Audience-Alienating Premise is "interesting" because it can be used to either complain about shows you don't like ("Work X is a failure because it's about X, which is stupid) or gush about shows you like ("Work Y is a great work, but unfortunately many people were scared away because it's about Y, leading people to miss out on its greatness"). This, naturally, leads to lots of shoehorning.
As far as I know, the major criteria for AAP are:
- The work is a commercial failure, which requires the work to have been released for a sufficient amount of time and be for-profit.
- The failure is because the work's premise scared the audience off or made them lose interest.
But "the premise scared people off" is highly subjective, and "is a commercial failure" is a relatively recent addition (if it even is an official criterion - it's not currently in the trope description, although it's been used as an edit reason for some example removals), leading to many non-examples being Grandfather Claused in. So I think it could use a cleanup.
Found this in the Anime & Manga section of Audience-Alienating Premise
- This is the most likely reason why One Piece has such difficulty reaching western audiences.
- Western Shōnen anime fans tend towards anime because it's not like western media. One Piece, however, looks substantially more western and makes liberal use of Tex Avery-style Cartoon Physics, especially in its over-the-top promotional artwork. Because One Piece looks so much like western animation, this turns a lot of western shonen anime fans off of the series before even trying it. And that's not even mentioning the number of episodes. The concept of One Piece also isn't typically Japanese — pirates. Many fans of shonen anime read and watch manga and anime because they like Japanese cultural concepts like Ninja or Samurai.
- The other majorly cited reason why One Piece had issues reaching western audiences is because of its first attempt doing so, the infamous 4Kids Entertainment dub. One Piece, despite having a seemingly childish premise, still has some very adult-oriented aspects (at least to the west; Japan doesn't put as much stock into child censorship, making this a case of Values Dissonance). 4Kids got rights to One Piece as part of a deal to get Magical Doremi and Ultimate Muscle, and were horrified at what they had acquired and the fact that they were contractually obligated to dub it and broadcast it. End result: the dub was Bowdlerised so badly that it quickly lost any steam it had in the West and turned off any potential fans for several years. Only now, almost a decade afterwards with 4Kids long dead and Funimation in possession of distribution rights, is the damage being reversed. In more ways than one, too: while One Piece managed to turn its licensing woes around, Magical Doremi and Ultimate Muscle, the very shows 4Kids bought it for, were never rescued after their licenses expired and remained in obscurity in One Piece's place.
- Some Seinen anime series like Cowboy Bebopnote and The Big O are very popular in the West despite (or because of) having adult-orientated aspects and western animation styles. Had One Piece been aired unbowdlerised and aimed at older audiences and fans of western animation, it might have been more successful. If anything, One Piece has been gaining more popularity in the west ever since it was released unedited by Funimation and aired on the revived late-night Toonami alongside the aforementioned
Now I'm not that familiar with One Piece but my assumption is that the series has a fan following so should the One Piece entry be cut on the grounds that it has a devoted audience? Thanks.
These were brought up on the first page, I think, but never got cut:
- Poopsie is a series of colorful unicorn-themed blind bag slime making kits that's focused on excrement (and occasionally, vomit); it is somehow both extremely cutesy and a gross-out toy, with those elements clashing so spectacularly that they help make the result downright surreal. There are unicorn dolls which make the slime via being fed the ingredients and then excreting the slime, and the dolls' designs lean into Uncanny Valley territory and are almost Bratz Babyz lookalikes.note An interesting subversion of this is that, although many people were disgusted and/or questioning what the creators were on, the toys still managed to become popular.
The entry says the toys are successful, so it's not an example, right? Plus it's Playing With an audience reaction.
This Friday Night Lights example feels too long and complainy.
- And the flipside was that NBC also targeted football fans, promoting it heavily during Sunday Night Football telecasts, only that those fans found too little football and passed, and everyone else who passed on it thought "too much football."
- That the football in question is the American variety didn't help it overseas; in Britain, ITV 4 only aired the first season (although Sky Atlantic did eventually... well... pick up the ball).
- There's a sizable number of football fans who'd rather not see the game deconstructed or radically criticized. There's a sizable number of football detractors who resent the central role it plays in many American communities and finds the mere depiction of this role a fundamentally irritating reminder. That eliminates an awfully large chunk of the potential audience.
None of this mentions that the show in question got five seasons with 76 episodes. Cut, or modify?
HoMM Fan
5 Seasons puts it out of Short-Runners range and it enjoyed both good critical reception, several awards, and solid ratings during its run (it did decrease as it went on but that's not unheard of for shows with even good premises). I'd say to cut it.
"Grandmaster Combat, son!"The UK reception could be a valid example for Americans Hate Tingle, I think, but could use more detail. Aside from that, yeah, it was pretty successful as far as I know and the example waffles too much on whether it counts.
I found this in YMMV.One Piece:
- Audience-Alienating Premise:
- When he started the series, Oda had concerns that the series' unusual, cartoony art style might turn away potential readers. While many consider it one of the series' selling points, there are indeed some people who consider the art style a turnoff.
