History Main / WhatCouldHaveBeen

* At Walt Disney World in Florida, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_River_Expedition Western River Expedition]] was intended as the Wild West version of Pirates of the Caribbean and was to be exclusive to the park, thus making the California park the only one with the pirates. But early visitors to the Magic Kingdom were upset that Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't included in the lineup, so getting a Florida version of Pirates up and running became top priority, and the new ride never came to pass. Some ideas developed for this one later appeared in the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster.

[[folder: Theme Parks]]
* There are ''oodles'' of these for the DisneyThemeParks. Just a few examples:
** ''TheHauntedMansion'' went through several different ideas. Early concepts included a hangout for horror-themed Disney villains, like the LonesomeGhosts and [[TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad the Headless Horseman]], having a Raven narrate the ride (abandoned when it was decided the Ghost Host would work better), and a Hatbox Ghost which carried around a severed head as a character (ditched due to the Imagineers deciding it didn't look good enough).
** Not to mention the original concepts from the 1950's, which included several much darker walkthrough attractions, a version where Walt himself narrated and several very long illusions, including a ghost flooding a room.
** At Walt Disney World in Florida, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_River_Expedition Western River Expedition]] was intended as the Wild West version of Pirates of the Caribbean and was to be exclusive to the park, thus making the California park the only one with the pirates. But early visitors to the Magic Kingdom were upset that Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't included in the lineup, so getting a Florida version of Pirates up and running became top priority, and the new ride never came to pass.
** Several more countries were considered for Epcot's World Showcase, including a country from Africa. This one was scrapped because the only country willing to back it was South Africa, which was under apartheid in the 1980s.
*** Scrapped attractions for World Showcase included boat-based rides for Germany and Italy. ''Meet the World'', an Audio-Animatronic show retelling the history of Japan, made it as far as its show building going up -- but since it glossed over World War II Disney executives feared it would offend Americans (especially veterans). The show did successfully make it into the original Tokyo Disneyland lineup.
*** Japan was also originally going to have a ride of some sort. Possibilities include a Mt. Fuji roller coaster (supposedly scrapped because of Fuji Film, and Kodak sponsoring other rides...seriously), and a Circlevision (similar to what Canada and China has) train ride which would've possibly been attacked by Godzilla.
** Plans for Disney's Hollywood Studios (then Disney-MGM Studios) included some ''WhoFramedRogerRabbit''-themed attractions (cancelled due to legal issues), a {{Muppet}} version of The Great Movie Ride (cancelled due to Jim Henson's death) and a ''DickTracy'' ride (cancelled due to the film's underwhelming box office).
*** Originally, much more of The Great Movie Ride would have been based around ''TheWizardOfOz'' -- riders would be "swept away" by the tornado to Munchkinland, and the final room would be the Wizard's chamber, in which he introduced the closing {{Montage}} of great film moments. Because Ted Turner (the movie's rights-holder) stipulated that only so much time could be given over to ''Oz'' scenes, the tornado was replaced by a ''{{Fantasia}}'' segment, and the final room became nondescript.
* Graphic artist and designer Roger Dean, best known for his work on album covers and stage designs for the progressive rock band {{Yes}}, designed several theme park attractions with his brother Martyn which were never used. The sketches appear in his book ''Magnetic Storm.''

** ''Eclipse'' was planned as Cirque's first tour after their breakthrough ''Le Cirque Reinvente'' (1987), and it reached the workshop stage. But many ''Reinvente'' performers wanted to be in it while Cirque co-founder Guy Laliberte wanted to cast a new lineup. Plus, the company's artistic director Guy Caron objected to Cirque becoming a for-profit organization and parted ways with it (he'd return to direct ''Dralion'' in 1999); several performers followed suit, ''and'' financing fell through. Some of the ideas developed and performers recruited for ''Eclipse'' ultimately appeared in 1990's ''Nouvelle Experience'', and "Eclipse" is the title of one of its underscore numbers.

