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* [[Adolf Hitler]]. Even if someone had somehow never heard of [[World War 2]] or the Holocaust, reading the interminably rambling, disjointed, borderline-unreadable [[Doorstopper]] [[Author Tract|Mein Kampf]] would be enough to make that person hate Hitler with a passion. A decent editor, while maybe not able to do much about the noxious ideas, might have at least made the book readable and coherent.

** The unreadability probably worked to his advantage; many Germans bought the book to show that they were loyal to their country, but not many ever actually read it.

** This was actually parodied in a ''Comedy Inc.'' sketch where Hitler (who is silent and scowling through the entire thing) and an associate are speaking with a couple of book publishers about ''Mein Kampf''. Said publishers are concerned about the racism in the book and suggest either cutting it out or even releasing two versions, one "with the racism" and one "without the racism". The associate informs them that either alternative is unacceptable and the publishers reject the book. We then see Hitler writing down their names in a black notebook.

** Adolf Hitler is probably the only example on this page who actively needed editing help during his day-to-day activities. If it weren't for the fact that he lucked out by having such brilliant military strategists such as Erwin Rommel (who was later implicated in Hitler's assassination plot) or Otto Skorzeny the Germans may very well have been stopped at the French border, and if it weren't for being surrounded by other brilliant, evil men like Himmler and Goebbels, he probably would've ended his first year as Fuhrer being laughed out of Berlin. Nearly every time when Hitler himself actually called the shots, the results were disastrous.

* [[Jules Verne]] is probably one of the most glaring examples. As it turned out, Verne didn't really think much of humanity, and that bright and cheerful atmosphere and the belief in science that made his ''Voyages Extraordinaires'' series so popular in the world, were, in fact, mainly a product of pressure from members of his social circle, such as Nadar and his life-long friend and editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel. Hetzel, being Verne's ''publisher'', was in position to pressure his friend the most, and outright rejected a couple of Verne's especially bleak early novels <ref>These were later found in Verne's papers and published. One of them, ''Paris in the XX Century'', was so dark that it would've make any [[Cyberpunk]] author proud.</ref>, and heavily edited others. Verne, who was doubly not in position to argue <ref>He didn't want to fight with his newfound friend and, besides, he was nearly broke at the time so he couldn't afford losing royalties</ref>, complied, and thus the writing tandem was born. After Hetzel's death his successors weren't that insistive, and Verne's latest novels became increasingly dark and gloomy.

** Then again, [[Macekre|it didn't stop his works from getting pretty bad translations at first]].

* R.A. Salvatore is in an unusual state where he's both subject to this trope and strangled by [[Executive Meddling|the opposite]]. On the one hand, there's less and less oversight of the content and style of his ''Legend of Drizzt'' series, and quality has suffered grievously. On the other, his attempts to end the series were bluntly denied--he doesn't have the copyright, and his publishers [[Franchise Zombie|solicited another writer to continue the series]] before he backed down. One can't help but wonder if the recent [[Wallbanger|Wallbangers]] are deliberate attempts to wreck the series so he can move on.

 

 

* During the "[[New Hollywood]]" of 1970s cinema, the star power of directors like [[Francis Ford Coppola]] (who became a star with ''[[The Godfather]]'' and ''[[Apocalypse Now]]''), Michael Cimino (''[[The Deer Hunter]]''), [[Martin Scorsese]] (''Mean Streets'', ''[[Taxi Driver]]''), and [[Dennis Hopper]] (''[[Easy Rider]]'') all saw them [[Follow Up Failure|follow up with flops]], most being of the mega variety, due to studio execs leaving them alone in their creations -- Coppola tanked with lavish romance-musical ''One From The Heart'', Cimino with the disastrous [[The Western|Western]] epic ''[[Heaven's Gate]]'', Scorsese with the dark musical ''New York, New York'', and Dennis Hopper with the widely-derided ''The Last Movie''. Some of these films were such grand disasters that they almost [[Creator Killer|destroyed the careers of their creators]] (and, in the case of ''Heaven's Gate'', bankrupted entire film studios), and led to a backlash that saw the executives [[Blockbuster Age of Hollywood|firmly back in control]] by [[The Eighties]].

* [[George Lucas]] directed his most acclaimed films (e.g., ''[[American Graffiti]]'' and ''[[Star Wars]]'') under the financial constraint typically [[Executive Meddling|imposed]] on B pictures to ensure profitability. Twenty-two years later, Lucas returned to direct without fear of meddling, and gave the world [[The Scrappy|Jar-Jar Binks]], [[Romantic Plot Tumor|lines about hating sand]], and one of the [[Narm|most hated]] [[Big No|Big Nos]] in film history.

** It's worth noting that Lucas' biggest successes tend to involve co-writers, screenwriters who completely rewrite his draft script, directors who deliberately depart from the script in ways that makes scenes more meaningful - and which were written at a time when he was regularly bouncing ideas off his personal friends (who happened to include some guy whose last name was Coppola, and another guy named Spielberg). The movies generally seen as his worst creative disasters are the ones where he retained full written and directorial control, didn't discuss the scripts with anyone before filming them, and which were apparently written at a time in his life when he spent ''far'' more time worrying about how the special effects would work than things like, oh, quality dialogue, characterization, or meaningful themes.

** The Beatles gained a first-hand lesson in why this trope isn't such a great thing when they founded Apple. The initial idea for Apple was that it would be a place where people would be able to gain funding for their pet projects without having to debase themselves before "[[The Man]]", thus enabling the flower of creativity to blossom in all its glory (it was [[The Sixties]] -- there were lots of drugs), in a wide variety of fields -- art, film, literature and, of course, music being among them. Of course, this ultimately translated to every random drug-soaked yahoo with a half-baked idea bombarding their mail room with completely worthless and unpublishable drivel when they weren't camping out in their offices sponging off them, thus leading them to the brink of financial ruin. They eventually came to their senses, shut down pretty much everything and turned Apple into a smaller operation which handled their management and finances. That said, the Apple Records label wasn't without its successes, both Beatles-related and new discoveries, but then the Beatles ''were'' pretty good musicians and pretty capable of identifying same.

** In a more positive example, ''Sgt. Pepper'' could only have flown under the Beatles, too.

* [[Guns N' Roses]] is the musical king of this trope. ''Appetite for Destruction'' and "Lies" sold so well and made Guns N' Roses so big, they were given a lot more control over the follow-up album. That transformed into '''two''' albums, the ''Use Your Illusion'' duo, which saw release four years after ''Appetite''. Sales of that were enough to apparently let Geffen (their recording company) take as long as they wanted for the follow-up album. '''Seventeen years''' afterwards, we get ''Chinese Democracy''. Those three albums are considered to be bloated and very dense, and the latter is essentially one long [[Author Tract]] railing against anyone and everyone that ever tried to stand in the way of the ginger-haired tyrant.

 

== Video Games ==

 

* When ''[[Ren and Stimpy]]'' was brought back as ''Adult Party Cartoon'', John K. was mostly given this. (One episode was still yanked.) It became clear that wasn't a good thing, and the show was canned.

** After being fired for failure to deliver episodes on schedule, John K. called up many members of the production team to try to convince everyone to quit, ensuring the show would collapse without him. He wasn't promising to give them different jobs; he just wanted them to be unemployed with him. Voice actor Billy West was among those who liked having a job and would just as happily work under John K.'s replacement, and this has led to a fairly one-sided grudge against Billy West.