- Concerning the television run of the show in America, the English dub got heavily delayed, switched hands between 4Kids (who severely edited it from the original per Toei's demands) and FUNimation (who started with a watershed-friendly TV-PG edit before gaining the rights to fully dub the whole series from the top with TV-14 content) in a messy and lengthy contract dispute that stalled out the release of a faithful dubbed version, and fell very behind the Japanese releases of new episodes, and the series never got to air in complete form on American television. When it came back on Toonami, it started in an odd place because they had no access to the episodes before the switch to high-definition (up to the Skypiea Arc, virtually all of which were in dispute with 4Kids until it went bankrupt in 2012), so they began broadcasting the Long Ring Long Land Arc (repeatedly cited to comprise a Breather Episode in arc form that is often balked at as a feeble moment of/entry point into the series for being too comedy-driven instead of plot-driven), nowhere near the most recent point of the series, while the majority of the series's more dedicated viewers were far, far ahead. This ultimately killed its chances to pull in sufficient ratings and got it jolted off the block after the Thriller Bark Saga concluded.
Both of these are misuse I feel. These aren’t even premises.
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!Got some entries in the Music folder that don't seem to belong:
- Fleetwood Mac decided to follow up the massive success of Rumours with Tusk, an expensive double album with bizarre, offputting artwork and bizarre, offputting songs by Lindsey Buckingham. It sold well, going double platinum, but did nowhere near as well as Rumours did. It's been Vindicated by History as a classic of experimental pop, but it stands as one of the best arguments against cocaine use.
- Jimi Hendrix is famously celebrated as one of the greatest guitar players of all time, but this wasn't always the case. Back when he was starting out, Jimi's guitar playing in the States was seen as too wild and unfocused for many bands he tried to join, and the few bands he did join, part ways with him shortly afterwards. It wasn't until he traveled to Europe that his guitar playing was embraced and he formed The Experience. He then returned to the States with the hit song "Hey Joe" and the rest is history. His once unfocused guitar playing has since been used as a blueprint for many Rock guitar players that would come long after his unfortunate untimely death.
- ABBA's Voulez-Vous was accused of abandoning "the ABBA sound" by many fans at the time of release, since the only disco-esque song ABBA had released at the time was "Dancing Queen" two albums before, whereas this new album had a lot of disco influences. Coincidentally, the band wasn't as popular at the time after they'd done a long tour through Australia in 1977 so this could have been a result of Hype Backlash, but Voulez Vous is as celebrated as any other ABBA album in the present day.
All three of these appear to have been very successful, which does not synch with this trope. Tusk went double platinum, Voulez Vous "is as celebrated as any other ABBA album in the present day," and Jimi Hendrix is the most celebrated rock guitarist of all time.
Cut these?
This is from Community:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: The show ended up dealing with this from an unusual angle. The basic premise seems simplistic enough, but the implementation defied almost all expectations of the genre. The large main and supporting cast, thickly plotted stories, high levels of continuity and loads of in-joke meta humor made it difficult to jump in to any given episode. The Affectionate Parody episodes that came to define the series only exacerbated the issue, as that meant they were constantly switching style and tone. Very few episodes even bothered with topics such as class projects, tests and grades, despite the fact the main cast is supposed to be a study group. Even the fandom came to admit that the community college setting was mostly a backdrop to everything else. By the time Jeff became a teacher, the writers still did very little with it.
I'm kind of torn because on the one hand the show had six seasons. However, its ratings were usually poor and the last season only happened because they got a deal with Yahoo.
I think the show is popular enough (I've seen it be used in memes) that it might not qualify. Requesting more opinions though.
I still need some help on the Bomberman folder, because I don't know how I can rewrite all of these entries since a lot of them have the complaining too intertwined in them to just snip out. Not to mention it literally just mentions every single game ever from the naughts just to complain about them, even obscure ones. I think just mentioning the highlights of this era would be better, just because Brevity Is Wit.
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!- Audience-Alienating Premise: The concept of the show where Sonic, despite being the titular character, would not receive much screen time in favor of a human kid character who comes off as annoying and uninteresting to the majority of the audience definitely was not gonna win over a lot of fans of the franchise. Not that it stopped people from watching the show in the U.S. and getting #1 in the ratings
It even admits that it was popular despite it.
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!This example from The Nutcracker in 3D seems really complainy even by this reaction's standards and I'm not sure how much of this is even describing the premise:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: A modern, big-budget update of the timeless yuletide ballet... with little to no dancing, pop lyrics slapped on top of Tchaikovsky's legendary tunes, an abundance of childish humor, awful CGI for everything, and a cast of such child-friendly characters as an Uncanny Valley-dwelling CGI nutcracker, a creepy obese clown that unintentionally resembles John Wayne Gacy, a similarly-creepy CGI chimp, and ersatz-Nazis rounding up and burning "living" toys. This explains why it didn't make a lot of money.
From what I can tell, the film's approach did indeed play a big role in its critical and commercial failure. That said, the point could be rewritten substantially. Based on what I could gather, a less vitriolic and more to-the-point rewrite would look something like this:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: The Nutcracker is already considered a Hard-to-Adapt Work, featuring not much in the way of plot and being mostly a showcase of tightly-choreographed dancing. However, this rendition earned particular criticism for its attempt at updating the work, foregoing the original Tchaikovsky compositions and ballet (which had long been major selling points of The Nutcracker) in favor of contemporary pop and featuring a Holocaust allegory subplot that came off as inappropriately heavy for what was ostensibly a holiday film for kids. All of these were cited as elements that drove away potential viewers, resulting in the film losing a whopping $69.5 million at the box office.
Edited by bowserbros on Jun 14th 2022 at 4:22:55 AM
Be kind.

That works. As long as proof of financial failure or Word of God that the premise put off audiences is included in examples I think it would work out.
Once Upon A Time.