Cage is more a result of his wildly ridiculous tendency to overact than some kind of innate Nic Cage love. (cf. the supercut from Wicker Man.)
He didn't initially get famous for being terrible, but I would guess if you polled people under, oh, 20 or so, most of them would tell you he's a famous terrible actor.
posted by phunniemee at 5:56 AM on November 16, 2015 [9 favorites]
From my childhood I remember two figures who used to appear on variety shows my folks liked: Mrs. Miller and Tiny Tim.
posted by zadcat at 5:57 AM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by zadcat at 5:57 AM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Courtesy of the Book of Lists:
William Hung
Mrs. Miller
Cherry Sisters
posted by zamboni at 5:58 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
William Hung
Mrs. Miller
Cherry Sisters
posted by zamboni at 5:58 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Uwe Boll, M night shamalayn, and Michael Bay, for various levels of fail.
posted by Jacen at 5:58 AM on November 16, 2015
posted by Jacen at 5:58 AM on November 16, 2015
Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan. (She's a poet, name notwithstanding.)
posted by pie ninja at 5:59 AM on November 16, 2015
posted by pie ninja at 5:59 AM on November 16, 2015
You could easily make an argument that the Sex Pistols got famous because they couldn't play. Sid Vicious certainly couldn't.
posted by General Malaise at 6:15 AM on November 16, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by General Malaise at 6:15 AM on November 16, 2015 [7 favorites]
Ed Wood
posted by octothorpe at 6:17 AM on November 16, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 6:17 AM on November 16, 2015 [13 favorites]
Here in Quebec, Normand L'Amour passed away recently. Whatever he lacked in talent, he made up for with sheer enthusiasm and output (close to 2500 recorded songs in 15 years). And while many found him (unintentionnally) funny, he was rarely the object of ridicule.
posted by bluefrog at 6:22 AM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by bluefrog at 6:22 AM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Not an artist specifically, but one of the reasons "Rocky Horror Picture Show" got so popular is because it's so, so bad. You can't watch it alone. You can only enjoy it as part of a group having fun with it.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 6:27 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 6:27 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Rainbo, I think that's conventional wisdom, but untrue. It was made to be campy. For someone expecting a more mainstream movie, it might seem bad, but it's not trying to achieve the same goals. I think it acquired the following not because it's bad, but because it so joyously accomplishes its aims that people want to leap into the other side of the screen.
posted by rikschell at 6:34 AM on November 16, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 6:34 AM on November 16, 2015 [17 favorites]
Andy Kaufman.
Don't get me wrong, Andy Kaufmanis was brilliant but a large part of his act was just him sucking. His awkward immigrant, the bright-eyed guy standing there waiting for the Mighty Mouse chorus, sitting on stage reading a book, getting beat up by wrestlers, etc. He existed to make the audience uncomfortable and he often did this by appearing to suck really, really badly.
posted by bondcliff at 7:06 AM on November 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
Don't get me wrong, Andy Kaufman
posted by bondcliff at 7:06 AM on November 16, 2015 [5 favorites]
Randall Munroe, sort of. Later comics have shown that he actually can draw when he wants to, and he always has a keen eye for composition and body language, but part of what helped xkcd take off was the fact that it looked like it was drawn by a 5 year old.
posted by 256 at 7:14 AM on November 16, 2015
posted by 256 at 7:14 AM on November 16, 2015
There's also Wesley Willis, the schizophrenic rapper whose bizarre minimalist songs with obscene borderline incomprehensible lyrics were beloved by professional musicians.
posted by 256 at 7:19 AM on November 16, 2015 [18 favorites]
posted by 256 at 7:19 AM on November 16, 2015 [18 favorites]
It can be argued that Ed Wood exemplifies this type of fame.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:26 AM on November 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 7:26 AM on November 16, 2015 [4 favorites]
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy. His single "Paralyzed" has been cited as the worst recording ever released by a major label.
posted by ogooglebar at 7:35 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ogooglebar at 7:35 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Florence Foster Jenkins comes to mind.
