Watch That Blood on the Footlights!

The Dumbest Moments in Business History: Useless Products, Ruinous Deals, Clueless Bosses, and Other Signs ofUnintelligent Life in the Workplace
by Adam Horowitz

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Transferring Stephen King's fiendishly well crafted horror tales to another medium is tricky. Sure, Carrie in 1976 and Misery in '90 were excellent skin-crawling movie theater experiences. But The Langoliers on TV in '95 was an unintentionally hideous experience.

For sheer adaptation lunacy, though, nothing could top Carrie: The Musical on Broadway in 1988. Out-of-town try-outs - the R&D of the theater business - couldn't have predicted the dubious honor that awaited this production.

"You can't deny that any show that begins with menstruation in the high school shower and ends with a double murder is obviously taking a risk," confessed artistic director Terry Hands. Right-o, Terry, we wouldn't think of denying it. The Royal Shakespeare Company production of the story of the awkward teen with telekinetic powers underwent multiple rewrites and delays, finally opening at the Virginia Theatre in May. The show was mercifully shuttered after just five performances.

Frank Rich, the New York Times theater critic at the time, advised readers that "those who have the time and money to waste on only one Anglo-American musical wreck on Broadway this year might well choose Carrie." Then Rich, aka "the Butcher of Broadway," tucked into the show's "uninhibited tastelessness," "whopping cliches," and "sub-Atlantic City costumes." That last one really had to sting. Having blown $8 million, the producers couldn't even top the outfits in a casino revue. But at least the outlay did buy them something: the record for most expensive flop in Broadway history.

But on the Plus Side, He Invented Vaudeville.

In 1760, Belgian inventor Joseph Merlin came up with the idea of attaching steel wheels to his boots, essentially inventing roller skates. Understandably proud of this accomplishment, he decided to introduce his million-dollar idea in grand style at a tony masquerade ball in London, but his decision to skate onto the dance floor while simultaneously playing a violin proved disastrous. Having overlooked the necessity to invent a braking device didn't help matters. An observer wrote that Merlin "impelled himself against a mirror, of more than five hundred pounds' value, dashed it to atoms, broke his instrument to pieces, and wounded himself most severely."

The Album So Nice AOL Time Warner Bought It Twice

One of the problems with managing a large corporation with dozens of subsidiaries is that it can be hard to keep track of exactly what the heck everybody's developing. And in 2001, AOL Time Warner would have had to drill down pretty far to find that it was bringing along a Chicago rock band called Wilco. Tucked away with Reprise Records (a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, itself a subsidiary of the company's Warner Bros. division), Wilco was beloved by critics, less so by music buyers. The band's previous album sold less than a half million copies. So when Wilco submitted its experimental Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album in the summer of 2001, the bosses at Reprise weren't hearing the platinum-promising CD they expected. Reprise demanded changes in the album; when Wilco refused, the label cut the band loose.

Wilco spent a few months in industry limbo, releasing Foxtrot songs as MP3 files on their Web site and being courted by new labels. In December 2001, the band finally settled on a contract with Nonesuch Records - which happened to be a subsidiary of a certain gigantic media company famous for its postmerger stock collapse. "If it doesn't bother AOL Time Warner, it doesn't bother me," said Wilco's frontman, Jeff Tweedy. "There's no way around the fact that they did in effect pay for the record twice."

Warner Music's press release did its best to find some positive spin, saying, "One of the advantages of having a company as large and diverse as W.M.G. is that when you have a fantastic band like Wilco, and one situation doesn't work out for one reason or another, they can continue to make this company their home."

Released in April 2002, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot earned rave reviews - and sold less than a half million copies.

Well, Tomorrow Is Another Day: Three Bad Calls on Gone With the Wind.

1. "Forget it, Louis. No Civil War picture ever made a nickel."

— MGM production executive Irving Thalberg in 1936, advising studio chief Louis B. Mayer not to bother buying the film rights to Margaret Mitchell's book

2. "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling flat on his face and not Gary Cooper."