** Casino mogul Steve Wynn wanted Cirque to stage a giant outdoor aquacade stunt show for his new Bellagio Hotel and Casino -- they quickly scaled it down into the show that became ''"O"'' (1998). Initially, it was to have given equal time to both water and fire-based acts, but the latter element only appears in one segment in the finished production. (Notably, the later Vegas production ''KA'' (2005) has a fire motif.)
** Plans for a VarietyShow variant to set up residency in Macau, China were scrapped after the "traditional" show ''ZAIA'' (2008) opened to weak ticket sales.

** ''Banana Shpeel'' (2010) was originally going to be a hybrid of the company's house style, {{Vaudeville}}, and TheMusical, befitting its off-Broadway theater venue. The third style was dropped when the storyline threatened to overshadow the different variety/comedy acts intended as the show's backbone, and among the characters (and performers) dropped were [[Main/RomanticPlotTumor a romantic couple]]. This happened so late in the show's development that one of the dropped musical numbers, led by the axed couple, had already been featured in the preview of the show that appeared in the 2009 season finale of ''America's Got Talent''. Details [[http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/the_theater_loop/2009/11/banana-shpeel-cirque-du-soleil-slides-into-world-of-legitimate-theater-.html here]]. In the wake of the poorly-reviewed Chicago tryout run, enough changes were implemented to the point that the New York opening was delayed three-plus months. It wound up closing early, rendering the show a DorkAge for the moment (it's going to tour).
** While the JukeboxMusical variant ''Viva Elvis'' (2010) made it to the stage of the Aria Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the plans for a similar European tour based around ElvisPresley's work never panned out.
** Probably due (in part) to the ongoing global recession, a Dubai resident show was cancelled.

*** After Burton's death, [[{{Primus}} Les Claypool]] auditioned to play bass with Metallica. James Hetfield would later say he didn't get the job because "he was too good" and "should do his own thing".

** ''Banana Shpeel'' (2010) was originally going to be a hybrid of the company's house style, {{Vaudeville}}, and TheMusical, befitting its off-Broadway theater venue. The third style was dropped when the storyline threatened to overshadow the different acrobatic, dance, and comedy acts intended as the show's backbone, and among the characters (and performers) dropped were [[Main/RomanticPlotTumor a romantic couple]]. This happened so late in the show's development that one of the dropped musical numbers, led by the axed couple, was featured in the preview of the show that appeared in the 2009 season finale of ''America's Got Talent''. Details [[http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/the_theater_loop/2009/11/banana-shpeel-cirque-du-soleil-slides-into-world-of-legitimate-theater-.html here]]. In the wake of the poorly-reviewed Chicago tryout run, enough changes were implemented to the point that the New York opening was delayed three-plus months. It wound up closing early, rendering the show a DorkAge for the moment (it's going to tour).
** While the JukeboxMusical variant ''Viva Elvis'' (2010) made it to the stage of the Aria Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the plans for a similar European tour based around ElvisPresley's work never panned out.