Snap Judgment (NPR show) did a really great segment on her.
posted by lunasol at 7:37 AM on November 16, 2015
Snap Judgment (NPR show) did a really great segment on her.
posted by lunasol at 7:37 AM on November 16, 2015
Dora Hall, wife of the owner of Solo Cups, financed her horribly awesome TV variety shows with coffee-cup money and horrified a generation. I buy her albums whenever I find them (including the aforementioned Mrs. Miller).
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:41 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:41 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I was going to contribute William McGonagall, too. There is a theory that he was a proto-performance artist who understood that his poetry was bad, but recited it in public because people threw vegetables and fish at him.
Crad Kilodney used to self-publish books and cassette tapes, and then sell them on the streets of Toronto. He is difficult to categorise, because he was extremely intelligent, and his books reflected that. However, his misanthropy, dreadful themes, and bad editing polarised his audience.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:46 AM on November 16, 2015
Crad Kilodney used to self-publish books and cassette tapes, and then sell them on the streets of Toronto. He is difficult to categorise, because he was extremely intelligent, and his books reflected that. However, his misanthropy, dreadful themes, and bad editing polarised his audience.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:46 AM on November 16, 2015
Cecilia Giménez, the elderly Spanish woman who "restored" a century-old fresco of Jesus. She even spawned a meme. (Or in this case, more like a mehme.)
posted by Room 641-A at 7:53 AM on November 16, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by Room 641-A at 7:53 AM on November 16, 2015 [7 favorites]
It can be argued that Ed Wood exemplifies this type of fame.
Yeah, I came by to nominate him, and I'm astonished he wasn't mentioned for so long.
posted by Gelatin at 8:15 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I came by to nominate him, and I'm astonished he wasn't mentioned for so long.
posted by Gelatin at 8:15 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Check out Songs in the Key of Z by Irvin Chusid.
Also, Stephen Pile's The Incomplete Book of Failures is a (circa 1980) collection of people who weren't very good at what they did. Not all of them became famous, but some did.
From this book, I learned about the Portsmouth Sinfonia, which was a symphony orchestra composed of musicians with little or no previous experience with their instruments. Brian Eno used to play with them, and used them on his song Put A Straw Under Baby.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 8:23 AM on November 16, 2015
Also, Stephen Pile's The Incomplete Book of Failures is a (circa 1980) collection of people who weren't very good at what they did. Not all of them became famous, but some did.
From this book, I learned about the Portsmouth Sinfonia, which was a symphony orchestra composed of musicians with little or no previous experience with their instruments. Brian Eno used to play with them, and used them on his song Put A Straw Under Baby.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 8:23 AM on November 16, 2015
Arguably, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. His overly-florid prose was popular during his lifetime, but sounds so ridiculous these days that there is a tongue-in-cheek contest devoted to satirising his writing style.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:24 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:24 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
You could easily make an argument that the Sex Pistols got famous because they couldn't play. Sid Vicious certainly couldn't.
Sid Vicious couldn't, but the rest of the band was actually quite good.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 8:26 AM on November 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Sid Vicious couldn't, but the rest of the band was actually quite good.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 8:26 AM on November 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
How about that teenager who sang the horrible "Friday" song?
posted by barnoley at 8:45 AM on November 16, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by barnoley at 8:45 AM on November 16, 2015 [6 favorites]
The Portsmouth Sinfonia! I had a 45 of theirs as a kid, Thus Spake Zarathustra b/w William Tell Overture. I think that my mother finally confiscated the disk after I played it over and over in an attempt to be as annoying a nine year old as possible.
posted by octothorpe at 8:46 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 8:46 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Here is an arguable one. William Onyeabor, a Nigerian musician from the 70's-80's, has been discovered by David Byrne and is now a hipster phenomenon. But he is not very good at all! There were a million small bands working at the time who were actually excellent! In addition, music is so woven into the fabric of Igbo life - Onyeabor is Igbo - that the standard of music making there is pretty damn high. My parents lived in Eastern Nigeria in the 50's, they used to say "An Igbo man can make fantastic music out of a mere leaf."
