History Main / PopularityPolynomial

** From the late 1960s through the late '80s, animation's reputation in critical circles went into freefall. While animation was already declining in popularity through the '50s and much of the '60s as the medium migrated to television, the death of Creator/WaltDisney in 1966 marked a tipping point. With most of the biggest names in animation, including Disney, going through their own downturns in the '70s and '80s, the most successful animation came in the form of MerchandiseDriven {{Saturday Morning Cartoon}}s and the LimitedAnimation of Creator/HannaBarbera and their comtemporaries. The whole period is since as [[MediaNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation a dark age for animation]], and is credited as the reason why the AnimationAgeGhetto even exists.[[note]]None of this is to say ''no'' good programming came out of this era. Just that a lot of it was blatant toy commercials.[[/note]] The releases of ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'', as well as the rise of "creator-driven" television programming in the late 80s-early 90s is seen as the return of [[MediaNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation animation as an artform]].

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* ''Series/TheJoyOfPainting'' saw a major NewbieBoom 20 years after its cancellation and the death of its host, Bob Ross, after a wildly successful Website/{{Twitch}} marathon of the series in 2015. Both the show and Ross are more famous now than they ever were while the show was airing.

* Although [[AnyoneRememberPogs pogs]] remain a relic of not-so-distant history, through a strange sequence of events the term "pog" (or "poggers," or "poggies"), used to express excitement or triumph, sprang up among gamers and the younger generation late in TheNewTens. It comes from the Website/{{Twitch}} emote [="PogChamp,"=] which itself was copied from a video of two guys playing--you guessed it--[[https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/twitch-emotes/ pogs.]]

* Platform/{{Newgrounds}}, a landmark of internet comedy and animation in the late '90s and '00s, never fully adjusted to the rise of Platform/YouTube and social media. The new breed of live-action content creators and Internet celebrities seemed to leave Newgrounds, with its focus on Flash animation and games, destined for the same heap of old, forgotten websites as Website/{{YTMND}}, eBaum's World, and Website/MySpace, especially with the concurrent decline of Adobe Flash, the bedrock of much of the site's animation and games, in the 2010s, which wasn't supported by many tablets and smartphones. Then came 2018, when Website/{{Tumblr}} announced a controversial crackdown on NotSafeForWork content that set off an exodus of many of that site's artists. When Newgrounds announced that it would welcome artists leaving Tumblr, many of those artists listened, delivering a surge of new blood to the site. And then there were the breakout successes of works like ''VideoGame/FridayNightFunkin'', ''WebAnimation/SpookyMonth'', and ''VideoGame/DeadEstate'', which truly brought Newgrounds, especially ''VideoGame/{{Pico}}'', back into relevance for a new generation.

* During the early to mid-[[TheNewTens 2010s]], StorytimeAnimators were widespread on Website/YouTube, mainly due to the relatable nature of the stories and how much life was breathed into them through animation. However, in the late 2010s, storytime animators began to be oversaturated, with many believing that most of the channels made around this time were attempting to [[FollowTheLeader ape off the success]] of WebAnimation/JaidenAnimations and her more personal topics. Couple this with satirical spoofs of the genre from people such as Creator/SrPelo and WebVideo/TheCommentaryCommunity, and storytime animators ended up being viewed as a joke during the late 2010s and 2020, with only WebAnimation/TheOdd1sOut and Jaiden herself maintaining relevance, the former due to GrandfatherClause, and the latter due to her videos becoming more about video games. After the wake of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, however, most of the alleged copycat channels ended up going under, leaving behind only the storytime animators who actually put effort and personality into their content, such as WebAnimation/LetMeExplainStudios, WebAnimation/{{illymation}}, and WebAnimation/{{Emirichu}}, leading to the genre having a reevaluation and storytime animators subsequently going through a renaissance where people began to respect them once more.

