Welcome back to our quest to unearth some of the biggest disappointments of the previous week's earnings reports. Sometimes the stumble is a signal to sell, but digging in the dirt is also a good way to find turnaround candidates while they're getting beaten down. Today, we'll see that the house doesn't always make a killing, it's not easy being green, and the man in the bathrobe wasn't hiding candy in his pockets. Not this time, anyway.

The first company we're looking at this week is Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ:WYNN). The casino operator reported slightly higher revenues than the 15 analysts had expected, but while the pros had been overly cautious about the sales prospects, visions of $0.10 earnings turned into a single penny. And those are adjusted numbers, discounting the effects of one-time charges. Keep those in, and look at earnings according to generally accepted accounting principles, and you have a $0.12 loss per diluted share.

It's not a pretty picture, but CEO Steve Wynn remains upbeat about future prospects. He notes that it's expensive to build new casinos, as Wynn is doing in Las Vegas and in the Chinese enclave of Macau. Once completed, those projects should add to the top line right away and the bottom line within a couple of years. Maybe it's too early to fold your hand on Wynn, but this was the third quarter in a row of badly missed earnings targets.

Our next underperformer is Leapfrog (NYSE:LF). Turning out a profit isn't child's play, and nobody thought the toymaker would report in the black. But Q1 sales were slow, and the loss ended up at $0.38 a share rather than the expected $0.26, 46% higher than expected.

The Fly Pentop Computer is one of the neatest gadgets around, but it's also one of the most expensive educational toys I can think of. Leapfrog is, however, doing well in domestic consumer sales, with a 6% annual sales increase in that segment.

Unfortunately, that's not enough to make up for a 31% decline in international revenues and 24% lower sales to the pre-K-through-grade-8 educational market. It seems as though these two business segments aren't getting the TLC they need from the mama frog, and that's a shame, because it will be very difficult to replace those revenues in a fiercely competitive U.S. toy market.

Finally, there's Playboy (NYSE:PLA). The adult-entertainment provider reported a mere $0.02 per share in income for the quarter, 85% below expectations of $0.13. Hugh Hefner's empire isn't used to coming that close to breaking even -- the only two losing quarters in the past two years were largely due to debt repayments.

As evidenced by weakening magazine sales and cable TV subscriptions -- which are now money-losing operations -- Playboy continues to adapt to the digital age of adult entertainment. A 20% boost in higher online revenues and 35% more video-on-demand subscribers over last year's first quarter may be signals that the online strategy is gaining traction.

Playboy faces challenges from New Frontier Media (NASDAQ:NOOF) in both of those latter markets, and the two companies are trying to establish solid identities in the hot, young video-on-demand market. Who will emerge as the leader when on-demand hits the mainstream? Both New Frontier and Playboy may be worth watching (I mean the stocks, of course) if you're a fan of innovative media.

Some of these underperformers are victims of larger circumstances, while others might have only themselves to blame. It's up to you to decide which down-on-their-luck companies should be able to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and which really are stuck in the mud. Come back next Monday, and we'll take a look at another batch of mishaps and disappointments. It'll be fun and educational. Promise.

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Anders Bylund owns lots of Leapfrog toys but holds no position in any company mentioned. Not even a stack of investment-grade, mint-condition magazines. The Fool has an ironclad disclosure policy .