There is a whole myth about Onyeabor/ excellence in adversity / a decent synthesizer was unobtainable at the time (please! Like King Sunny Ade.) etc but I have to conclude Byrne glommed onto the music precisely because of it's amateur qualities, as with Brian Eno and the Portmouth Sinfonia. Nigerian - ok, West African - music is amazing, you have to look quite hard to find something this naive. (I would have said plinky-plonky but wasn't sure of the technical term.)
posted by glasseyes at 8:59 AM on November 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
There is a whole myth about Onyeabor/ excellence in adversity / a decent synthesizer was unobtainable at the time (please! Like King Sunny Ade.) etc but I have to conclude Byrne glommed onto the music precisely because of it's amateur qualities, as with Brian Eno and the Portmouth Sinfonia. Nigerian - ok, West African - music is amazing, you have to look quite hard to find something this naive. (I would have said plinky-plonky but wasn't sure of the technical term.)
posted by glasseyes at 8:59 AM on November 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
Eilert Pilarm is/was a Swedish Elvis impersonator. Hugely popular for a brief time due to how spectacularly awful he was. I believe he even had some success in the UK.
posted by Iteki at 9:14 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Iteki at 9:14 AM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Rebecca Black
Everything I know I learned from pop musicians.
U2 taught me that love is the answer; love is the higher ground.
Lady Gaga taught me that we are all born this way.
Rebecca Black taught me the days of the week.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 9:33 AM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Everything I know I learned from pop musicians.
U2 taught me that love is the answer; love is the higher ground.
Lady Gaga taught me that we are all born this way.
Rebecca Black taught me the days of the week.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 9:33 AM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Neil Hamburger was once pretty popular with the college campus crowd (and might still be; I don't really have my finger on the pulse of The Youth of Today). Granted, Neil Hamburger was a deliberate shtick played under a pseudonym, but plenty of his fans didn't know that.
posted by duffell at 11:14 AM on November 16, 2015
posted by duffell at 11:14 AM on November 16, 2015
Also, I guarantee plenty of Richard Cheese fans aren't listening because they love lounge music.
posted by duffell at 11:15 AM on November 16, 2015
posted by duffell at 11:15 AM on November 16, 2015
Wrong Way Corrigan
? He knew exactly what he was doing. What is he supposed to have sucked at?
posted by kenko at 11:55 AM on November 16, 2015
? He knew exactly what he was doing. What is he supposed to have sucked at?
posted by kenko at 11:55 AM on November 16, 2015
Yeah, we've jumped to "because your band sucks" on some of these. Generally, it is the older artists convinced of their artistry that make this list, not the teen YouTube phenoms. The latter don't care what we old people think.
posted by clvrmnky at 12:38 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by clvrmnky at 12:38 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Marv Throneberry of the '62 New York Mets.
Actually, the 1962 Mets would qualify as a team.
posted by SemiSalt at 1:03 PM on November 16, 2015
Actually, the 1962 Mets would qualify as a team.
posted by SemiSalt at 1:03 PM on November 16, 2015
any field, any era
Well then, the big winner has to be Cristoforo Colombo.
History's most famous / infamous failure, he single-handedly changed the course of world history by being right about the wrong things and wrong about the right things.
Runner-up: Robert Falcon Scott "of the Antarctic"
The whole reason we know and care about Scott and his team is because they left behind journals telling us how they'd all nobly died after failing to be the first expedition to reach the South Pole. They got to the pole alright, only to find that the Amundsen expedition had got there over a month earlier. Then halfway back to the coast and their transport back to England, Scott et al froze to death 11 miles from one of the food caches they'd left for themselves on the way down.
Among 'performing artists' I nominate
Shakey Jake Woods. The only thing worse than Jake's music was his ironic Ann Arbor hipster fans. He should have been completely obscure and instead there are "I brake for Jake" bumper-stickers and he was the model for a recurring schtick by David Allen Grier on In Living Color.
