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{{trope}}
{{quote|
|'''Louisa May Alcott'''{{'}}s vicarious description of her experience writing ''[[Little Women]]'', from ''Jo's Boys''}}
{{quote|''"You know, it's funny how wrong an artist can be about his own work. The one composition of [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]]'s that he really detested was his 'Nutcracker Suite', which is probably the most popular thing he ever wrote."''
▲{{quote|''Things always went by contraries with Jo. Her first book, labored over for years, and launched full of the high hopes and ambitious dreams of youth, floundered on its voyage, though the wreck continued to float long afterward, to the profit of the publisher at least. The hastily written story, sent away with no thought beyond the few dollars it might bring, sailed with a fair wind and a wise pilot at the helm into public favor, and came home heavily laden with an unexpected cargo of gold and glory.''"|'''Louisa May Alcott''''s vicarious description of her experience writing ''[[Little Women]]'', from ''Jo's Boys''}}
|'''Deems Taylor''', ''[[Fantasia]]''}}
▲{{quote|''"You know, it's funny how wrong an artist can be about his own work. The one composition of [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]]'s that he really detested was his 'Nutcracker Suite', which is probably the most popular thing he ever wrote."''|'''Deems Taylor''', ''[[Fantasia]]''}}
The serious work that you lavish all of your efforts on and have the highest expectations for will ''not'' receive nearly as much acclaim or success as the one you just toss out to pay the bills.
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But what happens when the same artist just writes or creates something for fun or [[Money, Dear Boy|profit]] with no big plans, hopes, or expectations for its success? Heck, they know it's not that good but figure it will at least pay the bills this month. They're so busy working on that inevitably earth-shattering ''magnum opus'', they don't even give this other silly little project much thought. Whoever commissioned it is sure to be disappointed, but it's no big deal; the public won't even notice its existence enough to laugh at its pointlessness anyway.
Cue Situational [[Irony]]! That book, movie, or painting that the creator couldn't care less about becomes an instant sensation. They're hailed as a genius, worshipped for blessing the world with this wonderful new classic, immortalized in parodies and [[
[[Magnum Opus Dissonance/WMG|How does this happen?]]
When the effect is somewhat delayed, see [[Vindicated
[[Sub
▲[[Sub Trope]] of the [[Centipede's Dilemma]] and [[Sister Trope]] to [[Creator Backlash]] (often a good source thereof, too). [[Sub Trope]] of [[Murphy's Law]]. Compare [[Self-Deprecation]], [[Sweet and Sour Grapes]], [[Springtime for Hitler]], and [[It Will Never Catch On]]. Also see [[Consolation Award]] for when the work that ''is'' considered the best by public is not the most awarded.
{{examples}}
==[[Anime]] and [[Manga]]==
* [[Go Nagai]] created ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' as a kid-friendly side project while he worked on the (''much'' darker) ''[[Devilman]]'' manga. Guess which one became the bigger hit? (That didn't stop him from exploiting ''Mazinger'' to the hilt, however.) That being said, ''Devilman'' was still phenomenally successful in the end, but since it couldn't match the busting success of the ''Mazinger'' franchise it still qualifies for the trope.▼
* Ahem, ''[[One Piece]]'' was this, at least initially. Creator [[Eiichiro Oda]] had ''absolutely'' no idea this would be any more popular than the typical manga, much less the top selling of all time, and had initially expected it to run about 200 chapters. As of 2023, he was off by about 860. In fact, he once half-jokingly claimed he started writing manga in order to avoid having to get a "real job".