* Adult-oriented comedies first took off in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with films like ''Film/AnimalHouse'', ''Film/TheKentuckyFriedMovie'', and ''Film/{{Porkys}}'' pushing major boundaries in terms of what constituted "good taste"[[note]]Although, technically, 1972's ''Film/PinkFlamingos'' still holds the record for "raunchiest movie ever made", and unlike most European comedies of the era, these had a plot and could be shown at a regular movie house.[[/note]] and becoming hit films in the process. Unfortunately, a saturation of films in the mid-'80s, many of which relied solely on VulgarHumor rather than witty writing, dissolved the genre just as ''Film/Ghostbusters1984'' and ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' led family-friendly humor to dominate comedy. During that time, the decidedly tamer comedy of "teen films" like ''Film/FerrisBuellersDayOff'' in the late '80s and some of the works of actors like [[Creator/PaulReubens Paul "Pee-Wee" Reubens]], Creator/JimCarrey, Creator/RobinWilliams, and Creator/AdamSandler became the norm for more mature audiences. However, ''Film/{{Clerks}}'' became a sleeper hit with its sardonic Gen X-fueled approach to adult humor and the gross-out comedy came back in 1998 when ''Film/TheresSomethingAboutMary'' became a surprise critical and commercial hit. The genre thrived for the next three or four years with such box-office bonanzas as ''Film/AmericanPie'' and ''Film/ScaryMovie''. While the new wave's over-emphasis on high school- and college-centered comedy (what with the audience for such movies moving on to adulthood), ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''' brand of humor influencing family films like ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'' and the popularity of the risqué sitcoms of Chuck Lorre threatened to dissolve the genre yet again, the films of Creator/JuddApatow, starting with the 2005 hit ''Film/TheFortyYearOldVirgin'', proved that such films could be just as popular with adults as with teenagers, even pre-teens, leading to a "golden age of the raunchy comedy" that peaked around 2007-2009. However, the genre fell apart around 2010 as some of its more common tropes began to attract negative attention, [[ValuesDissonance including some of the language used]]. The most successful "adult" comedy of the early '10s became 2012's ''Film/{{Ted}}'', and even its 2015 sequel tanked. However, by the latter part of the decade, films like ''Film/DaddysHome'', ''Film/{{Deadpool|2016}}'', ''WesternAnimation/SausageParty'', ''Film/MikeAndDaveNeedWeddingDates'' and ''Film/BadMoms'' (a DeconstructiveParody of the "chick-flick" subgenre popular during the early '10s) have successfully pushed the envelope by resorting on less juvenile humor.

** This also happens for games within the franchise.
*** ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'' had their fair share of fans back in the day, but their popularity shrunk pretty rapidly, only to be revitalized years later with their remakes, ''Omega Ruby'' and ''Alpha Sapphire''.
*** ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' were considered among the best games in the series upon release, then quickly fell out of favor due to how little they lent themselves to competitive battling and a controversial Pokédex, but then rose back into favor due to the backlash against the next few main games blatantly [[PanderingToTheBase pandering to nostalgic fans]] in the expense of new innovations like ''Black'' and ''White'' attempted.

* The original UsefulNotes/{{Dada}} movement of 1916 - which was based on violating conventions and depended on [[{{Troll}} confusing and upsetting audiences]] - [[ItsPopularNowItSucks died]] when [[MisaimedFandom people began enjoying it]], thus [[SpringtimeForHitler defeating its purpose]]. However, its influence can still be seen to this day: it contributed to the rise of {{postmodernism}}, and {{Spiritual Successor}}s such as YouTubePoop follow Dadaist ideology to a T.

* {{Superhero}} comics have been on this path for years. They were one of the few comic book genres that survived UsefulNotes/TheComicsCode, although they had to censor themselves, and were the more successful comics throughout the {{UsefulNotes/The Silver Age|Of Comic Books}} and {{UsefulNotes/The Bronze Age|Of Comic Books}}. During the later parts of the '80s, ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' was a successful deconstruction of the superhero genre, while ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'' and ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'' were grittier takes on ''Franchise/{{Batman}}''. Seeing this, many comics went DarkerAndEdgier, leading to the UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks. Unfortunately, most of the dark material, while popular at first, got old. UsefulNotes/TheGreatComicsCrashOf1996, caused by a number of factors (such as the bursting of the speculator bubble, the failure of ''ComicBook/DeathMate'', and the overuse of collectors editions/crisis crossovers), made many companies such as Creator/ValiantComics die, and even Creator/{{Marvel}} filed for bankruptcy. By 2001, comic book sales were only 67 million, their lower point in years. Marvel and DC focused on their movies, while Creator/DarkHorseComics and Creator/ImageComics focused on licensed and genre material. However, with the popularity of the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse and similar films, as well as lots of successful TV adaptations and new, diverse titles like ''[[ComicBook/MsMarvel2014 Ms. Marvel]]'' and ''ComicBook/{{Batgirl|2011}}'', superhero comic books have had a significant rebound.

* Disney has gone through ups and downs. During UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation, Disney's films were successes and set the industry standard. However, after the death of Creator/WaltDisney, the confused company released a string of weak, under-performing films in TheSeventies. By TheEighties, Disney was better known as a theme park operator than a filmmaker. However, in 1989, ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'', an animated film deliberately reminiscent of the Golden Age films of the 1940-50s, became an unexpected critical and commercial success and kicked off the [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation Disney Renaissance]] that lasted throughout the entire [[TheNineties Nineties]]. By the TurnOfTheMillennium though, audiences, tiring of the increasingly clichéd formula prevalent in these films, drifted towards the then-new AllCGICartoon popularized by Creator/{{Pixar}} and Creator/DreamWorksAnimation. Disney responded by shutting down their traditional animation studio and releasing a string of their own CGI animated films, few of which made much of an impact; even the traditionally-animated throwback ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'' and the well-received ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'' were only moderately successful. It wasn't until the double-whammy of 2012's ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'' followed by 2013's ultra-successful ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'' that Disney truly got back on top again.