Steven "preposition" Seagall . I'm beginning to think that nearly all Steven Segall fandom is so called 'hate-viewing'. Did anyone ever think he or his films were good on their own merits?
The whole point of The Great Ballantine's act was that he was the world's most incompetent magician.
When was the last time anyone watched Love Story or Jonathan Livingstone Seagull without irony?
The Banana Splits Show, all their songs, all the cartoons they showed (eg The Three Cardboard Musekteers) and especially "Danger Island" (directed by Richard Donner!) stank and we only ever watched them because they stank.
My grandmother grew up in the Vaudeville era. She used to tell of an act with some bombastic name like The Amazing Stromboli or something. Stromboli would come out in a tuxedo, acknowledge the applause, stare at the audience for some apparently interminable period of time, bow flamboyantly, and stroll off-stage.
= = =
Mrs. Miller fits the bit, but Tiny Tim does not. I think 90% of the time Tiny Tim accomplished exactly what he'd set out do. Whether anyone else really wanted that or not is another question. Quite a good singer, actually, in two different vocal ranges.
Ed Wood, certainly. I can't imagine anyone ever thought his movies were good, but there is a fascination in exactly how they fail.
I don't think there's any denying that some of the songs in Rocky Horror are pretty good. There are far worse movies and I don't think anyone watches it because of its faults.
I think you're completely missing the point about The Portsmouth Sinfonia. It does tickle the funnybone, but it was neither a failed attempt to make conventionally beautiful sounding classical music nor a satirical enterprise. It was a sound experiment along the contemporaneous lines of Terry Riley, John Cage, and Frank Zappa.
It is true that Wrong-Way Corrigan was famous for being wrong, but it's wrong to say that he was actually wrong about what they say he was wrong about. But "Filed-a-Fraudulent-Flight-Plan Corrigan" just doesn't have the ring of fame to it.
posted by Herodios at 1:05 PM on November 16, 2015 [13 favorites]
Well then, the big winner has to be Cristoforo Colombo.
- Sailed west to reach the Orient but greatly underestimated the distance.
- His life -- and the few survivors of his crew -- were only saved by the lucky chance that there was a huge landmass in the way -- the mainland of which he never visited.
- To the end of his life, he believed (or said he believed) that he'd reached the edge of Asia, long after other explorers and exploiters had begun the sack of two continents.
- Never did find a new route to the Orient, didn't discover America, wasn't the first European to visit by almost 500 years (confirmed), and never believed he'd been there.
- Never settled there, though he left a number of his crew behind to die (and kidnapped some of the natives to take back to Europe to die there).
- He never did adapt fully to the new reality and never figured out how to profit from it.
- In his four voyages there, he established no successful enterprises, established no diplomatic relations, killed and/or enslaved pretty much anyone he ran into, and got most of his followers killed in the process.
- Never visited or knew about the major previously unknown civilizations that flourished on the mainland.
- First educated person from Europe to visit 'The New World' yet learned nothing new and took no new knowledge back with him. Apparently completely blind to geology, geography, botany, zoology, anthropology, performing and visual arts, language, or much of anything else.
- Expected the enterprise to make him rich, yet never knew about all the gold that in just a few years would start to be shipped back to Spain by the ton.
History's most famous / infamous failure, he single-handedly changed the course of world history by being right about the wrong things and wrong about the right things.
Runner-up: Robert Falcon Scott "of the Antarctic"
The whole reason we know and care about Scott and his team is because they left behind journals telling us how they'd all nobly died after failing to be the first expedition to reach the South Pole. They got to the pole alright, only to find that the Amundsen expedition had got there over a month earlier. Then halfway back to the coast and their transport back to England, Scott et al froze to death 11 miles from one of the food caches they'd left for themselves on the way down.
Among 'performing artists' I nominate
Shakey Jake Woods. The only thing worse than Jake's music was his ironic Ann Arbor hipster fans. He should have been completely obscure and instead there are "I brake for Jake" bumper-stickers and he was the model for a recurring schtick by David Allen Grier on In Living Color.