==[[Comic
* Peyo's favourite work, and actually his original main one was ''[[Johan and Peewit]]'' (''Johan and Pirlouit'' in its original French title)... But, one day, in one of this series' album, appeared a certain band of little blue creatures. They were intended to be one-shot characters, but quickly became [[Ensemble Darkhorse
* ''[[Spider
* The brain
* ''[[Cupcakes]]'' is an extremely [[Gorn|gory]] ''[[My Little Pony:
* ''[[MLP:
* The dark fic ''[[Pokémon Master]]'' by Ace Sanchez became ''sort'' of this.▼
▲== Fan Fiction ==
* [[Orson Welles]] believed that his greatest completed film was either ''Chimes At Midnight'' or ''The Trial'', not ''[[
▲* The brain breakingly epic ''[[Tamers Forever Series (Fanfic)|Tamers Forever Series]]'' was originally intended to be a mere side project while the author overcame his writers block.
* This is something of a recurring narrative in the [[New Hollywood]] era of the 1970s, with numerous directors agreeing to do studio pictures in order to get the funding for the more personal pictures that they wanted to make. The studio pictures, which were usually made under [[Executive Meddling|some level of studio observation (however minor)]], would go on to be widely acclaimed as great films, whereas the more [[Auteur License|personal pictures]]
▲* [[Cupcakes]] is an extremely [[Gorn|gory]] [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]] fanfic that was written on a whim because the author wanted to see if it would actually get any attention. The result: a fanfic so infamous that reading it is more or less a pre-requisite for understanding many of the in-jokes and references in the Friendship Is Magic fandom. It's spawned an incredible number of spinoff fics, and most recently, one of the show's animators made a rather gruesome [[Ascended Meme|music video]] based on the fic. The chances are very high that Lauren Faust, creator of the show, knows what Cupcakes is. Most [[Periphery Demographic|bronies]] might not even know that the author actually wrote more 'normal', more serious works that don't exactly get a ton of attention compared to Cupcakes.
** A textbook example: the [[The Western|Western]] ''[[
▲* [[MLP the Games We Play]], a 379 page drama, while far from being an unnoticed piece of work, was promptly out-viewed by the author's later fic - a one shot of the philosophical ramblings of Pinkie Pie watching paint dry, something the author wasted little time pointing out in a blog post.
* Most of the [[Monty Python]] crew ([[
▲* The dark fic [[Pokémon Master]] by Ace Sanchez became ''sort'' of this.
* Successful director [[George Lucas]] put a lot of work into ''[[Star Wars]]'', but he always intended to use the money it raised to work on the smaller, more personal projects that had brought him fame, such as ''[[American Graffiti]]'' and ''[[THX 1138]]''. Billions of dollars later, the smaller, more personal projects did get made (but with different directors). The first was the 1994 box office disaster ''Radioland Murders'' and the second was the unsuccessful 2012 film ''[[
* Ask people what [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s best movie was, and you'll get different answers. Maybe ''[[Psycho]]'', maybe ''[[Vertigo]]'', maybe ''[[North
▲== Films -- Live-Action ==
▲* [[Orson Welles]] believed that his greatest completed film was either ''Chimes At Midnight'' or ''The Trial'', not ''[[Citizen Kane (Film)|Citizen Kane]]''.
▲* This is something of a recurring narrative in the [[New Hollywood]] era of the 1970s, with numerous directors agreeing to do studio pictures in order to get the funding for the more personal pictures that they wanted to make. The studio pictures, which were usually made under [[Executive Meddling|some level of studio observation (however minor)]], would go on to be widely acclaimed as great films, whereas the more [[Auteur License|personal pictures]] -- usually made under an atmosphere of [[Protection From Editors]] and [[Small Name, Big Ego|the director's ego]] having spiraled [[Prima Donna Director|completely out of control]] -- would bomb disastrously.
▲** A textbook example: the [[The Western|Western]] ''[[Heavens Gate (Film)|Heavens Gate]]'' was the passion project of Michael Cimino, director of the acclaimed [[The Vietnam War|Vietnam War]] movie ''[[The Deer Hunter]]''. It's considered one of the [[Box Office Bomb|biggest bombs]] in film history, not only [[Creator Killer|ending Cimino's career]] but also the [[New Hollywood]] era.
