Vegemite.

I agree completely. A couple of other examples come to mind . . .

Some years back, I went to a concert by jazz trumpeter Nicholas Payton, and came away hugely disappointed. Payton is good, and I own a couple of his albums, so what was the problem? In a word, Vegemite. The concert was advertised as a tribute to Louis Armstrong, my all-time favorite jazz performer, so I went in expecting Payton's group to be working in something approaching Armstrong's style. Instead, they performed tunes previously recorded by Armstrong, but did them in a post-bop style that was developed decades later. It was jarring. (As a side note, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon recorded an Armstrong tribute album last year called "Hello Pops", and it captures exactly the spirit I was looking for from Payton.)

Sondheim's "Into the Woods" (a show you know well) Vegemites itself. The first act works well as a self-contained unit, where by the end all the visible plotlines are resolved successfully and happily. Then, after intermission, all the rotten seeds planted in Act I sprout, and everything goes to hell. I've seen audience members react very badly to that.

I'd never thought about just why I disliked "Into the Woods", but you've put your finger on exactly what put me off it. Thanks for the aha! moment.

Yes, quite. I'm very fond of the first act of Into the Woods, as I'm very fond of Forum. I'm not that fond of the second act -- in many ways, it seems like a mean spirited send-up of the first act rather than logical conclusions (in other ways, it reaches the logical conclusions. The princes continuing to be jerks is wonderful. The Jack the Giant story not actually being over is also, taken by itself, wonderful. But the overall melange and the way certain characters get randomly killed off (or worse, killed for being sluts)...no.

Steven Brust's Teckla very much had a Vegemite problem the first time I read it. The first two novels in the series are witty adventure pieces about a clever, cynical assassin. The third novel...is different. And I -hated- it. On re-read, I was expecting the pace, and deliberately read it paired with Phoenix (which continues the story exactly where Teckla leaves off), and it was much more pleasant.

Funny - I had no problems with the second act of Into The Woods, but the second act of Sunday In The Park With George REALLY threw me the first time I saw it. It took me several rewatchings before it started to grow on me, and now I like it just as much as the first half, but I'm pretty sure I disliked it to strongly at first because it was completely unexpected.

(Into The Woods I basically spent the entire time going EEE IT'S A MUSICAL PLAYING WITH FAIRY TALES IT'S LIKE SOMEONE MADE SOMETHING JUST FOR ME THIS IS SO GREAT AND THEY LEFT IN THE BITS THAT ARE USUALLY SANITIZED OUT THIS IS BEAUTIFUL EEEEEEE. Heh.)

I've not seen _Into the Woods_, but I've tended to describe the movie _The Ruling Class_ as, "Okay, imagine you hired Spider Robinson to write a movie about the British nobility. Then, halfway through the project, you changed your mind and hired Harlan Ellison to finish the story."