Steven "preposition" Seagall . I'm beginning to think that nearly all Steven Segall fandom is so called 'hate-viewing'. Did anyone ever think he or his films were good on their own merits?
The whole point of The Great Ballantine's act was that he was the world's most incompetent magician.
When was the last time anyone watched Love Story or Jonathan Livingstone Seagull without irony?
The Banana Splits Show, all their songs, all the cartoons they showed (eg The Three Cardboard Musekteers) and especially "Danger Island" (directed by Richard Donner!) stank and we only ever watched them because they stank.
My grandmother grew up in the Vaudeville era. She used to tell of an act with some bombastic name like The Amazing Stromboli or something. Stromboli would come out in a tuxedo, acknowledge the applause, stare at the audience for some apparently interminable period of time, bow flamboyantly, and stroll off-stage.
= = =
Mrs. Miller fits the bit, but Tiny Tim does not. I think 90% of the time Tiny Tim accomplished exactly what he'd set out do. Whether anyone else really wanted that or not is another question. Quite a good singer, actually, in two different vocal ranges.
Ed Wood, certainly. I can't imagine anyone ever thought his movies were good, but there is a fascination in exactly how they fail.
I don't think there's any denying that some of the songs in Rocky Horror are pretty good. There are far worse movies and I don't think anyone watches it because of its faults.
I think you're completely missing the point about The Portsmouth Sinfonia. It does tickle the funnybone, but it was neither a failed attempt to make conventionally beautiful sounding classical music nor a satirical enterprise. It was a sound experiment along the contemporaneous lines of Terry Riley, John Cage, and Frank Zappa.
It is true that Wrong-Way Corrigan was famous for being wrong, but it's wrong to say that he was actually wrong about what they say he was wrong about. But "Filed-a-Fraudulent-Flight-Plan Corrigan" just doesn't have the ring of fame to it.
posted by Herodios at 1:05 PM on November 16, 2015 [13 favorites]
Consider also film director Douglas Sirk, whose name became an adjective used to describe over-the-top melodrama: sirkian.
posted by Herodios at 1:25 PM on November 16, 2015
posted by Herodios at 1:25 PM on November 16, 2015
That's Life! had a whole stream of members of the public with crap talents, such as the dog that could say sausages (spoiler: it couldn't say sausages). These people were apparently in earnest, and some of them became wildly famous, albeit briefly, for their terrible non-skills. That dog was in panto for years.
A lot of people on Britain's Got Talent and X-factor fall into a similar camp. Jedward, for instance. Very famous, not so much for their amazing voices. Although they seem pretty knowing these days half of the appeal to start with was that they were so enthusiastic, and so terrible.
posted by tinkletown at 1:29 PM on November 16, 2015
A lot of people on Britain's Got Talent and X-factor fall into a similar camp. Jedward, for instance. Very famous, not so much for their amazing voices. Although they seem pretty knowing these days half of the appeal to start with was that they were so enthusiastic, and so terrible.
posted by tinkletown at 1:29 PM on November 16, 2015
Oh, and also, Neil Breen. Pretty sure he graduated from the Tommy Wiseau School of Film Directing.
posted by duffell at 1:31 PM on November 16, 2015
posted by duffell at 1:31 PM on November 16, 2015
What about William Hung from American Idol? He actually recorded two albums, and the first one got to 34 on Billboard.
posted by radioamy at 3:18 PM on November 16, 2015
posted by radioamy at 3:18 PM on November 16, 2015
Oh heck. I got to watch one of these achieve fame in person! Eric "The Eel" Moussambani from Equatorial Guinea. Took up swimming just before the Olympics, and had never been in a 50 meter pool before. Recorded one of the slowest times ever. It took him so long to finish the last 15 meters that people on the sidelines were actively debating if someone should jump in to rescue him. The crowd went nuts when he finally made it out of the pool.
