Downfall
The Farrah Phenomenon attracted new stars to Pro Arts who wanted the to duplicate Farrah's success. This and a deal with K-mart to provide half a million posters inspired Ted to launch a plan to install 2000 poster racks a year in retail racks around the country. Trouble first appeared when Elvis died. Seeing a huge money making chance Pro Arts released a regal poster of the King as a commemoration poster. A rival company who had bought all the rights to post-death Elvis memorabilia sued and even though Pro Arts eventually won the Elvis case they lost more than $1 million in sales and $150,000 on lawyers all for a paltry $17,000 in damages. Huge debt and rising interest forced Pro Arts to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1981. Over 600 creditors laid claim to Pro Arts and after years of lawsuits and a slumping poster business in 1984 the company was liquidated along with its Medina factory, its equipment, and ultimately Mike and Ted's houses.
Read more about this topic: Pro Arts Inc.
Famous quotes containing the word downfall:
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart’s drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)