** ''TheHauntedMansion'' went through several different ideas. Early concepts included a hangout for horror-themed Disney villains, like [[ClassicDisneyShorts the Lonesome Ghosts]] and [[TheAdventuresOfIchabodAndMrToad the Headless Horseman]], having a Raven narrate the ride, and a Hatbox Ghost which carried around a severed head as a character.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* This is, as can be seen below, the entire point of AlternateHistory.
* In both the book and the series ''Cosmos'', astronomer Carl Sagan expresses his regret and frustration about how science, after being born before 500 AD and flourishing, soon became an ivory-tower intellectual thing which did not get shared, didn't improve the lives of the people, and was swallowed and scorned by superstition. Science died for a thousand years with the burning of the Library of Alexandria, which in both the book and the series he mourns with a quiet, heartfelt intensity.
--> "It was as if the entire civilization had undergone some self-inflicted brain surgery, and most of its memories, discoveries, and passions were extinguished irrevocably. The loss was incalculable. In some cases, we know only the tantalizing titles of the works that were destroyed. In most cases, we know neither the titles nor the authors. We do know that of the 123 plays of Sophocles in the Library, only seven survived. One of those seven is ''Oedipus Rex''. Similar numbers apply to the works of Aeschylus and Euripides. It is a little as if the only surviving works of a man named WilliamShakespeare were ''Coriolanus'' and ''A Winter's Tale'', but we had heard that he had written certain other plays, unknown to us but apparently prized in his time, works entitled ''{{Hamlet}}'', ''{{Macbeth}}'', ''JuliusCaesar'', ''KingLear'', ''RomeoAndJuliet''."
** He also speculates about what humanity could have been like if the Library had flourished and the Dark Ages had never come, about whether we'd be starborne by now.
** It should be noted that Carl Sagan was not a historian, but a hard scientist. While much of what he says is true, and much was lost, there was science going on the entire time, much in the middle and near east, while even the west had some science the entire time that suffered under lack of resources and how bad the plagues hit Europe in 542.
* If AdolfHitler got that job as a painter, [[{{Understatement}} things would be a lot happier]].
** Shame about the lack of talent then.
** [[{{CompletelyMissingThePoint}} Are you kidding? His art was terrible!]]
*** [[EddieIzzard "I can't get the fucking trees right...damn, I shall kill everyone in the world!"]]
*** [[TheProducers "He could paint an entire room in a half hour, two coats."]]
** Of course, WorldWarOne would have still ended the same way, the Germans would still have been pissed at the Treaty of Versailles, and instead of Hitler it probably would have been somebody else. It would be even more interesting if the Archduke of Austria-Hungary had never been assassinated, which was what caused WorldWarOne and in turn set the events in motion for WorldWarTwo.
*** On that note, if Britain and France had listened to Woodrow Wilson and gone with his Fourteen Points, World War II would probably have never happened. Then again, the USSR was still around... Also, on that note, if the US had listened to Wilson and joined the League of Nations, the beginning of World War II would have been very different.
**** But if Wilson hadn't dragged the United States into World War I, the Allies and Central Powers would have likely fought to a bloody standstill, thereby necessitating a negotiated peace. Instead, what the world got were reparations against Germany that ruined its economy and set the stage for Hitler, as well as the creation of nation-states consisting of groups of people that hated each other's guts (Iraq, Yugoslavia). Also, Wilson's insistence that Russia continue to fight on the Eastern Front destroyed Russian morale at home, setting the stage for Lenin, Stalin, and a 74-year nightmare.
**** [[SarcasmMode Yes, because we all know the bastion of efficiency and peace that the U.N. (basically a League of Nations that the U.S did join) has been.]]
** If Franz Ferdinand had become Emperor he could have completed his dream of transforming the Austria-Hungarian Empire into the United States of Greater Austria through a series of political reforms. This would have served the dual purposed of keeping the Empire together by giving the subject peoples a say in the parliament and giving a reason for the absorption of new overseas and southern European territories into the Empire as full members. This could have possibly averted the Balkan conflict that started the war.
*** Germany could have still lost the first World War, but had the war not been drawn out as long as it was, the Kaiser might still have retained power. The same goes for Tsar in Russia.
**** If the Archduke was not assassinated, why would 'the First World War' break out in what appears to be the exact same fashion as it did historically, only a few years later?
