The Top 10 Strangest Film and TV Adaptations To Ever Happen

There is a new television series on the air called “Shit My Dad Says” which is based on a Twitter feed. Two failed sitcoms, “Cavemen” and “Baby Bob,” were adapted from ad campaigns.

Adapting books, plays and musicals into film is a tradition stretching back to the earliest days of cinema. Indeed, one of the earliest film shorts ever made was famed stage actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree mime-reciting a monologue from Shakespeare’s “King John.” It was filmed in 1899. Adapting a play to the screen seems almost natural; they are both dramatic media. Adapting a book is a bit more of a stretch, but both books and filmed media are used as storytelling devices.

But its happened many timed before that non-dramatic media, non-storytelling media, or even non-media have been adapted to the screen. The ability of certain producers to bank in on a well-known name or property seems to know no bounds. The need to “bank in” will never die. Especially in light of the list below, which compiles some of the least likely books, plays, or other properties that have been adapted into movies or television shows.

10) “Naked Lunch” (1991) (adapted from the 1959 novel Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs)

The way I heard it: Famous Beat author (and notorious heroin addict) William S. Burroughs locked himself in a seedy apartment for several days, took copious amounts of junk, and typed madly, nonstop, at his typewriter. He would manically create strange short stories with no beginnings or ends, and toss completed pages over his head into a huge unorganized pile. After a few days, his associates Jack Kerouac and William Ginsberg went looking for him, and found him half dead next to this drug-induced manuscript. They treated poor Burroughs, and collected his pages, assembling them the best they could. Kerouac suggested that Burroughs publish his ravings under the title Naked Lunch, implying that Burroughs’ psychotic heroin-laced rambling was like staring at bare, plain reality. Lunch was stripped bare of its pretense.

I have read Naked Lunch, and it seems to me to be unfilmable. It was a weird book of misplaced and enormously paranoid conspiracy theories, unconnected sexual fantasies, fantasy creatures, and a general musing on the philosophical entropy of the soul. None of this stopped David Cronenberg in 1991, however, and he made what is one of the strangest pieces of cinema ever put to film. Green monstrous mugwumps, characters that die and are mysteriously resurrected, centipedes disguised as humans, and metamorphosing typewriter creatures, all brought on by a stone-faced exterminator (Peter Weller) injecting bug poison. The finished product some surely something to behold, but I am baffled as to how someone could read the Burroughs novel and think “This ought to be put on the big screen!”

9) “Clue” (1985) (adapted from the 1949 board game, created by Anthony E. Pratt and published by Waddingtons, now owned by Hasbro)

While playing board games, it’s tempting to form narratives in your mind. Various conflicts and struggles begin to appear, and the ultimate winner seems either like an unstoppable menace, or an underdog who overcame adversity. “Cluedo,” later “Clue” was a murder mystery game in which you must travel about the board making accusations, and revealing cards in the hands of your opponents. It is a household staple.

In 1985, famed filmmaker John Landis and director Jonathan Lynn released a very funny locked room farce featuring some rather talented comedians (like Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, and Tim Curry) a complicated murder mystery plot, and – most cleverly – multiple endings to be released in multiple theaters. They named their characters after the pieces in the board game, explaining that names like Col. Mustard were, in fact, aliases, and the ultimate goal of the film, just like in the board game, was to discover who committed the crime, in which room, and with what weapon.

I think we can all agree that it’s very, very strange to try to write a screenplay based on a board game, but stranger still is how good this film is and how well it is loved. “Clue” remains, in my mind, one of the best comedies of the 1980s. Would I have thought to make a film of my board game experiences? Probably not. But thank goodness someone did it the way they did.

8) “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story”(2005) (adapted from the 1767 novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne)

Reading Laurence Sterne is an ecstatic experience. Sterne, using comic frustration as his launching point, uses the language of English to deconstruct and tear down the very structure of English itself. He uses a distracted narrative to encompass a whole new sub-narrative of comic asides, and a general lack of focus to enwrap the reader in a fascinated cloud of surreal joy. Sterne is unabashedly literary. It is of and about its own language and structure as a novel. Many literary critics call it a post-modern novel that was written before there was even a modern to be post to.

Michael Winterbottom, that wholly unpredictable British director, decided to, out of a whim or out of a bizarre challenge to himself, direct a film version of this literary labyrinth. His approach was actually ingenious: rather than merely adapt directly what was on the page, he decided to show the struggles of a film crew trying to film a film version of Tristram Shandy, making the screenplay not only a whimsical musing on the Sterne text, but also a reflection on the nature of filmic adaptation. The film is actually kind of brilliant, and actually manages to capture the spirit of the novel, if not the literal word.

But reading Sterne is eternally of itself, and could never be adapted. Of all the books to adapt, Winterbottom chose one of the oddest and most challenging.

7) “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (movie, 1990. TV series 1987, 2003) (adapted from the 1984 comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird).