posted by ninazer0 at 3:38 PM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ninazer0 at 3:38 PM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'll cover the "Fis-" section of the list:
Harvey Sid Fisher (previously, previouslier)
Wild Man Fischer (previously, RIP)
posted by rhizome at 3:44 PM on November 16, 2015
Harvey Sid Fisher (previously, previouslier)
Wild Man Fischer (previously, RIP)
posted by rhizome at 3:44 PM on November 16, 2015
Bob Uecker ended his 6 year baseball career with a .200 batting average and only 14 home runs. In 1967, despite playing only 59 out of 162 games, he led the league in passed balls (and is still on the top ten list). Bob Uecker managed to parley his charm and humor into a broadcasting and acting career, mostly doing jookes about how bad he was. He appeared on the Tonight Show 100 times and Johnny Carson gave him the nickname "Mr. Baseball."
posted by chrisulonic at 4:23 PM on November 16, 2015
posted by chrisulonic at 4:23 PM on November 16, 2015
The fabulous Leona Anderson (though she knew she was a camp).
posted by mdrew at 4:46 PM on November 16, 2015
posted by mdrew at 4:46 PM on November 16, 2015
What about William Hung from American Idol? He actually recorded two albums, and the first one got to 34 on Billboard.
Already mentioned.
Consider also film director Douglas Sirk, whose name became an adjective used to describe over-the-top melodrama: sirkian.
There is no conceivable way that Sirk is famous for having sucked.
posted by kenko at 5:02 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
Already mentioned.
Consider also film director Douglas Sirk, whose name became an adjective used to describe over-the-top melodrama: sirkian.
There is no conceivable way that Sirk is famous for having sucked.
posted by kenko at 5:02 PM on November 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
James McIntyre, the infamous Cheese Poet of Ingersoll. Author of the immortal verse titled, "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese"
We have seen the Queen of cheese,
Laying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze --
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.
All gaily dressed soon you'll go
To the great Provincial Show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.
Cows numerous as a swarm of bees --
Or as the leaves upon the trees --
It did require to make thee please,
And stand unrivalled Queen of Cheese.
May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to send you off as far as
The great World's show at Paris.
Of the youth -- beware of these --
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek; then songs or glees
We could not sing o' Queen of Cheese.
We'rt thou suspended from balloon,
You'd cast a shade, even at noon;
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.
posted by storybored at 6:28 PM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
We have seen the Queen of cheese,
Laying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze --
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.
All gaily dressed soon you'll go
To the great Provincial Show,
To be admired by many a beau
In the city of Toronto.
Cows numerous as a swarm of bees --
Or as the leaves upon the trees --
It did require to make thee please,
And stand unrivalled Queen of Cheese.
May you not receive a scar as
We have heard that Mr. Harris
Intends to send you off as far as
The great World's show at Paris.
Of the youth -- beware of these --
For some of them might rudely squeeze
And bite your cheek; then songs or glees
We could not sing o' Queen of Cheese.
We'rt thou suspended from balloon,
You'd cast a shade, even at noon;
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.
posted by storybored at 6:28 PM on November 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
Carrot Top falls squarely into this camp for me. Here's a great piece on him from Esquire (which may have been posted on the Blue, I forget).
posted by slogger at 6:01 AM on November 17, 2015
posted by slogger at 6:01 AM on November 17, 2015
I've been meaning to come back in here and clarify my comment about Wesley Willis. Because I certainly don't think he sucks; I actually really treasure his music. But, on first listen, it really sounds very bad because it pays absolutely no attention to the rules and conventions that are generally understood to make music good. And yet, it is honest and true and a joy to listen to. And, due to the very fact that it doesn't try to be "good," it is creative and original in ways that "better" musicians don't really consider exploring.
The more I think about, the more I really feel like we need a taxonomy of bad art in order to properly tackle this question (warning: TVTropes links ahead).
The most obvious category is So Bad, It's Good. A lot of things that we would call "camp" fit into this category, and there have been some suggestions in this thread (like Rocky Horror) that are clear examples. The thing with this category though is that, in many (most?) cases, this is a scenario where you have at least one creator who really knows what they are doing and either manage to create brilliant moments that make the work worthwhile despite its limitations (Classic Dr. Who, see also Ham and Cheese) or are actively pursuing the joy that badness can bring to the audience (Adult Swim cartoons). I break from the TV Tropes definition here, because I don't really include things that are entirely without artistic merit but still fun to laugh at in this category (more on that two paragraphs from now).