▲* Most of the [[Monty Python]] crew ([[John Cleese (Creator)|John Cleese]] in particular) consider ''[[Life of Brian]]'' to be their greatest work, in part because it has a central theme and tells a complete story, while their other works are more less a series of sketches. While ''[[Life of Brian]]'' is still very popular with Python fans, many of whom consider it to be the superior film, but ''[[Monty Python and The Holy Grail]]'' has penetrated pop culture to a far greater degree.
▲* Successful director [[George Lucas]] put a lot of work into ''[[Star Wars]]'', but he always intended to use the money it raised to work on the smaller, more personal projects that had brought him fame, such as ''[[American Graffiti]]'' and ''[[THX 1138]]''. Billions of dollars later, the smaller, more personal projects did get made (but with different directors). The first was the 1994 box office disaster ''Radioland Murders'' and the second was the unsuccessful 2012 film ''[[Red Tails (Film)|Red Tails]]''.
▲* Ask people what [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s best movie was, and you'll get different answers. Maybe ''[[Psycho]]'', maybe ''[[Vertigo]]'', maybe ''[[North By Northwest]]''. Most probably won't mention the film Hitchcock regarded as his best, 1943's ''[[Shadow of a Doubt]]''.
* [[Dennis Hopper]]'s attempt to follow ''[[Easy Rider]]'' with an ambitious project he was conceiving for a while, ''The Last Movie'', [[Follow Up Failure|bombed so hard]] that it prevented Hopper from directing again for nearly a decade.
* Leo McCarey directed two movies of 1937: the light comedy ''[[
* Out of all the actors to play [[Batman]], [[Batman Forever
* [[David Cronenberg]]'s (arguably) two most popular films, ''[[The Fly]]'' and ''[[A History of Violence]]'', were actually born out of [[Troubled Production]] on two films - he went into the director's chair on the former after he was fired from production on ''[[Total Recall]]'', and in the commentary, says he was "interested in it somewhat" (he didn't write the original script, just some patchwork), and admitted that he didn't like the original 1958 film. The latter film is one which he did [[Money, Dear Boy|primarily for the paycheck]] after having to defer his salary on the now-forgotten ''Spider''. Unlike many of the creators here, he has come to appreciate these projects, and talks in interviews about doing a potential companion piece to ''The Fly''.
* [[Roberto Benigni]] has stated in several interviews that he wanted to do his version of ''[[Pinocchio]]'' since he was a child. It was only after the success of ''[[Life Is Beautiful]]'' that he was given the freedom to pursue this project, which was poorly received outside of Italy. Nevertheless, about a decade and half later he filmed and produced a second version of the tale (with himself as Gepetto instead of the titular puppet) that got a comparatively better reception abroad.
* ''[[Sucker Punch]]'' was a pet project of [[Zack Snyder]] that got negative reviews and barely recouped its budget at the box office.
▲== Literature ==
* ''[[Ender's Game]]'' was originally just another short story that [[Orson Scott Card]] wrote to pay the bills. He only expanded it into a novel so that it could serve as an introduction to ''Speaker for the Dead'' (the story that he ''really'' wanted to tell). While ''Speaker'' is certainly well-regarded among sci-fi aficionados, ''Ender's Game'' has become one of the most widely read sci-fi novels of all time, and it's now required reading in many middle schools.
* ''[[Neuromancer]]'' is [[William Gibson]]'s most famous and acclaimed work because it invented the [[Cyberpunk]] genre and featured commentary on the information age decades ahead of its time. But in terms of actual literary merit, Gibson considers it one of his weakest works (keep in mind, it was his first novel). Compared to his later novels, its characterization is minimal and the plot is very straightforward.
* ''[[Little Women]]'' for Louisa May Alcott; she made the same thing happen to Jo in its final sequel ''Jo's Boys''.
* [[Jane Austen]] thought ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'', her most popular novel, was "too light and bright and sparkling" and deliberately planned afterwards to write something more serious with a little "[[Darker and Edgier|shade]]." The result was ''[[Mansfield Park]]'', her least popular novel.
