While it's common to celebrate great successes, a new exhibit in San Francisco seeks to celebrate defeats, disasters and misfires. KCBS Radio’s David Welch recently visited the installation to bask in the sea of flops.
The Museum of Failure is set up on the second floor of the former Madame Tussauds wax museum at Fisherman’s Wharf, a popular Bay Area tourist attraction.
“Ironic? Yes. Fascinating, for sure,” said Welch. “I mean, where else can you go to see what Colgate lasagna looks like?”
That particular product was included in a line of frozen dinners released in 1982 by Colgate, a company known for its dental hygiene products. Their failure was summed up by the Daily Meal in 2017: “when people think of Colgate they tend to think of clean teeth, not frozen lasagna and Swedish meatballs.”
“No one knew quite what to do when they saw it on the shelf because that's the Colgate toothpaste logo. I mean, are you supposed to eat it? Are you supposed brush your teeth with it?” remarked David Perry, a spokesperson for SEE Global Entertainment Inc., which is producing the Fisherman’s Wharf event.
Another one of Perry’s favorite features from the Museum of Failure is the Oleato from Starbucks. Audacy reported the debut of this coffee and olive oil concoction in 2023 and later reported that it was causing stomach issues. Perhaps not a surprising turn of events, since both coffee and olive oil have laxative properties. Welch also mentioned the plastic bicycle, which came with some safety concerns.
Tickets to the museum are now available for purchase at the SEE Global site for the Museum of Failure, https://themuseumoffailure.net.
They are not available at https://museumoffailure.com.
Visitors to the first site will be greeted by a message that reads: “THE ONE AND ONLY OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE MUSEUM OF FAILURE OFFERED BY SEE ENTERTAINMENT, THE WORLDWIDE TRADEMARK HOLDER OF THE EXHIBIT.”
It advertises an experience filled with more than 159 failed products, including the Colgate lasagna, the hip-swiveling Hawaii Chair, and even duds from successful companies such as Microsoft, Apple, and Google.
“Embracing failure and taking meaningful risks allows for real innovation and progress,” the site reads. “With a unique insight into the risky business of innovation, the museum aims to inspire and stimulate productive discussion about learning through our blunders. Everyone falls, but what’s most important is knowing how to get back up!”
It also features a list of cities where the exhibit has previously toured, from Helsingborg, Sweden, in 2017 to Budapest, Hungary last year. That same list is also featured on the other Museum of Failure site.
“Museum of Failure is a collection of failed products and services from around the world. We have over 200 items, the latest addition is: Cybertruck,” reads that site’s homepage. It also notes that: “We are not participating in the Museum of Failure exhibition at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. We do not endorse it.”
According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle from this February, the two websites represent opposing factions of a group that once worked together to put on the Museum of Failure exhibits and who are now part of an international copyright dispute. Per the report, a man named Samuel West based in Malaga, Spain, operates the second site and claims that he is the creator of the concept.
Perry rebutted West’s claims.
“SEE Global owns the international trademark for and all the assets in the Museum of Failure: period end stop,” Perry wrote via email. “In years past, we have welcomed him to all iterations of the Museum of Failure as a valued cheerleader with all due credit given.”
“Asked about all of this happening for something called the Museum of Failure, West said, looking down ruefully, ‘The irony is not lost on me,’” the Chronicle reported.