The next category is So Bad, It's Just Pretty Bad. Essentially these works tried to be good, but failed. These ones are least interesting and include things like Uwe Boll's oeuvre. Boll is famously bad at making movies, but the fact that he sucks is not what made him successful. His films suck in a lot of ways that much of his audience deem unimportant, and they still deliver what the consumer came to the theatre for. No serious critic is going to argue that he's a misunderstood genius (okay, I'm sure someone has), but he stays employed because he turns out mediocre schlock that sells just enough tickets.
And then there's So Bad, It's Horrible. These are the works that are just so thoroughly without merit that they become mesmerizing in their own right. You can't look away because you feel the need to just soak in how thoroughly bad they are. You laugh and grin, but you are always laughing at them, not with them. In some ways, I think this is the category you are most looking for, since Amanda McKittrick Ros certainly fits in here. It's also the category with the fewest famous chronic repeat offenders simply because it's a huge financial risk to publish or distribute a terrible work of art simply on the hope that people will pay to mock it. For the most part, things that fall solidly in this category (rather than one of the first two) either represent very bad days by otherwise successful artists (My World by GNR) or entirely wrong-headed attempts to leverage previously successful artists or properties (Star Wars Holiday Special). There are also the few glorious moments in time where an entire group of people, including the money people, manage to think what they have made is good (or at least passable) and nobody sits them down to tell them otherwise before it makes it to market (Jack Frost). Although when this happens and people latch on to it, you can usually count on an attempt at an intentionally So Bad, It's Good sequel.
A minor category worth mentioning is So Old, It's Good/Bad. These are things like Star Trek: TOS or any of a billion other examples that look hilariously camp to us now, despite the fact that they were taken seriously in their own era. Tastes change, budgets grow, and technology improves. Generally these aren't what you're looking for, because they originally were famous for being good, and are only hilariously bad in hindsight.
Finally, we have the category I would like to call So Bad, It's Revolutionary. This is probably the rarest of all, and this is where I would include Wesley Willis. By any standard objective metric of musical quality, his songs are terrible. But they aren't terrible. So we're left realizing that we need to throw out or rethink our standard objective measure of musical quality. Of course, some people won't give his work enough of a chance to realize it's not terrible, some will just classify it under So Bad, It's Terrible and laugh at it, and some will give it a chance and still judge it without merit. But, rest assured, the many great musicians that have listened to Willis' songs and seen genius in them, they're thinking about their craft a little differently now, and while we may never hear a radio hit and think "This was influenced by Wesley Willis," that influence is going to be living deep in our music like a virus.
posted by 256 at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
The more I think about, the more I really feel like we need a taxonomy of bad art in order to properly tackle this question (warning: TVTropes links ahead).
The most obvious category is So Bad, It's Good. A lot of things that we would call "camp" fit into this category, and there have been some suggestions in this thread (like Rocky Horror) that are clear examples. The thing with this category though is that, in many (most?) cases, this is a scenario where you have at least one creator who really knows what they are doing and either manage to create brilliant moments that make the work worthwhile despite its limitations (Classic Dr. Who, see also Ham and Cheese) or are actively pursuing the joy that badness can bring to the audience (Adult Swim cartoons). I break from the TV Tropes definition here, because I don't really include things that are entirely without artistic merit but still fun to laugh at in this category (more on that two paragraphs from now).
The next category is So Bad, It's Just Pretty Bad. Essentially these works tried to be good, but failed. These ones are least interesting and include things like Uwe Boll's oeuvre. Boll is famously bad at making movies, but the fact that he sucks is not what made him successful. His films suck in a lot of ways that much of his audience deem unimportant, and they still deliver what the consumer came to the theatre for. No serious critic is going to argue that he's a misunderstood genius (okay, I'm sure someone has), but he stays employed because he turns out mediocre schlock that sells just enough tickets.