***** It wouldn't have broken out in exactly the same fashion, but it would almost certainly have exploded sooner or later. The unhappy fact is that Europe was basically divided into two armed camps eyeing each other narrowly, and that, as incredible as it seems to us nearly a century later, a lot of people ''wanted'' a war. There were several crises already that could have sparked a general war (Dogger Bank and Morocco, for example), and if Franz Ferdinand had lived to ascend the throne, it can't be assumed that he would have been left to reign in peace. (Among other things, the Hungarian aristocracy was bitterly opposed to Franz Ferdinand's plans for reform, as it would have significantly reduced their power over their portion of the Empire, much of which was comprised of the very minority groups that the Archduke wanted to raise up. At least one timeline on http://www.alternatehistory.com posits just such a scenario where the Magyar nobles rise in rebellion against Emperor Franz Ferdinand in the context of an alternate World War I.
*** What job as a painter [[DidNotDoTheResearch are you talking about]]? There was one instance where he applied to join a choir and was accepted, but he couldn't afford to buy a choir uniform. He did have [[http://www.hitler.org/art/flowers/ some]] [[http://www.hitler.org/art/buildings/ talent]] as a [[http://www.hitler.org/art/landscapes/ painter]], the talk about a lack of talent is born from the dogma that you can't say anything even remotely positive in regards to [[TheScrappy Hitler]].
**** Hitler's work in terms of architecture and perspective when it comes to buildings is actually very good. If I remember correctly, the Vienna Academy of Arts turned him down because his drawings of the human figure were little better than stick figures. Imagine: The history of the world changing if only Hitler had spent a bit more time sketching artistic nudity.
***** Or paid more attention in secondary school instead of acting out, and been able to go to a proper architectural school. He was offered a job working with a popular operatic producer of the time, but thought he wasn't good enough. It's really a bit InSpiteOfANail. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Imagine]]: The Hitler Viennese Opera, famed through the world for its brilliantly designed facade and stage of some of the greatest troups to tour Europe [[MoodWhiplash instead of millions upon millions dead and several hundred holocaust museums]].
***** If the Western Allies aren't as racist in their treatment towards Japan after the War, Japan might have been a little nicer afterwards.
***** Japan had an extreme militaristic stance. During WWII, the Emperor was imprisoned in his own home while the military controlled everything. I doubt they would have been nicer when you factor in the growing military industrial complex that wanted to take over China and Korea along with the rest of Asia.
***** Japanese had a warrior mentality before and during WorldWarTwo. It was basically Real Life Klingons (TNG). They had diplomats in DC in peace talks while at the same time flying to bomb PearlHarbor. They were trying to firebomb the pacific northwest with thousands of balloon bombs. And we were taking an isolationist stance at the time. Whatever you can say about the U.S. propaganda of the day (-after- they attacked us first), the Japanese were quite racist in their own right (before -and- after PearlHarbor).
* Many people know that in the 1800 election, ThomasJefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr tied 73-73 in the Electoral College, forcing a run-off election in the House of Representatives and the electoral system to be redesigned for the 1804 election. Fewer people know that the initial result in 1800 was in fact 74-72 in Burr's favor, because an elector from New York cast both of his votes for Burr, apparently on purpose. Moreover, voting twice for the same person was in fact perfectly legal, and it was only because of a loophole in the Constitution that the New York legislature was able to strike down the second vote for Burr and re-assign it to Jefferson. This loophole relied on the fact that both Burr and the elector were from New York, however - if the elector had come from a different state to Burr then there would have been absolutely nothing to prevent him from becoming President (short of him refusing to be sworn in), and a Burr administration would likely have drastically reshaped the country's early history.
** Samuel J. Tilden and Al Gore both won the Popular Vote, yet lost in the Electoral College. Had the college never been instituted in the first place, this would mean that RutherfordBHayes and GeorgeWBush would never have been elected.
*** Actually four candidates have received less popular votes but won anyway: Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison and George Bush.
**** True, but in Gore's case, the margin of victory wasn't in the popular vote, but in the [[OnlyInFlorida state of Florida]]. With the electoral vote margin at stake with an all-or-nothing system of allocation in place, Gore's margin of defeat was less than the attendance of a high school football game. There's a whole list of might-have-beens that could have changed the outcome with a single change: Bush's brother being the Governor, yet not dismissing himself from involvement in the subsequent CourtroomAntics; Florida's Secretary of State, responsible for all of the vote tabulation and certification, being a member of the Bush campaign and not doing the same thing; accusations of voter disenfranchisement; a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that halted the last-minute recounts; and so forth. For those who remember, every news channel on the planet was providing minute-by-minute updates of the victory margin ''down to the individual''. Any change that added a number of votes equal to a paper route subscription would have changed the results of the Presidential election.