* [[Mark Twain]]'s favorite of his works was ''Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc''
** In 1900, when asked which of his works was his favorite, he answered, "''[[Huckleberry Finn]]''." Twain tended to go back and forth on which of his works he preferred, especially as his mood darkened late in his life; ''Finn'' had an odd place with him because, even when he was alive, it was a lightning rod of controversy, amassing an impressive list of libraries it was banned from.
* [[Lewis Carroll]] greatly preferred ''[[Sylvie and Bruno]]'' to his ''[[Alice in Wonderland|Alice]]'' books.
* [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] himself never expected ''[[The Scarlet Letter]]'' to be popular, much less a book assigned to every junior high school student in America.
* [[Douglas Adams]] always considered ''Last Chance to See'' his favourite work. While not a non-seller as such, it is much less known than [[The
* [[
* Robert Asprin started work on ''Another Fine Myth'' for laughs, merely to give himself a break from the grimness of another book he was writing, ''The Cold Cash War''. Nowadays, he is fondly remembered for the ''[[Myth Adventures]]'' series, while ''Cold Cash War'' gathers dust alongside other ur-[[Cyberpunk]] [[
* [[William Shakespeare]] apparently thought more of ''The Rape of Lucrece'' than ''[[
* The ''reverse'' was true of the 19th-century British Romantic poets. Byron, Keats, Shelley, and their peers were obsessed with reviving English drama, and kept churning out faux-Shakespearean plays that seldom rose above mediocre. In time, many of them thought that this failure pretty much invalidated Romanticism. When worrying over how posterity would judge them, they never seemed to think their lyric poetry could count for much.
* [[David Weber]] is famous for his ''[[
* [[
** Much of the Mythos's dedicated fandom actually agrees with that.
* At different times in their careers, both the poet [[
* [[Anthony Burgess]] resents that he's best known for ''[[A Clockwork Orange (
* [[Harlan Ellison]]
* Mario Puzo wrote ''[[
** Even worse, the book is typically regarded as only "ok" or "good" - it's really only remembered because of the movie, one of the rare cases of the movie being better than its source material.
* [[Ernest Hemingway]] regarded the critically lambasted ''Across the River and Into the Trees'' as his greatest work.
* [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] wrote ''[[
* Cecil Day-Lewis ([[Daniel Day
* Philip Larkin, meanwhile, wanted to be a novelist rather than a poet. His two novels are read only by a few academics, but his poetry remains popular, acclaimed, and even quoted (even if his most-quoted poem is mainly so because of its [[Cluster F-Bomb]]).
* [[
*
* [[Thomas Hardy]] considered ''[[Jude the Obscure]]'' his favorite and best novel. Critics at the time hated it and Hardy only wrote poetry for the rest of his life.
* [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] considered ''[[John Carter of Mars]]'' stories to be his best works. They are rather obscure compared to his other series, ''[[Tarzan]]''.
* Pyotr Pavlovich Yershov wrote dozens of poems, plenty of stories, and considered them to be much better than some fairy-tale poem he wrote in simpleton language when he was young. Except today, the poems and stories are all but forgotten, while ''The Little Humpbacked Horse'' earned him a statue for ''composing a folk tale''.
* John Buchan is most remembered for codifying the Spy Genre with ''[[The Thirty
*
* Doctor [[
▲* [[Go Nagai]] created ''[[Mazinger Z]]'' as a kid-friendly side project while he worked on the (''much'' darker) ''[[Devilman]]'' manga. Guess which one became the bigger hit? (That didn't stop him from exploiting ''Mazinger'' to the hilt, however.) That being said, Devilman was still phenomenally successful in the end, but it still qualifies for the trope.
▲== Music ==
* Many popular artists consider their later output to be their best, while their fans always prefer their earlier stuff.
