As the great philosopher Rodney Dangerfield pointed out, some people “get no respect.” One would think after inventing a permanent part of pop culture for generations, one might finally be entitled to some respect. Even that’s not true. In fact, as these following 10 people show, sometimes one only gets properly celebrated after having their entire life destroyed.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Things Americans Get Wrong About Their Own History

10 Tony Kaye Went Down in American History X

Tony Kaye has good ideas. Most of them have nothing to do with American History X though. Previously known for directing music videos, American History X was Kaye’s chance to become a household star. The resulting film was a lauded triumph. The movie’s dark and mature tale of the glorification of violence led to cartoonish antics off screen.

The Oscar nominated finished product was unrecognizable from Kaye’s original vision. The first edit barely clocked in at 95 minutes. New Line Cinema insisted he recut. Kaye refused. To stretch out the run time and emotional weight, Edward Norton secretly inserted more clips of his performance. Kaye felt so betrayed he ordered his name be taken off the credits and replaced with the pseudonym “Humpty Dumpty”. Obviously not wanting their deft look on neo-Nazism to be associated with a clumsy egg, New Line kicked Kaye out. Accompanied by a priest, a rabbi, and a Tibetan monk, Kaye barged into the office demanding to be brought back on board. Sounding like a literal joke, the studio denied his request.

To besmirch the movie’s reputation, Kaye published full-page ads insulting Norton and the studio. Financially ruining himself, the 35 ads cost Kaye nearly 1 million dollars. Persona non grata in Hollywood, Kaye’s filmography afterwards is a scattershot collection of half-finished projects and moments of genius. 20 years later, Tony Kaye has never made a movie as celebrated as American History X. Because of American History X, he never will again.^[1]

9 Napoleon Dynamite Blew Up in Efren Ramirez’s Face

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The power of a fictional school president in a bizarre indie flick from 2004 corrupts bizarrely. Efren Ramirez has found moderate success over the years with the quirky movie Napoleon Dynamite and its short lived animated spinoff. He will always be most recognized as Pedro Sanchez, even if a lot of people cannot recognize Efren Ramirez.

Everything about Napoleon Dynamite’s success was unlikely. However, the most statistically improbable thing about the movie is that both of the main protagonists are sets of identical twins. Jon Heder and his brother Dan remained close during Napoeleon’s height. Efren and Carlos did not.

Wanting to cash in on the fame, Carlos crashed public appearances by posing as his brother. Likely overestimating the frequency of necessary Pedro sightings, Carlos says Efren sanctioned these hijinks when Efren was too busy to attend himself. Carlos has confessed that on at least one occasion he attended without Efren’s knowledge, “to get back at him for a personal matter which involved the girl I was dating at the time.” Neither Carlos or Efren have specified what Carlos meant by that. Luckily thanks to Napoleon Dynamite, Efren has a history of dealing with love triangles.

Efren’s subsequent behavior discounts Carlos theory that this was all in jest. Threatening to sue, Efren issued a cease-and-desist order. Carlos had to pay a 10 million dollar fine if he ever impersonated Pedro again. A rift enveloped the twins. Citing “the magnitude of Napoleon Dynamite and everything that has come along with it,” Carlos says the movie has ruined his life. The two have yet to reconcile.^[2]

8 Winifred Sackville Stoner Got No Poetic Justice

It is probably the first thing taught in United States History class, even if the author never is. Kindergartners can easily remember the dawn of European expansion in the Americas with the handy mnemonic “In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”. Winifred Sackville Stoner Jr would hate that people are still quoting her works. Her mother would love it.

Winifried Sackville Stoner Sr was more than your typical stage mom. Fluent in Esperanto, Winifred Stoner Sr. was convinced that the universal language was the best way to educate children. Paraded around the country, Stoner Sr trumpeted Stoner Jr as a child genius. It was hard to disagree. Remarkably, Stoner Jr was talking at one years old, writing at two, and typing at three. Like a lot of details about her prodigy years, Stoner Sr likely exaggerated some facts. Either way, her mother felt vindicated when Stoner Jr’s 1913 poem “History of the United States” earned the 12-year-old child acclaim.

