Difference between revisions 2841474 and 2841841 on enwiki

A '''flop'''  or '''product failure''' is a [[product (business)|product]] that doesn't reach expectations of success, failing to come even close. A major flop goes one step further and is recognized for its almost complete lack of success.

However, most of the items listed below are ones that had high expectations, large amounts of money or widespread publicity, but fell far short of success. Obviously, due to the subjective nature of "success" and "meeting expectations", there can be disagreement about what constitutes a "major flop".

Two examples: [[David McReynolds]] ran for [[President of the United States]] in [[1980]] and [[2000]] on the socialist ticket, but came nowhere near winning. However, he would never characterize his campaign as a flop because he ran for president in order to get his causes recognized, without any hope of being elected. But the creation of New Coke is generally regarded indisputably a "major flop".

==Entertainment==

=== Musical comebacks gone horribly awry ===
*[[MC Hammer]]'s failed restyling as a [[gangsta rap|gangsta rapper]].
*[[New Kids on the Block]] didn't make the comeback cut as "NKOTB".
*[[Diana Ross]] had to cancel her "Diana Ross and [[The Supremes|the Supremes]]" tour for lack of interest, mainly because she had refused to include other original members of the Supremes in the tour, cutting off 23 scheduled appearances.
*[[Vanilla Ice]]

=== Flops in sports ===
* The [[European Hockey League]]
* The [[United States Football League]]
* The [[XFL]]

=== Flops in television ===
* The disastrous [[1980]] season of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''
* The [[BBC]] [[soap opera]]s ''[[Triangle (soap opera)|Triangles]]'' and ''[[Eldorado (soap opera)|Eldorado]]''
* The relaunched [[ITV1]] soap ''[[Crossroads]]''
* ''[[Supertrain]]''
* ''[[Pink Lady & Jeff]]''
* ''[[Bette]]''
* ''[[The Chevy Chase Show]]''
* ''[[The Pat Sajak Show]]''
* ''[[Thicke of the Night]]'' - Talk show with Alan Thicke
* The third season of ''[[Big Brother television program|Big Brother]]''

=== Turkeys (Flops in theatre) ===
*[[1600 Pennsylvania Avenue]] (1976) Lyrics by [[Alan J. Lerner]], of "My Fair Lady" and "Brigadoon" fame; music by [[Leonard Bernstein]], with important Broadway successes such as "On the Town," "Candide," and, most notably "West Side Story" to his credit. Closed after only seven performances. There was no cast recording made. An attempt was made to revive it in London in 1997. A reviewer commented "As exhumations go, this one had its bright moments."

=== Flops in film  ===
A movie is most likely a flop if it doesn't perform as expected. A major movie flop might barely (or not even) make back the money it took to finance it. In extreme cases it might put the studio out of business.

A separate discussion of [[list of movies that have been considered the worst ever|movie flops]] provides examples and rationales.

==Commercial Flops==
===Commercial Failures in Aviation===

These are aircraft which were technically sound, but failed in the marketplace.  For aircraft which failed to work at all see '[[#Flops in science and engineering]]'.

* The [[Convair]] [[Convair 880|CV-880]] and [[Convair 990|CV-990]] - these aircraft were commercial disasters as they only offered five-abreast seating, and were easily outcompeted on price by the [[Boeing 720]] which was based on an existing aircraft type.
* [[Supersonic transport]]s: [[Boeing 2707]], [[Tupolev Tu-144]], arguably [[Concorde]]
* The [[Dassault Aviation]] [[Dassault Mercure|Mercure]] - this aircraft had extremely limited range and as a result only ten were built for the [[France|French]] domestic airline [[Air Inter]]
* The [[Northrop]] [[F-20 Tigershark]] - this [[fighter aircraft]] was designed as a private venture for export, but failed utterly as foreign air forces wanted the more prestigious [[F-16 Fighting Falcon]] used by the [[USAF]], despite the F-20 having superior performance and lower cost.
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===Automotive Flops===

*[[Ford Motor Company]]'s [[Edsel]]
*[[DeLorean]] automobile
*[[Electric vehicle|Electric cars]] - [[Ford Motor Company]] and [[General Motors]], who only had lukewarm interest in the technology, have dropped production of their [[electric vehicle|electric car]] models.
*[[Sinclair C5]] - a battery powered car designed by Sir [[Clive Sinclair]]
* The [[Bricklin SV-1]]