* [[David Bowie]]'s entire career is rife with this, as the songs he wrote for art are not very well known, and the songs he wrote for commerce are huge hits. However, the first and biggest example, for him, would be a little song he slapped together out of boredom... he was actually embarrassed by it
* Many [[Black Sheep Hit
** Probably the most infamous example is [[
* Van Morrison does not consider "Brown-Eyed Girl" to be among his best songs. Most people feel differently, although critics tend to prefer ''Astral Weeks''.
** Well, he didn't particularly like ''Astral Weeks'' either. He wasn't allowed to use the musicians he wanted and was forced by the studio to use a bunch of jazz session musicians, and so gave them no real direction in the studio, letting them jam as they liked because he didn't really care. He got his way starting with ''Moondance'' and went on to a largely well-regarded career, but as noted most critics prefer ''Astral Weeks'', the album he ignored as he was making it, made in a style to which he never returned.
* [[The Hollies]]' recording of Graham Nash's big ''[[The Beatles|Sgt. Pepper]]''-style production, "King Midas in Reverse", made only a small dent on the UK singles charts. Their next single, "Jennifer Eccles", a lightweight pop number they pretty much wrote as a joke, became a huge hit. Nash was not pleased.
* [[Gustav Holst]]'s ''The Planets'' is the most popular of his works, however the composer did not count it as one of his best.
** And Holst's favorite movement of ''The Planets'' was "Saturn," but it's usually "Mars" or "Jupiter" that are the most popular with audiences.
* Rivers Cuomo of [[Weezer]] has stated that he is embarrassed by ''Pinkerton'', typically considered to be the band's finest moment.
** Although it [[Vindicated
* [[
* [[Kurt Cobain]] of [[Nirvana]] didn't think much of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", describing it as "my attempt at writing a [[Pixies]] song." In fact, he didn't like ''Nevermind'' much as a whole, thinking the whole album sounded much too polished. He always thought that "Drain You" was one of Nirvana's best songs, and couldn't understand why it was never the hit he thought it should have been.
* [[Scott Joplin]] had high hopes for his ragtime opera ''Treemonisha''. It flopped and was forgotten for many decades.
* Arthur Sullivan would have preferred to be famous for his serious music rather than the comic operas he wrote [[Gilbert and Sullivan|with W. S. Gilbert]].
* Camille Saint-Saëns did not allow ''The Carnival of the Animals'' to be published in his lifetime because he feared it would overshadow his other work (which he considered superior). It didn't work: just try and remember any other pieces by him.
* The Turtles wanted to move on from their hits to create ''[[The Beatles|Sgt. Pepper]]/[[The Kinks|Village Green Preservation Society]]'' type works, but the record company insisted on more hit singles in the vein of "Happy Together". Their response was "Elenore", a lightweight pastiche of their earlier works intended as a [[Take That]], which inevitably went on to become a hit. Their later albums, including one produced by [[The Kinks|Ray Davies]], tend to be overlooked.
* While ''[[Sgt. Pepper's
* During the production of their third album ''Silver Side Up'', Canadian rock band [[Nickelback]] (who were previously known for their alternative-rock sound) crafted another album of hard-hitting songs that they believed would finally bring them mainstream success. However, they also cranked out a song in twenty minutes on a lark to fill out the album's running time. That song, "How You Remind Me", became the group's biggest hit, and came to define their musical output since then. It's also been used by critics to show how the band was a musical punchline in the rock world.
* When [[The Who]] were in the process of recording ''[[Tommy]]'', Pete Townshend slapped together a [[Power Pop]] ballad with no real relation to the story in order to get the attention of New York Times music critic Nik Cohn, who was known to be a fan of certain arcade novelties. That song was "Pinball Wizard", which easily became the most recognizable song off the album.
** And while ''Tommy'' came to be considered the Who's finest work to date, Townshend's aspirations were pegged on its ambitious
* [[Lou Reed]]'s
* [[
* [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s album ''Straight Outta Lynwood'' was originally going to use the James Blunt parody "You're Pitiful" as its lead single. After Atlantic Records nixed the idea, Al was forced to quickly write and record two new songs to replace it on the album. One of them, "White And Nerdy",
* While most [[My Chemical Romance]] fans consider ''Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge'' or ''The Black Parade'' their Magnum Opus, vocalist Gerard Way considers their most recent output, ''Danger Days: True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys'' as this.
