Sometimes, turning a movie into a TV show really works. “M*A*S*H” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” are arguably even bigger than the movie versions.
And others like “Fargo”, “Westworld”, “Friday Night Nights”, and “Alice” built quite a bit of traction on the small screen.
Others did NOT work so well . . . in fact, you may have forgotten or never known that they ever existed. “Ultimate Classic Rock” has a list of 28 of them.
Here are the highlights:
1. “Fast Times”, based on “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”. It lasted seven episodes.
2. “Delta House”, based on “Animal House”. It lasted 13 episodes.
3. “Uncle Buck”, based on the movie of the same name. It lasted one season.
4. “Stir Crazy”, based on the movie of the same name. It lasted nine episodes.
5. “Serpico”, based on the movie of the same name. It lasted one season.
6. “Working Girl”, based on the movie of the same name. It lasted 12 episodes, but four weren’t even aired.
7. “Down and Out in Beverly Hills”, based on the movie of the same name. It lasted 13 episodes, but only eight of them actually aired.
8. “Gung Ho”, based on the movie of the same name. It lasted nine episodes.
9. “Dirty Dancing”, based on the movie. It lasted 11 episodes.
10. “Logan’s Run”, based on the movie. It only lasted 14 episodes.
(You can find the full list, here. The list DOES include some successful adaptations . . . but most of them have been swept under the rug at this point.)
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