The Ninja Turtles are so familiar to us of a certain age, and so beloved, that it’s easy to forget just how whacked out weird the property is. Our standard for “normal” now resides somewhere around a quartet of mutated sewer turtles who are experts in ninja weapons, are named for painters of the Italian Renaissance, eat pizza, and chatter teen cliches of the day.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as I understand it, began as a parodic trifle of Eastman and Laird, who self-published a comic book back in 1984. A toy licenser was so taken by the weird title, that he offered to make toys from it. The toys grew and grew. Petty soon, the Ninja Turtles were appearing everywhere, and even mushroomed into a long-running cartoon series, a few live-action feature films, etc. etc. The train is still rolling.

This weird-ass little college prank became one of the dominant marketing forces of its time, and became a defining property for a generation.

6) “Pac Man” (1982) and “Saturday Supercade”(1983) (adapted from various arcade games)

Adapting films from video games is unfortunately very common these days (unfortunate because there are so few good films to come from such an effort), and its clear to see why studios keep trying it and fans keep demanding it: modern video games are hugely complex endeavors that feature hours-long complex external narratives, interestingly designed characters, and conceits that are cribbed from genre films anyway.

But putting video games onto the screen was tried, as some of us may recall, back in the early 1980s with several truly bizarre and occasionally horrifying cartoons shows like “Pac Man” and “The Saturday Supercade.”

“Pac Man” was depiected as an anthropomorphic yellow sphere monster that would eat power pellets, joke with his wife and child, and defend his power secret from a sinister bald-headed goon with bumbling cadre of colorful ghosts at his disposal. The show was obnoxious, unfunny, and ran for far too long. How anyone can come up with this grating “Flintstones” lift-off from the video game of “Pac Man” is beyond me.

“Saturday Supercade” a few steps further, and featured an entire rotating cast adapted from five different video games. There was “Donkey Kong,” about a fellow trying to return an escaped ape to his zoo, “Donkey Kong, Jr.” about Kong’s son on the trail of his father (and never the twain shall meet). There was “Pitfall,” which was a standard jungle adventure. And, oddest of the lot, was the one-two punch of “Frogger” and “Q*Bert.” Frogger, previously a pixilated from making its way across a busy highway, was now a lazy-eyed investigative reporter. Q*Bert, previously a snork creature with no arms and a phallic nose, who would leap about on color-changing cubes, was now an Archie-type small-town malt-shop hero who could fly on manhole covers, and did battle with reptilian greasers.

If there’s no story in our game, and there are no characters in your game, hell, why not make ’em up?

5) “Mission to Mars” (2000), “The Country Bears,” (2002) “The Haunted Mansion” (2003), “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003) (adapted from rides and attractions at Disneyland)

When I think of amusement park rides, I often feel that they are antidotes to movies and TV. No longer must we feel beholden to following a narrative, investing interest in character, or merely even paying attention. A ride is intended to whip about your body, and give you a new, different kind of show. But the hardworking marketeers at Disney clearly don’t feel the same way, and felt that they could take the names of some of their better known attractions, and spin stories from them. Seeing as the premise of a ride is so thin, it gave the various filmmakers involve great creative license. The results, then, are decidedly mixed.

“Mission to Mars,” which was already a kind of film, only with a screen in both the ceiling and the floor rather than on a wall, became a somber-yet-kid-friendly version of “2001,” and was directed, bafflingly, by Brian DePalma. “The Country Bears” features some of the most terrifying bear suits ever filmed, and lets Christopher Walken give one of his strangest performances. “The Haunted Mansion” is just a mess, and did nothing to help the flagging career of Eddie Murphy, and “Pirates of the Caribbean” is a perfectly decent 90-minute thriller stretched into 150 minutes, and was, as you probably know, an enormous hit, spawning several sequels.

The mechanical antics of animatronic people is all well and good if you’re in a floating log, drifting through darkened tunnels. Why they got films out of this, I’ll never know.

4) “Rubik, The Amazing Cube” (1983) (adapted from the Rubik puzzle, invented in 1974)

Wow. Just wow.

You remember the toy. It’s still in wide use today. A cubic puzzle with six sides, nine square facets on each side, was to be twisted an manipulated until all the colored sides matched. It is notoriously difficult, and remains a top-seller in toyshops nationwide. How can we base a TV show on this puzzle? Hm…

So, get this: A magician loses his enchanted Rubik’s Cube. A quartet of children finds the cube, solve it, and, voila!, a small elf-like blue face appears on the cube, and squat blue feet grow out of its base! Holy shit! That thing is flipping terrifying! But no! It’s your friend! It will cast spells and aid you in your adventures! But when it’s dropped, it gets all mixed up again, and you have to solve it to get your monstrous little imp back!

I’m going to pass on my complaints about adapting an effing toy into a TV show for the time being, just so I can rant about how scary the cube monster is, and how unsettling the premise. Rubik looks like a mutated dwarf cemented into a box, and his little kid voice only adds to the fright. Watching the show only made me glad that I wasn’t very good at solving Rubik’s Cubes. I wouldn’t want that thing to aid me on my adventures.

3) “The Garbage Pail Kids Movie” (1987) and “Garbage Pail Kids” (1989) (adapted from the line of 1985 Topps trading cards)

I just learned this, but one of creators of the Garbage Pail Kids trading cards was none other than Pulitzer Prize winner Art Speigelman, the creator of “Maus.”