{{quote|
* [[The Sisters of
* In many interviews, [[Pink Floyd]] guitarist David Gilmour mentions that his favorite Floyd album was neither ''[[The Dark Side of the Moon]]'', nor ''[[The Wall]]'', but ''Wish You Were Here''.
* Even though [[Frank Zappa]] never named ''Thing-Fish'' his masterpiece, he often called it an essential album because of the political message. Yet to this day many Zappa fans revile it as his worst, least imaginative and most unenjoyable record ever! Even the political aspect is so far-fetched that it loses its impact because people are unable to take it seriously.
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* [[Slayer]] guitarist Kerry King prefers 2001's ''God Hates Us All'' over ''Reign in Blood.''
==[[Web Comics]]==
* Jennie Breeden, author of ''[[The
* Ryan Sohmer made a name for himself with the... [[Love It or Hate It|divisive]] ''[[Least I Could Do]]''. Then, he decided to do a little side project [[Affectionate Parody|lovingly spoofing]] two things he enjoyed: ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' and ''[[Dungeons
==[[Web
* Egoraptor claims that his best work is ''
▲* Jennie Breeden, author of ''[[The Devils Panties]]'' has [http://thedevilspanties.com/archives/4402 clearly encountered this trope].
** Not that ''Sequelitis'' isn't appreciated; it's just much, ''much'' younger (barely a year old) and so far only has three episodes, one of which is only five minutes long.▼
▲* Ryan Sohmer made a name for himself with the... [[Love It or Hate It|divisive]] ''[[Least I Could Do]]''. Then, he decided to do a little side project [[Affectionate Parody|lovingly spoofing]] two things he enjoyed: ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' and ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]''. With a more likeable protagonist, a cool supporting cast, a good [[Myth Arc]], some [[Growing the Beard]] and a [[Ensemble Darkhorse|certain]] [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath]] warlock, ''[[Looking for Group]]'' grew to vastly eclipse ''Least I Could Do'' in popularity and [[Win the Crowd|acclaim]]. Sohmer himself began to eventually view LFG as his magnum opus, as well.
▲* Egoraptor claims that his best work is ''[[Web Original/Sequelitis|Sequelitis]]'' (his web series, not the trope), as compared to ''[[Girlchan in Paradise]]'' or the ''[[Awesome Series]]'', due to both the time and effort he put into the episodes and the fact that he values an ability to make people think over an ability to make people laugh.
▲** Not that Sequelitis isn't appreciated; it's just much, ''much'' younger (barely a year old) and so far only has three episodes, one of which is only five minutes long.
▲== Western Animation ==
* In the early 1990s, ''[[Pocahontas]]'' was in production at [[Walt Disney Pictures]], and everyone involved was convinced that this would be the great landmark animated feature of the revitalized Disney. By comparison, ''[[The Lion King]]'' was simply a filler project to tide things over for 1994. Yet ''[[The Lion King]]'' became the mega-smash hit that would prove to be the pinnacle of Disney's Renaissance and one of their best films in general, while ''Pocahontas'' in 1995 became more of a let down that signaled the decline of the company's success.
** Also occurred with ''[[The Black Cauldron]]'' (1985) and ''[[The Great Mouse Detective]]'' (1986). ''[[The Black Cauldron]]'' was supposed to be the big hit that would revive Disney in the 1980s and ''The Great Mouse Detective'' was just a filler film. Unfortunately for ''The Black Cauldron'', management changed at Disney prior to its release and Jeffrey Katzenberg pretty much screwed the movie (claiming it was too dark) and refused to give it any marketing or promotion. As such, at least initially, ''Black Cauldron'' flopped (and was all but officially disowned by Disney) while the more traditional ''Great Mouse Detective'' was a modest hit at the box office. Despite this, ''The Black Cauldron'' managed to become a bona fide cult hit in the following years.
