Breakup Breakout: Difference between revisions

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* The Japanese comedy duo Honjamaka originally started as a troupe of about 10 or 11 comedians, but they only became famous after everybody left except the current two members (Ishizuka Hidehiko and Megumi Toshiaki). On top of that, they both have strong individual careers.

* Rob Riggle and Rob Huebel was a Kansas City-based comedy duo who tried out for ''[[Saturday Night Live]]''. Riggle got picked and despite leaving after one season, has had a strong acting career since then. Meanwhile, Heubel only seems to appear in the occasional short-lived sitcom.

** It happened again to Heubel several years later when he got his biggest break to date as a member of the comedy troupe ''[[Human Giant]]'' featuring himself, Paul Scheer and [[Aziz Ansari]]. The show was critically acclaimed and all three got decent popularity as equals, but the show went on hiatus in 2008. Since then Scheer and Heubel have done well for themselves, but Ansari's popularity exploded after appearing in the film ''[[Funny People]]'', the success of his comedy records and his role on ''[[Parks and Recreation]]''.

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== Music ==

* Generation X had a few years of notoriety in the early days of [[Punk Rock]]. Vocalist [[Billy Idol]], on the other hand.....

* Ricky Martin and [[Appeal to Obscurity|Menudo]].

* Averted by Billy Corgan and [[The Smashing Pumpkins]]. At this point, Corgan is the only original member left.

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* Michael Nesmith had (some) commercial and (lots of) critical success after [[The Monkees]] broke up.

* Dave Grohl, who after [[Nirvana]] broke up formed [[Foo Fighters]], which has not had nearly the same cultural impact, but has lasted much longer and and is still one of the most popular bands around. Krist Novoselic faded from the music scene and became a politician.

* After [[Kyuss]] broke up, Josh Homme founded [[Queens of the Stone Age]] and had far more commercial success than Kyuss ever did.

* Subverted by both parties in the case of Dave Mustaine. He was kicked out of his old band, founded [[Megadeth]], and Megadeth became one of the most successful bands of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal. His old band? [[Metallica]].

* In a rather tragic example, when the shred metal guitar duo Cacophony broke up their two members went onto two very different career paths. Marty Friedman would go on to join Megadeth for a few years as a guitarist before going solo, moving to Japan and becoming a major figure in the Japanese music world. Jason Becker on the otherhand would be diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease and is now unable to speak or play guitar. He still composes however and communicates with his eyes.

* After the Amboy Dukes broke up, their guitarist [[Ted Nugent]] started a much more successful solo career.

* After progressive rock band Hawkwind kicked out Lemmy Kilmister, their bass player, he started up his own band which is far better known. That band? [[Motorhead]].

* Possibly inverted with [[Kylie Minogue]] and [[Nick Cave]]'s collabration, "Where The Wild Roses Grow", which helped give Minogue the artistic credibility she lacked, and Cave the mainstream success that had eluded him.

* A band called Y Kant Tori Read emerged in 1988, then broke up after being unsuccessful. The lead singer, [[Tori Amos]], now enjoys her success as an alternative singer-songwriter.

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* MuteMath isn't exactly a household name, but they're enjoying a comfortable level of success. 3/4 of the band consists of former members of Earthsuit, which never made it big. Meanwhile, former Earthsuit co-frontman Adam LaClave has started no less four "solo projects" since then (along with other former members), and sadly, none of them have really worked out yet.

* The Pozo-Seco Singers were a Texas country-folk trio with a couple of minor hits in the 1960's. After they broke up, group member Don Williams embarked on a solo career. "The Gentle Giant" would notch over 50 hits on the Country Music charts, with 17 of them hitting #1.

* To some extent this happened with Portland indie rock band Heatmiser - bassist Sam Coombs formed the fairly popular and still active duo Quasi, and guitarist/vocalist Neil Gust had the less well-known band No. 2, but the major breakout was the solo career of [[Elliott Smith]].

* Most people don't even know there was a third member of the [[Insane Clown Posse]]. This is because after leaving the group, John Kickjazz left the music scene entirely and returned to quiet civilian anonymity.

* The Yardbirds, which helped launch the careers of Eric Claption, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, the latter of which formed [[Led Zeppelin]] from the ashes from the group.

* After Cream's breakup, former producer Felix Pappalardi hooked up with blues guitarist Leslie West to form Mountain.

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* Another Soft Machine alumnus, Robert Wyatt, has gone on to a respected solo career.

* Dance House Children was a sorta-techno band in the early 90s, consisting of brothers Ronnie and Jason Martin. After two albums, Jason Martin left to start the shoegazing/indie rock band [[Starflyer 59]], while Ronnie Martin retooled DHC into a synthpop project named [[Joy Electric]]. Neither group has achieved much mainstream popularity, but Starflyer 59 and Joy Electric are both better known and more respected than Dance House Children was.

* In the early 1980s, there was a New Wave band in New York called the Breakfast Club. Its drummer, for a while, was a young woman from Michigan named [[Madonna|Madonna Ciccone]]. She left (recommending her boyfriend and later producer, Stephen Bray, as her replacement) for bigger and better things. The band had one hit single "Right on Track" in 1987, and then broke up the next year. While two of the members of that later lineup, [[American Idol|Randy Jackson]] and E. Doctor Smith, later distinguished themselves, the others have not.