Grown out of childhood, Stoner renounced her years as a prodigy, including her poetry. Looking back on her time in the spotlight, Stoner says her mother’s experiment damaged her for life. Isolated as a prodigy, Stoner rebelled by going through a series of terrible relationships. Her first disastrous marriage was to the 35-year-old French count, Charles de Bruche. Before Stoner Jr could divorce de Bruche, he supposedly died in a car accident in Mexico City. Her four other marriages were equally doomed, including an engagement to Woodrow Wilson’s former Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, a man more than twice her age. After faking his death, Charles de Bruche returned to try and blackmail Stoner as a bigamist. He had tried similar cons across Europe. For 50 years, she secluded herself from the public and marriage. In nineteen hundred eighty three, Stoner Jr. died lonely.^[3]

7 Philo Farnsworth Had Plenty of Reason to Hate Television

It took a lot of work to invent the greatest tool of laziness. Primitive cumbersome television models existed for years before Philo Farnsworth perfected the technology. Drudging up dirt on the gridlike pattern of his ranch, Farnsworth had a major breakthrough. By scanning an image line by line, one could broadcast a clear picture onto any screen. This idea was the literal groundwork for the 1927 “Television System” patent.

Four years earlier, Vladimir Zworykin patented a similar system. The key difference was that Zworykin’s machine did not work. That hitch did not bother David Sarnoff, head of radio behemoth RCA. Fearful of television’s competition to radio, Sarnoff tried to buy out Farnsworth’s superior technology. The Mormon farmer turned down the proposal. Sarnoff went to war. While suing Farnsworth for patent violation, Zworykin and Sarnoff sent spies to monitor him. Subterfuge was not far enough, so they simply released a line of TVs anyway without Farnsworth’s permission. RCA lost the suit and had to acknowledge Farnsworth owned the rights to the patent. It was a short lived victory. His patent expired in the mid40’s, missing television’s explosion by mere months.

After struggling for decades, he could finally relax and enjoy his invention. With a television in every home, he dreamed that people would “learn about each other.” His utopian vision turned to static. Viewing westerns and gameshows convinced him he “created kind of a monster, a way for people to waste a lot of their lives.” Farnsworth did not have much more life to waste. Stress from his squandered fortune caused a fatal bout of pneumonia. He was 64.^[4]

6 Robert Indiana Does Not Love “LOVE”

The simplest ideas are often the most popular. Perhaps no idea is simpler than LOVE. Robert Indiana’s iconic sculpture depicts a L supporting a leaning O stacked on top of a V and E. Like plenty of people, Robert Indiana feelings toward LOVE is complicated.

During the 1960s, Robert Indiana was primed to take over the Pop Art scene. Avoiding the sex and drugs associated with the movement, Indiana embraced the art-form’s ethos by stripping down ideas to their essence. The Museum of Modern Art thought this genre could translate to the limited space of a Christmas card. On a green and blue background, Indiana’s blocky red letters LOVE made their first appearance in 1965. It would not be the last. The image has been slapped on everything from t shirts, magnets, and a particularly popular series of postage stamps in the 1970’s.

Over the next few years, imitators popped up in cities around the world. Not wanting to disturb the simplicity of the design, Indiana did not put his signature anywhere on the piece. He was totally anonymous. With no recourse to sue for his art, Indiana barely turned a profit. Wrongly assuming he made a fortune, his fellow artists branded him a sell-out. Museums rejected his other work as too commercial. Excluded from the art world, he left New York. For the rest of his life, he isolated himself in the small coastal city of Vinalhaven, Maine. He hated his most famous creation. Robert Indiana wished he could have been known for more. Nevertheless, when it comes to an enormous artistic legacy, all you need is LOVE.^[5]

5 A Trip to the Moon Cratered George Melies’ Career

George Melies’ talent was literally out of this world. More than any of his peers, Melies understood the possibilities of film. Trained as a magician, Melies turned his sense of showmanship into surrealistic sketches that pioneered the basics of cinematic special effects. No film better showcased his revolutionary editing and framing techniques than 1902’s A Trip to the Moon. While the shot of a space capsule jutting out of the man in the moon’s eye is endlessly referenced, the other 14 minutes are equally dreamlike. Melies’ life was less whimsical.

A blockbuster in Europe, Melies planned on recouping his special effects laden production budget by distributing the movie in the United States. Like many other inventors before him, Thomas Edison stole Melies’ success. Bootlegs and pirated copies of the movie flooded the market. Using the same business model as those Transmorpher cash grabs, Edison directed his own knockoff film called A Trip to Mars to trick the audience into seeing his version. All of the royalties were funneled to Edison. Flushed with money from ripping off Melies’, Edison used his own production company to muscle Melies’ struggling Star Films into bankruptcy.