*** Also another thing to keep in mind: Florida had initially been called for Bush after the first night; not by a large margin, but enough to not realistically be surmountable. The story goes that Bush had been told to expect a phone call from Gore announcing his concession, and in fact Gore was bare minutes away from doing so and was on his way to a press conference to announce that fact before results from other counties came in that plummeted Bush's margin of victory to the razor's edge. When the phone call came, instead of conceding, Gore told Bush his intention was to challenge the results. Imagine what would have happened if the results were an hour or so late and he had given up without a fight when there was a very real chance at victory. A very large WhatCouldHaveBeen in itself.
*** Another WhatCouldHaveBeen in the election were the two candidate's decisions to fight for, and challenge, recounts in certain counties and districts believed to be favorable to them. After the state was finally and officially called for Bush, Gore sued on behalf of the districts whose recounts were still in process. On the other hand, Bush countered that allowing an exception to these districts, whose recounts had missed the deadline, would have been unfair to the rest of the state. The Supreme Court ruled for Bush. Which leads us to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000_Florida_results That Other Wiki]] (down towards the bottom). Under this study, a full recount of every ballot in the state would have resulted in a Gore victory by almost any standard. However, with only a recount of the districts Gore was fighting for, the victory would have still gone to Bush. Had he argued for a full recount of the state's ballots, once and for all, rather than focusing on the ones he felt favored him, the Supreme Court would have had no equal protection-based reason to deny him and he would have been elected. The tremor you felt in the floor when the study was released was [[{{Wallbanger}} Gore's head hitting the desk]] on a cosmic scale.
** Speaking of potential U.S. Presidents, Milton Friedman (a Nobel prize winning economist) believed that Donald Rumsfeld should've been on the Republican ticket in 1988 instead of Bush Sr. If that happened, the problems that Bush faced may have been avoided (according to Friedman)
** Let's not forget... what if Dewey really ''did'' defeat Truman? Answers on this vary, as some regard him as the best President that the U.S. never had, while others feel that his refusal to commit to policies and seeming indecisiveness during the election would have made him a poor leader.
*** Dewey's non-committal campaigning style in 1948 was the result of poor advice from his advisers, who felt that all he had to do was show up in order to win the election. Had Dewey taken the same approach to campaigning in that election as he had done in the 1944 election (where he put much more effort into campaigning against the hugely popular Franklin Roosevelt), he would probably have utterly destroyed Truman in the polls.
** What if George W. Bush stayed a baseball team owner?
*** Then his brother Jeb probably would have become President.
** What if John F. Kennedy had followed the Secret Service's advice and left the bulletproof bubble-top up on the Presidential limo in Dallas?
*** The he would have been toted as the asshole who started the war in Vietnam instead of Johnson.
*** [[RedDwarf He would have been impeached for sleeping with a Mafia leader's mistress, J. Edgar Hoover would have been the mob-controlled president, and all major cities would be abandoned because the USSR has a nuclear base in Cuba.]] [[spoiler: Luckily, he went back in time and assassinated himself.]]
* Charles Darwin originally intended to be a clergyman.
** If ONLY he had not help establish the bedrock of modern [[SarcasmMode biological science]]
*** But remember, it's WhatCouldHaveBeen, not "What could have been great." Darwin ''could have been'' a clergyman. I doubt many enlightened individuals would actually think of that as being a good thing, but it was within the realm of possibility.
*** Being a clergyman probably wouldn't have affected things much. The cultural climate was such that anti-evolution sentiment didn't necessarily correlate with religion, and Wallace would still have published if Darwin didn't go on his trip. He probably would've had a harder time getting the initial ball rolling than Darwin, but the theory would have come out nevertheless. What would have been cool was if Darwin and Mendel had've met.
* Ho Chi Minh repeatedly asked the United States for intervention in Vietnam after WorldWarI, hoping to establish an independent democratic government styled after that of the US in the the French-controlled Vietnam. The USA found little interest in the plight of some far off Asian colony, and was not interested in antagonizing their French allies. Ho later turned to the Soviet Union and Communist China.