* After country music band Boy Howdy broke up in the mid-1990s, [[Lead Bassist]] Jeffrey Steele tried a solo career that never panned out. However, he quickly made up for that as an in-demand songwriter for other people, including lots of cuts for [[Rascal Flatts]].

* Inverted by the alt-country bands [[Music/Giant Sand|Giant Sand]] and [[Calexico]]. Joey Burns and John Convertino started Calexico as a side project while they were still playing in Giant Sand's rhythm section. Howe Gelb (Giant Sand's frontman) kicked Burns and Convertino out only ''after'' Calexico became more famous than his band.

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* America's Most Wanted - One would go on to form an even greater tag team known as [[Memetic Mutation|BEER! MONEY!]] The other was IWC phenomenon [[Professional Wrestling/Memes|Braden Walker.]]

* [[D Generation X]] - Not a total example as [[Shawn Michaels]] was already a big star when the group started, but of the other members of the group only [[Triple H]] discovered any real long term success.

** The others were less successful due to backstage incidents and cases of [[Small Name, Big Ego]]. Oh, and one became so unpopular he became the [[Trope Namer]] for [[X Pac Heat]].

** The others were less successful due to backstage incidents and cases of [[Small Name, Big Ego]]. Oh, and one became so unpopular he became the [[Trope Namer]] for [[X-Pac Heat]].

*** The New Age Outlaws tag team were massively over before and after they were in DX. Separately, not quite as much. They have both stated that they're tag team wrestlers, not singles guys.

**** Billy Gunn (er, Kip James?) was the breakout of his original tag team, the Smoking Gunns. His partner and [[Kayfabe]] brother, Bart, was derailed by the WWE's foray into "real" boxing: Having won the Brawl for All, he was pitted against Butterbean in a real boxing match. Butterbean KO'ed him in 30 seconds, and that was it for Bart Gunn.

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* And of course probably the biggest example would be [[Dwayne Johnson|The Rock]], who was once part of the Nation of Domination, before rising to new heights which ultimately led him to Hollywood.

** However, [[Mark Henry]] has recently won the World Title, putting him in a clear second place.

* [[The World's Greatest Tag Team]]: Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin. After the team split up Shelton got three consecutive victories over [[Triple H]], became a three time Intercontinental champion, a former United States Champion and is the highlight of Money in the Bank match in every Wrestlemania (he, tied with [[Kane (wrestling)|Kane]], appeared in more MITB matches than any other superstar). Charlie Haas was primary used as a jobber-to-the-stars and occasionally part of an unsuccessful make-shift tag team. He was even released and re-hired a couple times before being released (so far) for good in 2010.

** A strange subversion here in that the WGTT actually has more drawing power than either Haas or Benjamin separately. Now that Benjamin has also been released from WWE, there's a lot of hope that the team will reunite.

*** Which they did, in [[Ring of Honor]]. [[And the Fandom Rejoiced]].

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* [[Dragon Gate]] had a stable called the Royal Brothers, with Anthony W. Mori, Henry III Suguwara, and Phillip J. Fukamasa. Fukamasa barely lasted an entire year, leaving Mori and Suguwara a tag team. Then Suguwara turned heel on Mori (and started using his real name Takuya Suguwara). Mori won their feud fairly heavily, and Suguwara was fired for unrelated reasons, leaving Mori as the breakup breakout. But since then, Suguwara re-invented himself on the Japanese indy scene while Mori slid down the rankings to jobber-to-the-stars. Suguwara recently returned to Dragon Gate after a half a decade absence, and is now somewhere between upper midcarder and main eventer, and leading the Real Hazard stable. A rare case of the breakup breakout situation reversing itself.

* The British Invasion: Brutus Magnus, Doug Williams and Rob Terry. Terry, the [[Butt Monkey]] of the stable, went on to become [[TNA]] Global champion and thus far the longest reigning champion in the belt's history. Doug Williams is a two-time X-Division champion and one of the top guys of the division. Magnus has been taken off television following his PPV lost to Terry

** However, Magnus has become a prominent midcarder after teaming with Samoa Joe and winning the Tag Team titles. Terry has been working mainly as Robbie E's bouncer and Douglass Williams hasn't been on TV in a while.

* WWE had the Spirit Squad, a five man stable consisting of male cheerleaders Kenny, Johnny, Mitch, Nicky and Mikey. Out of the five only Nicky is still employed in the WWE and has been repackaged as [[Dolph Ziggler]], enjoying singles success and eventually becoming a Triple Crown champion.

** Which is strange since the whole Spirit Squad gimmick was used to put over Kenny.

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* Played perfectly straight with twin brothers Jose and Ozzie Canseco.

* Played straight with Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla during their Pirates days. Bonds became the single-season home run record holder even under questionable circumstances; Bonilla went floundering around teams looking for work. However, Bonilla does have a World Series ring (with the 1997 Marlins), while Bonds does not.

* Speaking of the Marlins, Wayne Huizenga broke up nearly the entire 1997 World Series team.

* Played straight with Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers. While Favre is undoubtedly a Football Hall of Fame candidate, his primadonna attitude after leaving the Packers made him look worse in the end. And the Packers have already won a Super Bowl with his replacement, Aaron Rodgers.

* The stars of the St. Louis Rams "Greatest Show On Turf": Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Az-Zahir Hakim and Ricky Proehl. Faulk is now in the Football Hall of Fame. Warner is likely shoe-in once he's eligible. Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt are maybes. Proehl, although not as well-known as the other four, played in four Super Bowls and won two. Hakim did very little after leaving the Rams.