When World War One broke out, the neglected reels of Star Films were melted down to become soles for shoes. A large portion of Melies’ movies are now lost forever. Stripped of his rightful earnings and his greatest achievements, Melies spent the last few years selling toys in a train station. Even the father of modern cinema could not get a Hollywood ending.^[6]

4 Herman Melville was a Whale of a Failure

For Herman Melville, fame was as elusive as his titular white whale. The saddest part of Moby Dick’s rejection was that Melville had already known success. Both of his first two books, Typee, and Omoo, were instant hits. Churning out one adventure story per year, Melville was heralded as a great new voice in nautical yarns. In the vein of his other stories, Moby Dick was initially another rollicking tale of bold men braving the high seas. Then in 1849, he met Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter author was the first person to suggest the epic quest could work as an existentialist tome. Over the next two years, Melville studied philosophy and literature. In 1851, those years of introspection resulted in the Great American Novel.

Echoing the thoughts of many future high school students, readers at the time hated the book. Noted editor, Henry F. Chorley, of the London Athenaeum, called it “as much trash belonging to the worst school of Bedlam literature.” Critically and commercially a flop, the book only sold 3,000 copies. Complaining to Hawthorne, Melville said that “dollars damn me” Hawthorne ignored Melville’s pleas, and their friendship crumbled. Melville’s income and popularity sank faster than the Pequod. His follow-up, Pierre, was similarly dismissed. Dejected, the 33-year-old Melville basically retired from writing, only releasing the occasional poem over the next decades.

In 1867, Melville plunged further into alcoholism and depression when his oldest son killed himself. In 1891, the local newspaper summed up the tragic life of the notoriously longwinded author in just six lines. His obituary could not even get his name right. Though wrongfully called “Henry”, Melville’s name lives on.^[7]

3 Grant Wood Did Not Live the Simple Life

The parodies are almost as ubiquitous as the original. Through the hundreds of homages to American Gothic, the pitchfork wielding farmer and his wife have stood in for countless types of careers and relationships. Grant Wood never got to experience much of either.

Influenced by European tradition, Wood’s portfolio contains many exaggerated scenes of Iowa farmlife. Modeled after the local dentist Byron McKeeby and his sister, Nan, the couple in his most iconic work were filled with the same admiration of his town. Within weeks of its debut at the Art Institute of Chicago, the art world did not take it that way. Critics embraced the painting as a joke, a satirical take down of middle America. Wood regretted that interpretation, but went along with it as the painting’s popularity soared. Nan expressed similar discontent for the haggard stretched out face of the woman and the age gap in the relationship.

The troubled legacy extended to the world outside the painting. Internationally known as the personification of Midwestern values, Wood faced growing scrutiny about his bachelorhood. A closeted gay man, Wood claimed that he forwent marriage to take care of his sister and widowed mother. Unable to hide his sexuality, he got into a sham marriage in 1935. The marriage drained him emotionally, financially, and artistically. Wood refused to paint for years.

Outed in Time magazine, Wood was fired from teaching at the University of Iowa in 1941. His few remaining months were not much better. In 1942, Wood died from pancreatic cancer, a day before his 51st birthday.^[8]

2 A.A. Milne’s Story is Sadder than Eeyore’s

Winnie the Pooh is the essence of innocence. His origin is as lovable as he is. A.A. Milne told his son, Christopher Robin, fantastical adventures of the boy and his teddy bear. The only people who could possibly dislike Winnie the Pooh just happen to be everyone involved with making it.

Winnie the Pooh was far from A.A. Milne’s first story. All totaled, Milne wrote seven novels, five nonfiction books and 34 plays. Readers abandoned him when he did not write about Hundred Acres woods. Pigeonholed as a children’s writer, Milne hated the character, because he felt he could never fully write what he wanted to again. These limitations do not come close to his son’s existential crisis.

Despite entertaining millions of children, A.A. Milne was not as similarly affectionate with his only child. Locked in his office, A.A. Milne abandoned the real Christopher Robin most days in his office to write with the one in the book. As the namesake of the character, Christopher Robin could not escape the association. While attending boarding school in 1930, the other students constantly taunted him, physically and verbally.