===Computing Flops===

* The [[IBM 7030]], also known as '''Stretch''', was IBM's first attempt at building a supercomputer. Its actual performance was less than one third of its original specification. This resulted in IBM drastically dropping the price and losing money on every machine sold.
* The [[ILLIAC IV]] [[array processor]] [[supercomputer]].
* [[Microsoft Windows 1.0]] was a huge flop because its sales were low, it was very slow, needed a lot of memory for the time, and practically no software was ever written for it. 
* [[Microsoft Bob]].
* Apple has had flops, notably the [[Apple III]], [[Apple Lisa]], and arguably the [[Apple Newton]].
* [[International Business Machines|IBM]] had the [[IBM PS/2]] and the [[IBM PCjr]].
* [[International Business Machines|IBM]]'s 4" diameter floppy disk drive, introduced at about the same time as Seagate's 3" floppy, Hitachi's 3.25" floppy, and Sony's 3.5" floppy. (All but Sony's flopped).
* The Commodore [[Amiga]] was a flop in the [[United States]] (but was successful in Europe).
* [[Amiga CDTV]] - This early multimedia computer was overpriced and suffered from using the obsolete [[AmigaOS]] 1.3, when version 2.0 was already available.
*[[Data Play]] CD replacement disk technology. Cited by Jim Louderback as one of the "[http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ttzd/20031223/tc_techtues_zd/115253&cid=1739&ncid=1729 eight biggest tech flops ever]".
*[[Go]] (pen computing corporation), cited by Jim Louderback as one of the "eight biggest tech flops ever".
* [[Intel]] expected the [[Itanium]] processor (referred to by detractors as "the Itanic") to revolutionize the [[microprocessor]] industry, but after 7 years of development and billions of dollars spent the first Itanium chip proved an utter technical and commercial failure.  However the project still goes on, and Itanium 2 is an improvement. (Furthermore, the Itanium had the valuable side effect of killing competition; its development caused several competing chips, such as the Alpha and advanced version of the Sparc, to be abandoned by timid management).
*[[Iomega]] Clik! drive. Cited by Jim Louderback as one of the "eight biggest tech flops ever".
*[[Magic Cap]], PDA... or something. Cited by Jim Louderback as one of the "eight biggest tech flops ever".
* In the 1980s, [[Commodore International]] became the first company to sell a million home computers. Hoping to repeat the success of its multimillion-selling VIC-20 and C-64 computers, it released the [[Commodore Plus/4]] in 1984. It flopped. Commodore tried--and mostly failed--for 10 years to duplicate the C-64's success and went bankrupt in 1994.
* The [[INMOS Transputer]], a brave attempt at a different way of computing - but now largely forgotten.
*[[WebTV]]. Internet delivery via television set and set-top box. Cited by Jim Louderback as one of the "eight biggest tech flops ever".
* The [[Sinclair QL]] an unsuccessful attempt by [[Sinclair Research]] to make a [[16 bit]] computer in the mid [[1980s]]

===Video Game Flops===

*[[Sega]] has had numerous flops in [[North America]], for example the [[Sega Saturn]], the [[Sega Nomad]], the [[Sega Master System]] II and III, and the [[Sega 32X]]. (The Master System was successful in [[Europe]] and [[Brazil]], and the Sega Saturn was successful in [[Japan]].) The [[Sega Megadrive]] was not well received in [[Japan]].
*[[Nintendo]], not to be left behind, has produced the [[Nintendo Virtual Boy]] and [[video game light gun|light gun]] games.
*The [[Game.com]] handheld
*The [[Atari Jaguar]] console and the [[Atari Lynx]] handheld.
*[[Daikatana]], the hyped and massively delayed [[video game]] from [[John Romero]]. 
*The [[Atari 2600]] version of [[E.T. (Atari 2600)|E.T.]]
*The [[Amiga CD-32]]
*The [[Compact Disc-Interactive]] (CD-I) player, a "multimedia machine" jointly developed by Philips and Sony. It was considered overpriced and underpowered.
*The [[3DO]] Multiplayer, a "multimedia machine" (it was marketed as a family entertainment device and not just a video game console) designed by R.J. Mical and the team behind the [[Amiga]] and marketed by [[Trip Hawkins]], founder of [[Electronic Arts]]. It was introduced at $699, twice the price of most game consoles.
* The [[Apple Computer|Apple]] [[Apple Pippin|Pippin]], a games console based on [[MacOS]] and the [[PowerPC]] - was abandoned before production, clearly was unlikely to have succeeded.