— Gary Cooper, passing up the chance to play Rhett Butler

3. "This picture is going to be the biggest white elephant of all time."

— Director Victor Fleming, feeling savvy about demanding a flat fee for his work instead of taking the 20 percent of profits he'd been offered; Gone With the Wind's worldwide box office earnings: more than $390 million

High Blood Pressure Problems? Try Liquid Paper!

In the 1980s, drug makers scrambled to develop a generic version of SmithKline Beecham's popular antihypertension drug Dyazide, but nobody could pull it off. A generic alternative would mean millions to the first one to crack the code. Then, in 1987, the Bolar company announced a breakthrough, won FDA approval and started milking its generic cash cow. Profits doubled to $31 million the following year. It was good news - followed by the bad news that a federal investigation had turned up a few odd touches in Bolar's FDA application. Test results indicating the drug's success were speckled with correction fluid, which concealed some actual, not-so-inspiring statistics. Oh, there were a few pages of undoctored, genuinely impressive test results that showed Bolar's product was just as effective as SmithKline Beecham's. But that's what you'd expect, since the numbers were lifted directly from SmithKline Beecham's paperwork.

After a failed attempt at stalling the feds, Bolar execs spent three years coping with indictments, depositions and other causes of high blood pressure. In 1991, Bolar admitted to fraud and price fixing, paying $10 million in fines and $20 million to angry shareholders. Within two years, fraud and corruption convictions had brought down eight Bolar managers, including CEO Robert Shulman, who was sentenced to five years and fined $1.25 million.

Realizing that its name would forever be associated with chicanery and the creative use of office supplies, Bolar changed its name to Circa. A dubious choice, given that "approximately" doesn't connote the sort of precision one likes to see in a pharmaceutical company, particularly one with a history of fudging results. But the company got off easy this time: in 1995, Circa became a wholly owned subsidiary of Watson Pharmaceuticals in a $595 million merger that practically whited-out the entire Bolar unpleasantness.

And What Would You Do with It Anyway, Feed It to the Horses? Haw-Haw-Haw.

"Oh, Townsend, oil coming out of the ground, pumping oil out of the earth as you pump water? Nonsense. You're crazy."

— The reported response when James Townsend sought the backing of New Haven bankers to drill for oil in the 1850s. On August 27, 1859, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, a Townsend well - and investors in his Seneca Oil Co. - hit a gusher.

They Were Sort of Like Mary Kay's Pink Cadillacs - Except Without the Air of Prosperity and Business Acumen.

Henry Ford may or may not have said that customers could buy his Model T in any color they wanted so long as it was black, but the line reflected the take-it-or-leave-it approach of the early days in automaking. By the 1950s, carmakers were tailoring product every way they could think of. In Chrysler's case, designers thought they saw a way to capitalize on the postwar surge in young married couples who were buying houses. Hmm... husbands and wives...two-car garages...how about his-'n'-her automobiles?

Chrysler unveiled the Le Comte and La Comtesse sedans at auto shows in 1954, with the she-car featuring a "gorgeous two-tone exterior of Dusty Rose with a Pigeon Grey top." Later retooled as the La Femme, the 1955 model featured a pink steering wheel and two-tone pink body, and was accessorized with a pink leather purse that included lipstick, a vanity mirror and a cigarette case. Pink raincoat and pink rain boots? Standard.

A year later, with La Femme sales alarmingly Le Thargic, Chrysler decided that its experts had misjudged what would appeal to those flighty female shoppers. Pink was so wrong! Enter, the 1956 La Femme, this time in lavender. "Designed exclusively for Her Royal Highness - the American Woman - this majestic beauty is rapidly approaching public announcement," read the marketing copy. Actually, the majestic beauty was about to be dethroned. After two years and about 1,000 sales, Chrysler admitted it had royally screwed up.

Copyright © 2004 Adam Horowitz. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission.

About the Author

Adam Horowitz is the executive editor of Business 2.0 magazine and a creator of "The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business."