After school, Christopher Robin struggled to find a job, in part because of depression from “the empty fame of being his son.” Much to his parent’s protest, the inspiration for one of children’s literature most wholesome characters fixed his sadness by having sex with his first cousin, Lesley de Selincourt. The schism in the family finally ruptured when Christopher Robin publicly announced he never felt close to his parents. Not really disproving his claim, his mom and dad cut off all ties. In the last fifteen years of her life, he only spoke to his mother once. Laying on her deathbed, his mother refused to see him.^[9]

1 George Ferris’ Wild Ride

What goes up must come down. If anybody would understand this, it would be George Ferris. With his eponymous invention, the Ferris Wheel, George Ferris has brought joy to thousands. The Ferris Wheel only brought him despair.

The Ferris Wheel was built out of spite. In 1891, Chicago needed an innovative display for their upcoming world’s fair. The director wanted something that could surpass the recently erected Eiffel Tower. Engineers around the country submitted proposals. Most of them amounted to constructing larger towers. The most creative was George Ferris’ unwieldy contraption of a series of carriages revolving every five minutes. Chicago dismissed the plan as structurally unsound. Ferris knew it could work. On Nov. 29, 1892, they made a deal. The World’s fair would display the prototype, but Ferris would have to fund it on his own. 29 weeks and $250,000 later, Ferris revealed his exhibition. Crowds adored it. George Ferris had reached his peak.

The downturn followed quickly. Amusement parks across the U.S. packaged their own models without compensating Ferris. For the next three years, Ferris fought against the imitators in court with little success. Falling deeper in debt, Ferris kept investing in bigger versions of his machine. Nobody was buying. With no money left, George’s wife divorced him in 1896, directly increasing his rampant alcoholism. Later that year, George Ferris died alone in Pittsburgh’s Mercy Hospital. Faced with a litany of medical issues, Ferris never sought help. He let himself succumb. He was 37. Nobody claimed his ashes for 15 months. 10 years later, his original Ferris Wheel went out too. Dismantled in bankruptcy court, the remnants were dynamited in 1906. The scraps of one of America’s greatest technical marvels were unceremoniously dumped in a landfill.^[10]

When you create something, no matter what it is, it’s natural to feel possessive of that thing. If it was something you thought up and brought to life, it’s literally yours. If that thing ends up in someone else’s hands, for whatever reason, it’s hard to watch that person make changes. Even the best-intentioned creator can fall victim to resentment or outright anger if their thing gets altered and adapted in a way they never intended. Once in a while they even hate what their work became.

10. Roald Dahl Hated the Willy Wonka Movie

Roald Dahl was what people in modern times might call “problematic.” The writer, most famous for his work Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was a known anti-Semite, given to racial stereotypes, and an adulterer. But he wrote some colorful prose, and that’s how most people remember him.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has been adapted to film more than once now but the most famous version, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, dates back to 1971 and Dahl was alive to see it happen.

Dahl had a laundry list of issues with the movie adaptation, starting with the change of name. He also notoriously disliked Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, despite most modern audiences finding it to be a perfect performance. Dahl hated Charlie in the movie, he hated the film’s score, and he hated pretty much all the changes to the original test. 

9. Legendary Animator Chuck Jones Hated Space Jam

For a certain group of people, the 1996 movie Space Jam is considered a classic. The melding of real life and classic Warner Brothers animation captured a lot of imaginations even if it wasn’t a critical favorite. It also wasn’t a favorite of animation icon Chuck Jones.

Jones was one of the founders of Warner’s cartoon empire and he along with a team of others, created Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and all the rest. He wrote and directed many of those classic cartoons over his 30 years working with Warner from 1933 to the 1960s.

Jones was once asked his opinion of Space Jam, something he’d never talked about publicly before, and his answer was unequivocal. “I thought it was terrible,” was the direct quote attributed to him. He felt the story was completely wrong and pointed out that Porky Pig would never claim to have wet himself. 

Jones also stated that Bugs Bunny would have never needed help to win a basketball game against aliens, either from other Looney Tunes or from Michal Jordan. And he would have ended it in under seven minutes.

8. Charles Schulz Hated the Name Peanuts

You may not think of the Peanuts franchise as a big deal these days, but it is. Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the gang have been around for decades and they have made a lasting cultural impact. The estimated worth of the property is over $17 billion. That’ll buy more than a few peanuts. 

The first Peanuts cartoon ran all the way back in 1950 but the creator, Charles Schulz, never planned it to be known as such. He didn’t pick the name Peanuts, had no input in using the name, and notoriously hated it.

Schulz named his comic strip Li’l Folks. He ran an older strip by that name and wanted to keep it. He thought it had some dignity which was his intention. The word “peanuts” implied something that lacked worth in his mind, and it’s true that we use the term in that way.