===Miscellaneous commercial flops===
* The [[1982 World's Fair]] in [[Knoxville, Tennessee]]
* The [[Betamax]] [[VCR]] system - after some initial success it was soundly beaten in the marketplace by [[VHS]]. Betamax failed in part because it was not an open standard.
* The [[Digital Compact Cassette]] - a format introduced by [[Philips]], which lost out to [[Minidisc]] and [[CD-R]]
* [[DIVX]], a take-off on [[DVD]] that required users to pay per viewing. Retail electronics giant and DIVX backer [[Circuit City]] lost about $200m over the fiasco.
* [[eBook]] devices. Between [[1999]] and [[2002]], a number of companies, notably [[Gemstar]], jockeyed for control of this supposedly vast, lucrative market, believing that consumers would pay hardcover prices for a severely limited number of book titles in [[Digital rights management|DRM]]-encrypted formats that tied each electronic copy to a unique serialized hardware device. In [[2002]] the "eBooks are dead" meme became widespread. In [[2003]], Gemstar pulled the plug on its servers and [[Barnes and Noble]] ceased offering eBook content of any kind. 
* The [[Elcaset]] audio format - an attempt at a higher-quality replacement for the [[compact audio cassette|compact cassette]] by [[Sony]].
* [[Lymeswold cheese]] (UK)
* The [[Millennium Dome]] - a commercial and public relations disaster, it now lies empty in [[Greenwich]], [[England]].
* [[New Coke]].  The [[Coca-Cola]] company changed the formula and taste of its flagship product,  a universally successful drink whose name was almost synonymous with [[soft drink]]s.  It was a marketing and public relations debacle, and the company had to backtrack and return to the older formula. However, when they went back to the original formula, demand for the classic taste grew to a greater extent than before New Coke, propelling Coca-Cola to a market lead over rival [[Pepsi]] - making the situation an unintentional success for Coca-Cola.
* The [[Tanganyika groundnut scheme]], a plan by [[Clement Attlee]]'s [[British government]], financed by British tax-payers, to cultivate tracts of what is now [[Tanzania]] with [[peanuts]].

==Flops in science and engineering==

A scientific flop may be something that took years of man-hours and a lot of money to complete (or perhaps never completed) and ended in failure.

===Technical failures in aerospace===

* The [[Brewster Buffalo]] - this [[World War II]] [[fighter aircraft]] turned out to be no match for [[Axis Powers|Axis]] fighters
* The [[Bristol Brabazon]] [[airliner]] - overweight, underpowered and prone to [[metal fatigue]]
* The [[Europa rocket]] failed five times, without a single successful launch
* The [[Messerschmitt Me 163]] was so dangerous that it killed more Luftwaffe pilots than Allied airmen.
* Most reusable space vehicles: [[Shuttle Buran]], [[HOTOL]], various [[NASA]] space planes, arguably the [[Space Shuttle]].
* The [[Spruce Goose]] [[flying boat]], [[Howard Hughes]]' white elephant.
* [[Project Vanguard]] (1958), the first attempt by the United States to put a satellite into orbit. The project managers insisted on using a new, civilian-designed, purpose-built rocket. There were repeated embarrassing crashes. After Sputnik, it was quickly decided to use proven military missile designs as the base for future space attempts.

===Weapons===

* The [[Chauchat]] light machine gun - the French weapon of WWI was notorious for its unreliability, prone to jamming and lack of precision manufacturing.
* The German [[Maus (tank)|Maus]] tank was so heavy (188 tons) that it was unusable
* The British [[SA80]] rifle was notoriously unreliable.

===Scientific projects===

* [[Cold fusion]] - after much hype, claims of success proved false. (Research into cold fusion continues.)
* [[Project Mohole]] was a [[1950s]] proposal to drill through Earth's crust and sample the material below, but it was never implemented because in the mid-[[1960s]] the planners realized it was impossible.

===Civil engineering projects===

* The [[Tacoma Narrows Bridge]] collapsed due to [[resonance]] in a gale force wind.

==Political flops==
===USA Presidential campaigns===
*[[Lyndon LaRouche]] has run in every single election since his federal indictment.
*[[David Duke]], former Grand Dragon of the [[Ku Klux Klan]].
*[[Harold Stassen]], former [[United States Republican Party|Republican]] governor of [[Minnesota]], ran unsuccessfully for his party's nomination nine times, from [[1948]] to [[1992]].

===French elections===
*[[Lionel Jospin]]'s 2002 presidential campaign was such a flop he retired from politics.
*The unnecessary dissolution of a favourable parliament (''Assemblée nationale'') in 1997 by President [[Jacques Chirac]] should have presaged an easy win for his partisans. They lost, yielding power to the opposition.

===Canadian elections===
*[[Kim Campbell]] led the governing [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada|Conservatives]] in the 1993 election campaign and succeeded in winning only two seats in the legislature.

===UK elections===
*Sir [[James Goldsmith]]'s anti-[[European Union|EU]] [[Referendum Party]] failed to win a single seat in the [[UK general election, 1997|1997 general election]], despite heavy publicity and a significant number of votes.
*The [[UK Labour Party|Labour Party]]'s performance at the [[1983 UK general election|1983 general election]], led by [[Michael Foot]].  The manifesto was described as 'the longest suicide note in political history'.
*The [[UK Conservative Party|Conservative Party]]'s performance at the [[1997 UK general election|1997 general election]], and also at  [[2001 UK general election|2001 general election]].  In both [[General Election]]s the Conservatives were routed disasterously.  Their showing was both times far worse than that of Michael Foot.
==See also==

* [[product management]]
* [[management]]
* [[new product development]]
* [[product (business)|product]]