** Walt himself intended both ''[[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Sleeping Beauty]]'' and ''[[Alice in Wonderland (Disney film)|Alice in Wonderland]]'' to be his joint magnum opus, but neither movie turned a profit during its initial box office release. In the case of ''Alice'', Walt disliked the finished film even before it flopped and [[Creator Backlash|regarded it as a mistake]] for the rest of his life. ''[[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Sleeping Beauty]]'', at least, has been vindicated by history.
** During the early 1940s, Disney released the artistically advanced ''[[Pinocchio (Disney film)|Pinocchio]]'' and ''[[Fantasia]]'', then the relatively cheap ''[[
* [[
** It also didn't help that ''Egypt'' was [[Executive Meddling|focus-grouped]] to death (naturally, given its potential controversy as a [[The Bible|Bible]] adaptation), whereas ''Shrek'' [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|got a lot of stuff past special interest groups and critics]] because, literally, [[They Just Didn't Care|no one cared.]]
* ''[[The Thief and
* Matt Groening created ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' hastily in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office, where he originally planned to pitch ''[[Life in Hell]]'' (at the time his most notable work, which had been running for around 10 years in newspapers) as a shorts series. He chose not to because he wanted to keep the rights to ''Life In Hell''. Now few people know ''Life In Hell'', and ''The Simpsons'' is considered his Magnum Opus.
** Groening once [https://web.archive.org/web/20110718234649/http://animatedtv.about.com/od/mattgroening/tp/groeningtop10.htm made a list] of his favorite ''Simpsons'' episodes, and choose mostly examples from the first and eighth season, while many fans consider the third to seventh season to be the show's Golden Age. The first season is even generally disliked by many viewers because the show was [[Early Installment Weirdness|still searching for its form]] in those days. Many episodes from the first season are too slow, not particularly funny and even uncharacteristic.
* ''[[Family Guy]]'' has an [[In
==
* [[Isaac Newton]] is undoubtedly one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, and made multiple groundbreaking contributions to several scientific fields. His ''Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica'', which laid the foundation of classical mechanics is considered one of, if not ''the most'' important scientific work of all time. Yet the latter was only published due to the insistence of Edmond Halley: Newton considered his most important work to be his studies in occultism and esoterism, which comprised about two thirds of his work.
** And in his own lifetime, Newton was best known for his work at the Royal Mint, which is why the design of his tomb in Westminster Abbey incorporates many references to coinage and currency, but none to science.
* Photographer Eddie Adams was best known for his Pulitzer prize-winning photograph of a Vietnamese general about to execute a Viet Cong prisoner, which became an icon of the Vietanam protest movement. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3672060.stm Adams later regretted the photograph's notoriety], particularly the demonizing of the Vietnamese forces and the specific general depicted, wishing instead to be remembered for a series of later pictures depicting Vietnamese refugees to Thailand. Needless to say, they are nowhere near as famous.
* Being President of the United States ranked so low on Thomas Jefferson's personal list of life achievements that it wasn't included in his self-written gravestone epitaph.
* An episode of ''[[QI]]'' brought up C.B. Fry, an ancestor of [[Stephen Fry]]'s and a successful turn of the century British sportsman. He represented England in football and cricket, claimed the world long-jump record in 1913, and reportedly was
* Most marks would claim [[Mick Foley]]'s best match to be his 1998 Hell-In-The-Cell against [[The Undertaker]]. However, the man himself would vouch for either his 1996 match against [[Shawn Michaels]] or his 2004 bout with [[Randy Orton]].
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Finagles Law]]▼
[[Category:Trivia Trope]]
[[Category:Home Page/YMMV]]▼
[[Category:Show Business]]
[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]
[[Category:Creator Speak]]
[[Category:YMMV Trope]]
[[Category:
[[Category:
[[Category:Dissonance Tropes]]
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