There already was a comic called Li’l Abner when the Peanuts debuted, and in the ‘30s there had been a different strip called Little Folks. Not wanting to deal with potential legal issues, a newspaper editor just picked the name Peanuts and ran with it before the first of Schulz’ strips was ever published. 

Schulz hated the name, but they refused to change it, so Schulz simply rolled with it, writing and drawing thousands of them under that name for the rest of his life.

7. TMNT Co-Creator Peter Laird Hated the 5th Turtle, Venus de Milo

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a part of pop culture for over 30 years now. Much of that time has been spent as a goofy children’s cartoon, even though the franchise was born from a violent comic book parody of the superhero comic universe. 

Along the various iterations and evolutions of the characters, several feature films have been made, various cartoon series’, video games and more. And somewhere along the way they even introduced another turtle.

In the late ’90s, one of the TV series introduced a fifth turtle, a female character named Venus de Milo. The character was short-lived, and no one was more relieved than Ninja Turtles co-creator Peter Laird who hated Venus. 

Laird did not have creative control of the characters or for most of what came from the turtles, so he could only offer opinions. His opinion on Venus was that having a female turtle was “creatively bankrupt.” He especially hated the idea that they could introduce a new turtle that just happened to have been created along with the other four, we just never saw it before.

When Laird worked on Turtle properties after the creation of Venus, no one could speak of her. It was actually a rule on set and director Kevin Munroe said in an interview once that they could not even joke about her around Laird; he hated the character just that much. 

6. The Live Action Dragonball Movie Was So Bad It Forced the Creator Out of Retirement

Critics and fans alike really hated Dragonball: Evolution, the live action movie based on popular anime Dragonball Z. That hate was felt especially strongly by original series creator Akira Toriyama who had stopped his series years earlier. After seeing the live action movie he was inspired to return to the franchise and start writing new Dragonball content because it made him so angry.

The terrible film is therefore seen as a good thing because it saved the franchise, which otherwise might have ended years earlier. The terrible live action film forced new content and gave fans what they really wanted. 

5. Paul Newman Paid for Ads to Keep People Away From One of His Movies

Some artists let their hate end with emotion. They’ll answer interview questions about how they didn’t like this or that and we get an amusing story about it. Not so for Paul Newman. The man was a go-getter and when it came to things he hated; he put in the effort to make them go away.

In 1954, Newman made his acting debut in a movie called The Silver Chalice. In later years he referred to it as the worst movie made in the entirety of the 1950s. He disliked it so much he went out of his way to get people to not watch it which arguably backfired poorly on him.

In 1963, the movie was going to be played on TV and Newman paid $1,200 to place ads in the local paper telling people to not watch it. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $12,000. The ads read “Paul Newman apologizes every night this week.” He also apparently screened the move at his home once for friends, but he handed out pots and wooden spoons so people could make noise to drown it out. It’s safe to say his dislike was a little tongue in cheek, but he really was unhappy with the movie. 

4. Don Henley Hates People Covering His Music

Don Henley, frontman of the Eagles, may not be well known to the younger generation but his influence certainly is. He’s behind some of the biggest songs in rock, and has been sampled by several more current artists including Frank Ocean. And it was Frank Ocean in particular Henley had a problem with.

Ocean’s mixtape track American Wedding sampled the Eagles hit Hotel California and Henley threatened to sue. He compared Ocean and artists like him to vandals who go into a museum to paint mustaches on other people’s art. 

Henley’s threats aren’t idle, either. He forced Okkervil River to take down a cover, one they had posted for free, of his track The End of Innocence. 

3. William Friedkin Hated The Exorcist Sequel

Legendary Exorcist director William Friedkin passed away in 2023 and he left behind a legacy of memorable films and equally memorable opinions. Friedkin never minced words and would often tell interviews about how much he disliked certain actors and films. He was also vocal about his dislike for the sequels to The Exorcist.

The first sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic, featured original actress Linda Blair, but it was received poorly by both audiences and critics for being an all around awful movie. Friedkin was quoted as calling the movie “an abomination” and an “f-ing disgrace.”

He said he thought the movie was the equivalent of someone taking a novel by Dickens and then turning it into a porno musical, which is a colorful critique if nothing else.  It wasn’t just the first sequel, either. In 2020, when rumors of a new Exorcist were circulating, he took to Twitter to say there wasn’t “enough money or motivation in the world” to get him to go back to the franchise. 