* At its peak, ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'' was a franchise as big as the green ogre himself. The original ''WesternAnimation/Shrek1'' won the first Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2'' became one of the highest-grossing films at the time. After that, the franchise's formula quickly grew stale as [[FollowTheLeader it spawned a host of mediocre imitators]], which seeped back into ''Shrek'' itself with the poor reviews of ''WesternAnimation/ShrekTheThird''. This led to the downfall of ''Shrek''-style "snarky" animated movies and the rise of more drama-based animated movies such as ''WesternAnimation/{{How to Train Your Dragon|2010}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'' as well as the more irreverent humor Illumination Studios and the Warner Animation Group began to grow in popularity. For a while, the ''Shrek'' franchise was seen as a poorly-aged product of its time that relied too much on contemporary references, and the aforementioned mediocre imitators furthered the franchise's reputation as having ruined western cartoon movies. However, MemeticMutation led to an upsurge of ironic popularity for the ''Shrek'' series, which eventually grew into ''unironic'' popularity as its fans grew up and revisited the movies, and were able to appreciate them anew due to their wittiness, 2000s nostalgia, and hidden heartfelt themes underneath the snarkiness. As of the late [[TheNewTens 2010s]], while not to the level of the early [[TheNoughties 2000s]], the first two ''Shrek'' movies are well-liked and appreciated as modern classics, and ''WesternAnimation/ShrekForeverAfter'' has quite a few fans and defenders as well. In fact, it was this renewed unironic popularity (and there's its influence, for better or worse, on animated films in the 21st century) that made it the first animated film released in the 21st century, the first non {{Creator/Disney}} animated film and only the 2nd CGI animated film (after ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'') to be added into the UsefulNotes/NationalFilmRegistry in 2020. Furthermore, the fandom is so big that it even [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrek_fandom has its own page]] on Website/{{Wikipedia}}.

** The [[Franchise/UniversalHorror classic Universal monster movies]] were certainly big hits in the 1930s and early '40s, but after the release of ''Film/TheWolfMan1941'', they fell into an AudienceAlienatingEra that would last the rest of TheForties and well into TheFifties, with only a few bright spots (''Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon'', ''Film/ItCameFromOuterSpace'') as Creator/{{Universal}} struggled to adapt to the postwar boom of sci-fi horror. Then, in 1957, Universal released a large number of its classic horror films in a television package called ''Shock! Theater''. ''Shock!'' introduced the films to a new audience that could view them from the comfort of their homes, with the lovably campy assistance of various local {{Horror Host}}s, kicking off a "Monster Boom" craze that lasted well into TheSeventies and saw the monsters reach the height of their popularity and cultural presence. [[Film/HammerHorror Hammer Film Productions]] came along at almost the same time to produce lurid color remakes of the classic films, ensuring the monsters' legacies would live on and restoring glamour to the horror genre, which by that point had devolved into BMovie hell. To this day, even as new monsters, villains, and subgenres have risen to prominence, the Universal monsters are regarded as icons of the horror genre, with most takes on the basic monsters ([[ClassicalMovieVampire vampires]] and [[WolfMan werewolves]] especially) still referring back to films made during UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood, even if only to [[OurMonstersAreDifferent show themselves to be different]] from the 'Hollywood' version.

* The 1978 film ''Film/TheDeerHunter'' won five UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s, including Best Picture and Best Director for Creator/{{Michael Cimino|Director}}, and was acclaimed as one of the first great movies about UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar and the impact it had on the people who fought in it. Then Cimino went and [[CreatorKiller sank an entire studio (as well as his career)]] with his follow-up, the critically ravaged BoxOfficeBomb ''Film/HeavensGate''. The backlash against Cimino in the wake of ''Heaven's Gate'' was so severe that it stained the reputation of ''The Deer Hunter'' for quite some time. There was a period of time in the early-mid '80s when it was uncool in film critic circles to like that film, as many critics tried to explain how they'd been "suckered in" by Cimino. The [[http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=940CE4D61638F93AA25752C1A966948260 more charitable]] said that he'd made a DealWithTheDevil for its success, while others suggested that it was never any good in the first place and was popular more for its subject matter than anything.\\\