* In 1919 Woodrow Wilson had a stroke and was unable to convince the Republican-controlled Congress to let the United States join the League of Nations. Had it done so, it would have been able to influence the League's actions towards Germany and could have perhaps ''completely prevented World War II from happening''.
** What about Japan?
*** Even if Japan was still bold enough to attack the US without allies, it would have been put down a lot quicker without a European theatre to deal with. Though it's possible that the lack of war fatigue and reason to even develop the technology may have prevented the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan. Remember, Japan at its most psychotically arrogant extremes, never thought it could destroy the US - the Empire wanted to do enough damage to America's Pacific holdings to force it to sue for peace so it could access American controlled resources, especially petrolium. It may even have been possible that Isolationist America wouldn't care what the Japanese did to the rest of East Asia if its government wasn't itching for a war with the Axis, as long as they left the Philippines alone. And, in a darker take, if post-war Europe recovered far faster due to the League of Nations, most of East Asia may have been already part of various European Empires by the 30s.
* In 1912, a large number of African Americans cast their votes for Woodrow Wilson hoping that he'd live up to his promises to support their issues. What did Wilson do after being elected? He further restricted the rights of African Americans, removed several of them from government positions they had held for years, and further increased segregation. When the blacks complained, he told them that "segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen." As a further insult to the African American voting base that helped him to his office, he also said, "If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it." The full segregation Wilson installed remained in place until Truma's administration. It is widely regarded that, had he not installed those policies in the first place, more equality for Blacks may have been gained much earlier. Nice Job Breaking It, {{Jerkass}}.
* As part of the Apollo Program, at one point NASA was considering using the hardware to send the astronauts on a Venus flyby. The first manned interplanetary flight could have happened nearly '''40 years ago''' instead of--wait it hasn't happened yet, huh?
** Considered doesn't mean doable. You could consider that jumping off a building onto a canvas tent might slow you down enough to survive with minor injuries, but chances are you won't. The Apollo vechicles only had just enough to keep the crew alive for the days it took to get to the moon and back. That won't apply for the ''months'' it would take for a Venus flyby. You'd have to scale up the vessel considerably to support the suplies needed for that trip, which is NOT that simple for space since every bit of weight counts. Now look at how big the Saturn V was just to send the tiny modules needed to get to the moon in space. Scaling that up for the huge vessel needed to do a flyby is too big, expensive, and impractical to attempt with 60s technology. Hell, it's still too big, expensive, and impractical to attempt it with today's technology.
*** If I were you, I'd do [[http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2010/05/piloted-single-launch-venus-flyby-1967.html some]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby research]] before making yourself look silly with a statement like that.
*** Still bigger than the Apollo modules, even if not that much bigger it's still bigger. And at that compact size there's an unacceptably small margin for error. Cancelled because it was too expensive and ambitious? Yes. You did note that the separate docking stage for the CSM and S-IVB stage only had a short window to get things in order before having to abort? Plus the lack of sufficient backup battery power because of the compact size of the thing means that it's mostly a get to Venus or we're screwed deal? and that it mentioned that it would take four months until the spacecraft could pass about 3000 miles from the surface? So how does that disprove the point that it's still too expensive and impractical to attempt? To make it safe and have more fuel, power, and supplies for it not to be a "Venus or Bust" deal, it would have to be a bigger design instead of the ambitiously tiny design. So, again, too big, expensive, and impractical to safely attempt.
**** Expensive and impractical are the best terms you could use to describe a manned venus mission using that technology, try 'starvation' and 'sterilisation' or even 'death by radiation poisoning'.
* When this troper opened the page, he saw the links to the other pages as a sort of snarky comment, saying that none of the various media had lived up to what people claimed they would. Then, he realized it was just a bunch of links.
* What if William had lost the Battle of Hastings, or at least been forced into a draw?
* What if Hannibal had received the reinforcements he needed to take Rome?
* What if the USA and Russia had gone to war in 1962?
* What if the Japanese forces at Midway had been a bit more prepared, and kept a few aircraft aloft?
* What if Alfred had lost the Battle of Ethandun?
[[/folder]]