2. Writer Michael Ende Hated What They Did to The Neverending Story 

Michael Ende wrote The Neverending Story in 1979. It became the basis for one of the most popular fantasy films of the ‘80s, and a movie that is still beloved today. Beloved by many but definitely not Ende.

Ende was clearly very attached to his work and agreed to a deal with a filmmaker after working out a vision for the movie. He was even promised a high level of control over casting and production. 

Things fell apart for Ende soon after the deal began. The movie rights were sold to someone else. One day he received a message asking if he liked the new script, something he had never even heard about. 

The new script was something Ende hated but the production company threatened to sue him if he hampered production. He was left with little recourse. He tried to sue the filmmakers and felt they had changed the entire story in their new version. He demanded they either stop making the movie or change the name. Neither thing happened, so he had his own name removed from the credits.

1. Clive Barker Disowned Hellraiser: Revelations in No Uncertain Terms

Hellraiser has been one of the most enduring horror movie franchises, right up there with Halloween or Nightmare on Elm Street. The first film, written and directed by author Clive Barker, was based on his own short story The Hellbound Heart and introduced the character of Pinhead to audiences, though Barker never called him Pinhead in his own work.

After part one, the movies were no longer in Barker’s hands, and the franchise grew. It also grew notoriously bad. Towards the end of the franchise’s run with the original actor playing Pinhead, the sequels were heavily derided. 

It became common knowledge that the studio was producing terrible movies on purpose because they needed to make movies to legally retain the rights. If they didn’t make a movie within so many years of the previous film, the rights would switch to someone else. 

The strategy of churning out films resulted in several notoriously bad movies. The awfulness really seemed to culminate with 2011’s Hellraiser: Revelations, which was allegedly filmed in only a matter of weeks and didn’t include Pinhead actor Doug Bradley at all.

Clive Barker made a very brief statement about the movie on his Twitter account after it was advertised as having come from the mind of Clive Barker. Barker said, and this is a direct albeit censored quote, “I have NOTHING to do with the f***** thing. If they claim it’s from the mind of Clive Barker, it’s a lie. It’s not even from my butt-hole.”

In this chaotic world, one can always seek comfort in the warmth of whimsy. Innocent icons are fondly looked upon as one of the few things incorruptible. The problem is that these works are made by people. People are rarely incorruptible. The following 10 people show how artists in fields as charming as poetry or as playful as toys have hid behind their public reputation to be less than scrupulous.

Top 10 Gruesome Fairy Tale Origins

10 Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen wrote down two things, children stories and records of every time he masturbated. Thankfully, the two never overlapped. In his professional life, the man behind fairytales like “The Little Mermaid” and “The Snow Queen” remained pure. Outside of that, he challenged to contain his sexual urges. To control his desires, he masturbated with such regularity that he developed “penis sores.” Debauched accounts of every instance of onanism filled his diaries.

Outside of chronic masturbation, his life was remarkably chaste. Like his titular creation, Andersen considered himself an ugly duckling. Terribly afraid of sex, he could only fantasize about unreciprocated crushes on both men and women. He likely died a virgin. The closest he came to having sex was when he hired prostitutes. Even that transaction was still chaste. They were only employed to talk to him. When the conversation ended, he excused himself to, as Elsa would say, “let it go”.

9 Xavier Roberts

Xavier Roberts’ signature is more famous than the name it stands for. His cursive autograph rests on the foot of every Cabbage Patch Kid. In the 1980’s, parents rioted to get the latest must-have Christmas gift. Off the success of the unrivaled phenomenon, Roberts racked in a fortune. The women who conceived the idea made nothing.

Outside of tales of following an enchanted BunnyBee to a vegetable patch, Roberts was never candid about the dolls’ origin. He consistently opined that the toys were tokens in honor of the quilted dolls his mother used. This story was a concocted public relations stunt. The truth is simpler. He bought one of Martha Nelson Thomas’ Doll Babies at a craft show.

Many traits later found in Cabbage Patch Kids originated in Doll Babies, like the shriveled infant face or accompanying adoption papers and information sheets listing their interests. Thomas treated her dolls as people with individual personalities. They could not be besmirched with any insignia, even a copyright symbol. Roberts had no similar qualm.

Thomas eventually sued Roberts for intellectual property theft. Thomas cared little about the undisclosed amount of money earned in the settlement. She just wanted Roberts to admit that she was the toy’s true creator. Begrudgingly, he confessed the truth.

