So we reach the end of our first full week on the new site and I am enjoying the look of the new site and the renewed enthusiasm I have for posting and upping the quality of what I write (or trying at the very least!). Now we have high hopes for the site and how it might grow and hope all you good browsers come visit in droves. On some occassions though people have made bad calls which have been wholeheartedly unpopular or ended with unfortunate results for those involved. Today we look at those who should have chosen more wisely.

6. First up and it galls me that this clip cannot be found on Youtube, but nevertheless this is one of my favourite clips from Family Guy as there is a cut away to a time Peter made a bad call!

Lois: Hello?
Peter: Lois? I can’t take out the garbage because they’re keeping me late at the office.
Lois: Peter, the caller ID says you’re calling from the kitchen. In fact… I can see you.
Peter: Can you see me now?
Lois: No.
Peter: Okay, now I’m at the office.

5. Now hair does grow back, but this seems to have escaped the attention of viewers of the 90s set college series ‘Felicity’ as fans wrote in protest and turned off their TV sets out of disgust with the central character appearing one week with her once long locks now cut short. Such a significant ratings drop occured that year on what was a flag ship show for the WB that allegedly the network executives were to be made aware of any such hairstyle changes in future. Nothing of course was said of the final 3 episodes of the show involving a time travel plot. 

4. Another image change, though in this case far more unnerving and certainly midjudged. Garth Brooks undertook a project creating a fictitious alter ego by the name of Chris Gaines - releasing an album, producing a movie and making various appearances as this character, all part of a move to extend Brooks musical repertoire. Audiences were left bewildered and the sales of the new record, the proposed movie and indeed the character faded into the distance. Judge me all you like but I like the single from the album ‘Lost in You’ and so too posting the clip below will let you see the transformation Brooks underwent. Again though - unnerving.

3. Now I am yet to be convinced of what seems to be an otherwise consensus on the worth Daniel Craig has brought to the James Bond series. Until the world wakes up to my thinking George Lazenby will hold the unfortunate title of being ‘the worst James Bond’ as someone decided to replace Sean Connery with an unknown Australian car sales man. Formula changing seemed to be the order of the day as ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ had neither a traditional theme song and saw the spy marry. The film is treated too harshly in my view.

2. A newly controversial development in the Spider-Man comics has been the decision to end the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Between 1994 and 1997 though fans were up in arms as a string of writers stretched a cloning story line out from an initial year long plot to one of 3 years. An increasingly convoluted plot was spun to a point where it was revealed the central character, presumed by many to be the true Spiderman, had in fact been a clone. There was such an outcry that the writers decided to undo this plot twist and resurrect the Green Goblin as the master mind behind the whole scheme, further infuriating fans as this was seen to undo what had been a classic storyline of the final battle between the Goblin and Spiderman and only added further to the melee of multiple clones and plot twists.

1.
Now the mantra of ‘if it aint broke, dont fix it’ more than applies here. Coca Cola in 1985 took it upon themselves to launch ‘New Coke’, a more sweetened version of the traditional formula. The classic formula had to be reintroduced within 3 months however as sales plummeted while the press, Southerners who laid claim to the Coca Cola image being representative of their heritage, summons yielding bottle distributors and even Castro each campaigned for a return to the famous flavour. The power of tradition and habit won out as interestngly anonymous taste tests since have found samplers preferring ‘New Coke’ over both Classic Coke and Pepsi.