* The long-form MiniSeries in the U.S. In TheSeventies and TheEighties, this was seen as the premier format for high-quality television, with shows like ''Series/{{Roots|1977}}'', ''Series/JesusOfNazareth'', ''{{Series/V 1983}}'', and ''Rich Man, Poor Man'' allowing the networks and their writers to stretch their wings and bring Hollywood-level production values and big-name stars to the small screen. The then-Big Three networks would devote large chunks of their annual budget and UsefulNotes/{{sweeps}} time to air miniseries that could take up a whole week (or even more) of programming to keep audiences glued to the TV. By the mid-80s, the rise of cable television and home video eroded the ratings for subsequent miniseries, and the failure of ambitious and expensive epics ''Series/{{Amerika}}'' and ''[[Literature/TheWindsOfWarAndWarAndRemembrance War and Remembrance]]'' sullied the reputation of the format. By TheNineties, the quality of miniseries fell into the gutter as networks exploited the format as a UsefulNotes/{{sweeps}}-week RatingsStunt first and a method of storytelling second. The length of most miniseries also decreased, shrinking to just two parts and 4-5 hours, as networks grew more cost-conscious. By the TurnOfTheMillennium, a glut of crappy miniseries had virtually discredited the format.\\

* In TheSixties, the ''Series/Batman1966'' TV series starring Creator/AdamWest left [[AudienceColoringAdaptation an indelible mark]] on the character and the superhero genre in general, winning audiences over with its sense of humor and its LighterAndSofter tone. During UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks in the '80s and '90s, however, many comic book fans came to regard it as a symbol of everything wrong with UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}}, having taken ComicBook/{{Batman}} away from his roots as a hard-bitten VigilanteMan and [[BadassDecay turned him into a cuddly live-action cartoon]]. The fact that, [[ScrewedByTheLawyers for the longest time]], the only media available from the show was [[Film/BatmanTheMovie the incredibly campy movie]] meant that there was little way to challenge that judgment, nor was the fact that the widely-reviled ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'' drew heavily from the show for its style. Backlash against the Dark Age, West's own reemergence in pop culture late in his life, and the show finally getting released on home video in 2014 led to a slow but steady reevaluation of the show's merits, with many praising it as a hilarious AffectionateParody of the superhero genre that boasted a great cast.

* By the latter half of UsefulNotes/TheNew10s, Webcomic/RageComics had basically disappeared, and were widely accepted to have outright died out by the middle of the decade after being quickly and completely overtaken by "[[UsefulNotes/{{Dada}} dank memes]]". But since late 2020 - early 2021, Trollface has been fully revived in mainstream meme circles. But unlike the previous uses that treat him more as a character, later Trollface memes largely use edited versions of him as a reaction image (such as the "WebOriginal/{{Trollge}}"), fully lean into the InsaneTrollLogic associated with the character (i.e. "[[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cover-yourself-in-oil Cover Yourself in Oil]]"), or create outright disturbing versions of him (frequently treating it as a HumanoidAbomination attempting to take over the web), fitting with the aforementioned "dank memes". [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwF0sPym_9s These]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-qU7TUr74 videos]] go into more detail. Some other characters such as Derpina occasionally pop up in modern memes as well, although most of these are usually made to [[{{Retraux}} deliberately harken back]] to the mythical era of rage comics.

** From the late 1960s through the late '80s, animation's reputation in critical circles went into freefall. While animation was already declining in popularity through the '50s and much of the '60s as the medium migrated to television, the death of Creator/WaltDisney in 1966 marked a tipping point. With most of the biggest names in animation, including Disney, going through their own downturns in the '70s and '80s, the most successful animation came in the form of MerchandiseDriven {{Saturday Morning Cartoon}}s and the LimitedAnimation of Creator/HannaBarbera and their comtemporaries. The whole period is since as [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation a dark age for animation]], and is credited as the reason why the AnimationAgeGhetto even exists.[[note]]None of this is to say ''no'' good programming came out of this era. Just that a lot of it was blatant toy commercials.[[/note]] The releases of ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'', as well as the rise of "creator-driven" television programming in the late 80s-early 90s is seen as the return of [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation animation as an artform]].

* Website/{{Newgrounds}}, a landmark of internet comedy and animation in the late '90s and '00s, never fully adjusted to the rise of Website/YouTube and social media. The new breed of live-action content creators and Internet celebrities seemed to leave Newgrounds, with its focus on Flash animation and games, destined for the same heap of old, forgotten websites as Website/{{YTMND}}, eBaum's World, and Website/MySpace, especially with the concurrent decline of Adobe Flash, the bedrock of much of the site's animation and games, in the 2010s, which wasn't supported by many tablets and smartphones. Then came 2018, when Website/{{Tumblr}} announced a controversial crackdown on NotSafeForWork content that set off an exodus of many of that site's artists. When Newgrounds announced that it would welcome artists leaving Tumblr, many of those artists listened, delivering a surge of new blood to the site. And then there were the breakout successes of works like ''VideoGame/FridayNightFunkin'', ''WebAnimation/SpookyMonth'', and ''VideoGame/DeadEstate'', which truly brought Newgrounds, especially ''VideoGame/{{Pico}}'', back into relevance for a new generation.