8 Lisa Frank

It was almost too sweet. Saccharine scenes of unicorns jumping over rainbows to share ice cream cones with dolphins were bound to hide something nefarious. Lisa Frank, the company, is beloved. Lisa Frank, the person, is hated.

In the height of the sticker fad, the need to maintain production fostered a toxic corporate climate. Former employees compared the working conditions to everything from an “abusive alcoholic home” to the “Rainbow Gulag” to, bluntly, “the world’s shi**iest employer.” Lisa Frank heavily restricted her employees’ rights. Visitors were forbidden from the office. Banned from speaking to their coworkers, the staff worked in complete silence. Frank secretly recorded employees’ calls to make sure they followed her demands.

Disobedient employees were verbally abused by Frank’s husband and CEO James Green. In cocaine rattled tirades, Green belittled the staff. When name calling was not enough, Green resorted to throwing chairs, padlocking employees in their office, or threatening their lives. With the smallest infraction to justify firing, Green withheld worker’s severance packages and unemployment benefits. A collective action eventually forced them to maintain this minimal right. Free from their contracts, the workforce left en masse. They deserved the break.

7 Robert Frost

Robert Frost’s poems are as modest as the winter trees he elegizes. Frost was not as pristine as fallen snow. Two roads diverged in the woods. He took the one less traveled, the road of being a vindictive jerk.

Fellow poets bore the brunt of Frost’s jealousy. Simultaneously assured that no rival could compare to his mastery and fearful of challengers, he heckled burgeoning poets during their readings. To distract one of Archibald MacLeish’s recitation, Frost lit a small fire in the back. When confronting the would-be arsonist, Bernard DeVoto told Frost, “You’re a good poet, Robert, but you’re a bad man.” Frost did not really disprove DeVoto’s accurate summary, once he spread rumors that DeVoto was mentally challenged. After similar provocation from Truman Capote, Frost forced the New Yorker to fire the cub reporter Capote.

Frost’s propensity for grudges was equally disastrous in his personal life. His own marriage was jeopardized after falsely accusing his wife of having an affair. One night he woke his children to warn them he was about to kill him and their mother. Luckily, he did not follow through on his threat.

6 Northern Calloway

On rare occasions, Sesame Street cannot chase the clouds away. In 1982, shopkeeper Mr. Hooper’s death darkened Jim Henson’s village. The episode is heralded for its deft handling of grief. The next shopkeeper gave the audience another reason to mourn.

In the show, Mr. Hooper’s store responsibilities were handed over to Northern Calloway’s David. As a beloved mainstay of the show, Calloway earned a lot of good will over his eighteen year tenure. In exchange, Sesame Street tolerated his escalating chaotic behavior.

In the early 1980’s, Calloway rampaged through the streets of Nashville. The pantsless entertainer bashed in car windows with an iron rod. In 1989, Calloway’s mental deterioration was evident. Executives fired him after biting music director Danny Epstein’s ear. The final straw was harassing teenage actress Alison Bartlett. As a result, he was sent to Stony Lodge Psychiatric Hospital. While resisting his caretakers’ restraints, Calloway had a seizure. The subsequent cardiac arrest killed the 41-year-old actor.

5 Thomas Kinkade

Thomas Kinkade, “The Painter of Light” desired to shine “God’s light” in a secular artworld. Critics dismissed his kitschy pastoral landscapes as filled with more trees than artistic merit. The American public disagreed. Millions of knick-knacks sported Kinkade’s designs. The popularity financed a destructive drinking career. That light casts a dark shadow.

Kinkade was a fraud that inflated his sales figures to trick gallery owners to invest with him. Operators displayed Kinkade’s work falsely believing their value was secure. It was not. In early 2002, his stock value fell from $25 to $3 dollars. While the investors went bankrupt, Kinkade’s personal wealth was unaffected.

The millions in royalties fueled drunken escapades. Disastrous incidents include storming the stage of a Siegfried & Roy performance or urinating on a Winnie the Pooh statute at Disneyland. Worst of all, multiple female fans accused him of groping them without their consent. When he drank himself into a temporary coma, his family held an intervention about his alcoholism. Doctors feared that if he did not control his drinking, he would die. After mixing valium with liquor, that is exactly what happened. He was 54.

4 Bing Crosby

Few names more evoke the wistful yearning of the Christmas carol than Bing Crosby. Immortal standards like “White Christmas,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” or the ill-conceived duet with David Bowie, “The Little Drummer Boy” are forever associated with the crooner. His kids likely wished he did not make it home for the holidays.