And then there's So Bad, It's Horrible. These are the works that are just so thoroughly without merit that they become mesmerizing in their own right. You can't look away because you feel the need to just soak in how thoroughly bad they are. You laugh and grin, but you are always laughing at them, not with them. In some ways, I think this is the category you are most looking for, since Amanda McKittrick Ros certainly fits in here. It's also the category with the fewest famous chronic repeat offenders simply because it's a huge financial risk to publish or distribute a terrible work of art simply on the hope that people will pay to mock it. For the most part, things that fall solidly in this category (rather than one of the first two) either represent very bad days by otherwise successful artists (My World by GNR) or entirely wrong-headed attempts to leverage previously successful artists or properties (Star Wars Holiday Special). There are also the few glorious moments in time where an entire group of people, including the money people, manage to think what they have made is good (or at least passable) and nobody sits them down to tell them otherwise before it makes it to market (Jack Frost). Although when this happens and people latch on to it, you can usually count on an attempt at an intentionally So Bad, It's Good sequel.
A minor category worth mentioning is So Old, It's Good/Bad. These are things like Star Trek: TOS or any of a billion other examples that look hilariously camp to us now, despite the fact that they were taken seriously in their own era. Tastes change, budgets grow, and technology improves. Generally these aren't what you're looking for, because they originally were famous for being good, and are only hilariously bad in hindsight.
Finally, we have the category I would like to call So Bad, It's Revolutionary. This is probably the rarest of all, and this is where I would include Wesley Willis. By any standard objective metric of musical quality, his songs are terrible. But they aren't terrible. So we're left realizing that we need to throw out or rethink our standard objective measure of musical quality. Of course, some people won't give his work enough of a chance to realize it's not terrible, some will just classify it under So Bad, It's Terrible and laugh at it, and some will give it a chance and still judge it without merit. But, rest assured, the many great musicians that have listened to Willis' songs and seen genius in them, they're thinking about their craft a little differently now, and while we may never hear a radio hit and think "This was influenced by Wesley Willis," that influence is going to be living deep in our music like a virus.
posted by 256 at 10:57 AM on November 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
Franz Krienbühl was a Swiss speed skater who was widely beloved by fans for his ineptitude. (He wasn't bad, exactly, it was just that he never had a chance but kept showing up for championships because every country was allowed to send one person and the Swiss kept sending him.) He's kind of a weird case, however, because he invented a one-piece skating suit that was eventually adopted by every top speed skater because it allowed for much better times than the pants, sweater and woolly hat combo that had been the norm up till then.
posted by rjs at 11:45 AM on November 17, 2015
posted by rjs at 11:45 AM on November 17, 2015
My Immortal, memetically known as the "worst fanfic in the world". People still can't tell if it's a troll or not.
posted by divabat at 4:33 AM on November 18, 2015
posted by divabat at 4:33 AM on November 18, 2015
Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man Who Saved the World) is a 1982 Turkish adventure film also known as Turkish Star Wars because of its notorious use of unauthorized footage from Star Wars and other movies worked into the film. [wiki]
Upon its initial release, the film was panned by critics for its incoherent storyline, poor performances, and use of stock footage and music from other films.
Despite this, the film has gained a significant cult following over the years. Louis Proyect of Rec Arts Movie Reviews called the film "classic midnight movie fun." Phil Hall of Film Threat gave the film a perfect 5 stars, calling it "jaw-droppingly insane ... a film that makes criticism moot."
[previously on MeFi]
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 2:11 PM on November 18, 2015
Upon its initial release, the film was panned by critics for its incoherent storyline, poor performances, and use of stock footage and music from other films.
Despite this, the film has gained a significant cult following over the years. Louis Proyect of Rec Arts Movie Reviews called the film "classic midnight movie fun." Phil Hall of Film Threat gave the film a perfect 5 stars, calling it "jaw-droppingly insane ... a film that makes criticism moot."
[previously on MeFi]
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 2:11 PM on November 18, 2015
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posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 5:49 AM on November 16, 2015 [25 favorites]