* In another world, [[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses the Nostalgia Critic]] and [[ElGoonishShive Dan Shive]] might have [[http://danshive.blogspot.com/2010/01/nostalgic-tale.html collaborated on a webcomic]].

* Sting was supposed to be the 3rd man in the nWo. Then Hogan had a talk with Bischoff...

** If Houston had won, they would have likely gone on to play a Pittsburgh Steelers team that they had lost two games to by a combined 6 points during the season. Houston very well could have had a chance at going as far as the AFC Championship Game and maybe Buddy Ryan never would have been hired as their new defensive coordinator. This also may have resulted in Jeff Fisher never becoming the head coach of the Houston Oilers (and maybe even gone so far as to keep the team from moving to Tennessee to become the Tennessee Titans)

***** Or paid more attention in secondary school instead of acting out, and been able to go to a proper architectural school. [[OrSoIHeard I've also read]] that he was offered a job working with a popular operatic producer of the time, but thought he wasn't good enough. It's really a bit InSpiteOfANail. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen Imagine]]: The Hitler Viennese Opera, famed through the world for its brilliantly designed facade and stage of some of the greatest troups to tour Europe [[MoodWhiplash instead of millions upon millions dead and several hundred holocaust museums]].

[[caption-width-right:350:[-[[{{Retirony}} This would have been his final concert tour.]] [[AuthorExistenceFailure And then he died.]] [[AndTheFandomRejoiced Now available as a two-hour long movie.]] BAM!]]

** ''Banana Shpeel'' (2010) was originally going to be a hybrid of the company's house style, {{Vaudeville}}, and TheMusical, befitting its off-Broadway theater venue. The third style was dropped when the storyline threatened to overshadow the different acrobatic, dance, and comedy acts intended as the show's backbone, and among the characters (and performers) dropped were [[Main/RomanticPlotTumor a romantic couple]]. This happened so late in the show's development that one of the dropped musical numbers, led by the axed couple, was featured in the preview of the show that appeared in the 2009 season finale of ''America's Got Talent''. Details [[http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/the_theater_loop/2009/11/banana-shpeel-cirque-du-soleil-slides-into-world-of-legitimate-theater-.html here]]. In the wake of the poorly-reviewed Chicago tryout run, enough changes were implemented to the point that the New York opening was delayed three-plus months. It didn't last long, rendering the show a DorkAge for the moment (there's talk of a tour).

* Another example of What Might Not Have Been: If WaylonJennings had not [[BuddyHolly lost a fateful coin flip to the Big Bopper]], country music would not have been the same.

*** Still bigger than the Apollo modules, even if not that much bigger it's still bigger. And at that compact size there's an unacceptably small margin for error. Cancelled because it was too expensive and ambitious? Yes. You did note that the separate docking stage for the CSM and S-IVB stage only had a short window to get things in order before having to abort? Plus the lack of sufficient backup battery power because of the compact size of the thing means that it's mostly a get to Venus or we're screwed deal? and that it mentioned that it would take four months until the spacecraft could pass about 3000 miles from the surface? So how does that disprove the point that it's still too expensive and impractical to attempt? To make it safe and have more fuel, power, and supplies for it not to be a "Venus or Bust" deal, it would have to be a bigger design instead of the ambitiously tiny design. So, again, too big, expensive, and impractical to safely attempt.