By 1985, the insufferably lovable Cabbage Patch Kids were riding high as the must-have toy for Christmas. A group of executives at Topps decided to parody the craze in a series of trading cards they called Garbage Pail Kids, which featured Kewpie-faced cherubs who were mutated or sickened in creative ways. Like Basil Woolverton drawings, or Chas Addams cartoons, the Garbage Pail Kids seems blissfully pleased to be sickos, mutants, or, at the very worst, merely doomed. As a child, I knew of no one who didn’t have their own stack of Garbage Pail Kids at school, and they invented a subculture unto themselves.

In 1987, longtime TV director Rod Amateau (“Gilligan’s Island,” “Lassie,” “Mr. Ed”) directed a feature film version of the trading cards. How do you depict Kewpie-faced cherubs in a live-action film? Amateau made them into rubbery-face animatronic aliens who arrived on Earth to smear snot on things, vomit, pee, eat fingers, and teach 12-year-old boys very important lessons about growing up. The film is so bad and so bizarre, that it simply must be viewed as an object. Your jaw will be on the ground.

The entire purpose of the Garbage Pail Kids trading cards was to shock and disgust. Surely it was counterintuituve to make such revolting misfits into the heroes of a movie. In 1989, the crest continued with an animated show. It’s a weird, weird show.

2) “Space Jam” (1996) (adapted from a series of Nike commercials)

We all love the Looney Tunes. They are some of the best films in cinematic history. But sometime in the early 1990s, when Warner Bros. Stores were opening in malls across the country, something hackneyed, overcommercialized, and overexposed happened to the beloved characters from the Chuck Jones, Friz Freling, and Bob Clampett shorts. They become corporate wonks; symbols for how something good can be corrupted. In the mid 1990s, Bugs Bunny, Marvin the Martian, and all the rest, began appearing television ads for Nike’s brand of Air Jordan’s, which were specialized and overpriced sneakers. Basketball star Michael Jordan could be seen interacting with Daffy Duck for the first time. Which I suppose is no more painful than those Daffy/Speedy Gonzalez cartoons from the 1980s.

But then the nadir hit in 1996, and “Space Jam” played in theaters. Yes, we have a movie based on a commercial. What’s more, director Joe Pytka seemed to direct his film as if it alluded to the TV ads, effectively making the movie an advertisement for the advertisements.

And oh how painful the film is. It involves space aliens stealing talent from NBA players, and the Looney Tunes recruiting Michael Jordan to play in a basketball tournament with the aliens, who want to destroy Earth, and I’m going to stop before I vomit onto my hands. It was bad enough seeing my beloved Looney Tunes misused in such hyperkinetic, paper-thin commercials for sneakers. It’s only exponentially increased when stretched to feature length. Note to producers: use ads to promote products. Use films to tell stories. Never mix the two.

1) “Mac and Me” (1988) (adapted from McDonald’s restaurants, founded in 1940)

This film should be kept far out of the hands of children. What is ostensibly an “E.T” rip-off is actually a protracted, calculated commercial effort from the ad men at McDonald’s to promote their restaurants. Ronald McDonald, the restaurant’s clown mascot, appeared in the film’s previews, and in the film. The film’s climax takes place largely inside a McDonald’s restaurant. Coca-Cola products play a large role in the narrative (indeed, the same role that Reese’s Pieces played in “E.T.”).

Yes, one would be tempted to say that this is merely a commercial, and not adapted from a previous property, but I argue that watching this film is the cinematic equivalent of eating at McDonald’s. If a restaurant could have a kid-friendly fantasy story, this would be it. If it could have a character, it would be Mac. If it could have a human protagonist to act as its face, it would be the ultra-whitebred wheelchair-bound Michael. If it could have a soul, this greasy, dripping, unctuous pile of rennet would be it.

Mac is a pale, sleepy-eyed gremlin that can fit through vacuum tubes, and has his mouth permanently frozen into an “o.” He has spindly limbs, pointy Yoda ears, and an enlarged stomach. Imagine, if you will, a species that evolved eating nothing but McDonald’s food, and you’ve got Mac (special thanks to William Bibbiani for the preceding joke).

Adapting is a tricky practice, and should be used with care. It can produce some great films (“The Godfather” leaps to mind), and it can produce cynical money grabs (“Transformers” leaps to mind). I suppose any source is fair game, but, writers, when you find yourself in front of your computer or typewriter, and you’ve been asked to create a narrative for Wooly Willy,

Finnegans Wake, or T.G.I. Friday’s, I elect you put down the bottle of Bushmill’s , go outdoors, take a deep breath in, and decide if the job is really worth it.

Witney Seibold is a genial fellow living in Los Angeles. He worked as a professional film critic back when people used to read real newspapers, and now, like everyone with computer access and two opinions to rub together, maintains his very own ‘blog. You can read more of his stuff, comeplete with righteous indignation, snobbery, and a handful of typographical errors, at this site! http://witneyman.wordpress.com