Perhaps you misunderstood
I said, "Mars Pathfinder was the first successful landing in about 20 years, so naturally curiosity was high."
It was the first successful Mars landing in over 20 years. That in and of itself made the event interesting. Mars Pathfinder had a pretty limited scientific return but it was bold and ultimately successful within the mission scope.
NASA had other successes between the Viking landings in 1976 and the Mars Pathfinder, but that wasn't what I was talking about.