Worried his wealth would spoil his sons, Bing imposed a strict regimen of acceptable behavior. The corporal punishment was borderline torturous. Each week, Bing placed his sons on a scale. If their weight was above their father’s arbitrary standard, Bing beat them with sticks until they bled. To stay in line with the dietary rules, son Philip occasionally forwent breakfast. One time, Phillip hid his eggs and bacon under a rug. Bing fished the meal off the floor and forced Phillip to eat it, “dirt, hairs, and all.” The boys were sometimes compelled to wear their dirty underwear around their faces until they went to bed in a practice so common it was nicknamed, “the Crosby lavalier.”

The humiliation wore down the family. Their days were not merry and bright. Unable to prevent the scolding, wife Dixie turned to alcoholism. All four sons eventually did as well. One son regularly checked himself into mental institutions for treatments. Another two faced their depression by killing themselves.

3 Marvin Glass

Marvin Glass created three main products: Mouse Trap, a toy where convoluted contraptions ensnare unwilling participants, Operation, a game focused on human anatomy, and Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, a toy built around confrontation. One could say a lot about Glass, but they cannot deny the man put his life into his work.

Obsessive over his board game empire, Glass decked his house with the latest tools in home security. Windows were bolted and triple locked. Cameras recorded anyone who approached his home on close circuit television. Armed guards were stationed around the clock. Paranoia turned him into a reclusive shut-in.

The delusion did not impede his social life. Modeled after friend Hugh Hefner’s notorious Playboy Mansion, his manor constantly hosted orgies. Not all of the encounters were consensual. Glass had a pattern of “manipulative and predatory” behavior. He often cajoled woman to have sex with him by claiming it was the only way to prevent him from committing suicide. It probably did, temporarily, help relieve his depression. Glass brought joy to millions. To many, including himself, he did not.

2 Dr. Seuss

You’re a mean one Mr. Geisel. Theodore Geisel, better known under his pseudonym Dr. Seuss, entertained generations of children with whimsical tales. The nonsensical rhymes were a collaborative effort between him and his wife, Helen Palmer Geisel. Curiously, Theodore co-wrote these charming stories without particularly caring for his market demographic. Helen was consumed with wanting kids.

A lifelong victim of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that causes paralysis and tingling, Helen thought she could finally find comfort as a mother. At 33, Helen was hospitalized with abdominal pains. The doctors treated her by removing her ovaries. The operation ensured she could never conceive her own children.

Infertility threw Helen into a depression. The emotional turmoil exacerbated her already debilitating condition. She then learned an even worst heartbreak. Unable to keep his wocket in his pocket, Theodore cheated on Helen after 41 years of marriage with the married Audrey Diamond. In 1967, Helen purposely overdosed on nearly 300 pills. Her suicide note blamed Theodore for the despair he put her through. He did not change his poor behavior towards women. A year after Helen’s death, Seuss married Audrey Diamond on the condition that she cut off contact to her then-husband and children.

1 Peter Robbins

The judge warned him to not be a “blockhead.” Peter Robbins appreciated the nod to his earlier fame. He did not heed the advice. In the 1960’s, Robbins voiced the iconic Charlie Brown in the “Peanuts’” most celebrated productions. He played the titular role in holiday staples, A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. When puberty hit, the acting roles vanished. He had little options left.

In 2013, Robbins’ girlfriend, Shawna Kern, dumped him. He felt betrayed after just paying for her to get breast implant surgery. In a fury, he abused both her and their dog, a move Snoopy would surely condemn. She fled for her safety.

Banned from contacting Kern, Robbins started stalking her. Kern’s phone rang for hours with Robbins threats on the other line. He grew obsessed with Lori Saltz, the plastic surgeon who performed the procedure that Robbins saw as the reason behind the breakup. When the police investigated the couple for domestic abuse, Robbins hired a hitman to try to murder the local sheriff. He was sentenced to one year in jail before the plan was acted upon. By 2015, he was back in courtroom for violating his probation. Due to increasing signs of bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia, he was transferred to a psychiatric hospital instead. His luck with animated footballs was the first indication that he could never learn from his mistakes.

10 Family-Unfriendly Facts From The Life Of Dr. Seuss

About The Author: Nate Yungman was just having wholesome fun with this article. If you thought he rocked it, you can follow him on twitter @nateyungman. If you want to sock him, you can email any questions of comments to [email protected]