3. Jim Carrey
It's possible to do an entire list just on comedic actors that no longer make us laugh mainly because they tried to follow the Robin Williams Career Trajector. Jim Carrey exploded onto the scene with Ace Ventura and the Mask, killing it in the box office and cheap Halloween party costumes. You couldn't go anywhere without someone doing a poor imitation of an Ace Ventura skit, most likely the one talking out of their ass. He bumped Robin Williams from contention as the Riddler in the Batman franchise and then teamed up with Jeff Daniels to rock the nineties forever with Dumb and Dumber. He was given the previously unheard-of sum of $20 million to star in Ben Stiller's black comedy, The Cable Guy, alongside the all-around nice guy Mathew Broderick. The future looked very, very good.
So what happened? Critics butchered The Cable Guy. They convinced the masses that nobody wanted a dark Jim Carrey, they wanted a crazy Jim Carrey. Despite standing the test of time, Jim Carrey didn't. He bumped Robin Williams out of contention for the prized role of the Riddler in Tim Burton's Batman 3, where his method acting wasn't approved of by the Harvey Dent-playing Tommy Lee Jones. Then he decided to reinvent himself as the next Tom Hanks, taking on the Majestic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Man. He tried to return to form in a series of near-unidentifiable caricatures of himself in the Grinch, Andy Koffman, Lemony Snickets... and lastly a desperate return to his animal-like charms in Mr. Popper's Penguins.