# Big screen to small screen failures **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2005, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621 "2005-02-24T01:32:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/41 "2005-02-27T05:46:17Z")
I just woke up remembering two more - both westerns. **Hondo** , the John Wayne vehicle. It was done over a decade after the original film and lasted just a season. I thought it lasted longer until I checked. I mean, I saw it in reruns for years. The other was **The Rounders** - no not the more recent Matt Daemon film, but the western from the '60s staring Glen Ford and Henry Fonda as a couple of 1950’s cowboys trying to deal with Chill Wills who was a questionable horse trader. They did it for television with John Wayne’s son Patrick in the Glen Ford role. Wills reprised his role for the TV show. They tried for a second season but they dropped everyone in the cast but Patrick Wayne and Chill Wills. That only lasted three or four shows. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/42 "2005-02-27T06:11:57Z")
The problem with _Clueless_ was that the movie was largely a satire/parody. Even while it sympathized with Cher, it was poking fun at people like her. The TV show was not, and it was incredibly stupid. And they completely changed Tye’s character into this mousy, shy little frump. BTW, how many people remember that _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ was based on a movie? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/43 "2005-02-27T06:28:54Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > BTW, how many people remember that _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ was based on a movie? With Rutger Hauer, Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman), and one of those guys from 90210. “Her yabos defy gravity.” “You can get a cup of coffee, or a hot dog with nothing on it.” “The music stopped, the rest is . . .” “Go home, Pike.” ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/44 "2005-02-27T14:57:06Z")
Wasn’t there a tv series made of _The Ghost and Mrs. Muir?_ I’ve never seen it, but I wonder how they made that work, considering Mrs. Muir dies at the end of the movie, and for a large part of her life she thought the ghost was a dream, since he backed out of the picture to give her a chance with that guy who was the voice of Shere-Khan, who turned out to be married anyway, the cad. (spoiler box used because if you haven’t seen this classic, goshdarnit, you should.) ---
**Author:** ![BlackNGold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BlackNGold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackNGold)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/45 "2005-02-27T16:02:47Z")
> [@Marlitharn](#): > > Wasn’t there a tv series made of _The Ghost and Mrs. Muir?_ I only remember the TV series, vaguely, from when I was a kid. Had no idea there was a movie. Just looked it up on IMDB, and the TV show ran from 1968-1970, so I must have been watching reruns of this classic (born in '69). The only thing I remember was that Charles Nelson Reilly was in it - Him I remember from the Match Game, which I loved as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/46 "2005-02-27T16:13:57Z")
I watched _The Ghost and Mrs. Muir_ regularly. The series, updated from the 1900s to the 1960s, began the same way the movie did, with the widowed Mrs. Muir buying and moving into the seaside home of the captain. The main difference was that in the movie, the real estate agent (George Sanders) had a romantic interest in Mrs. Muir, while in the television series, the agent was the captain’s meddling nephew (Charles Nelson Reilly), without the romantic interest, as you might infer from the casting. [Episode guide here.](http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/EpisodeGuideSummary/showid-1457/The_Ghost_and_Mrs_Muir/) In the movie, Mrs. Muir didn’t always believe the captain was just her dream; it was only after he disappeared from her life that she began to think so. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/47 "2005-02-28T13:12:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by CalMeacham > Barefoot in the Park, like many shows on ABC, started life as a pilot on Love American Style. The pilot was good. Unfortunately, the series wasn’t. One huge mistake they made was to switch all the characters from white to black. Everyone may be equal, but the black experience and the white experience do differ, and this switch didn’t fool anyone. They also didn’t put th same effort into it. Worse, they remade the pilot episode with th[e] new cast, so you could see how badly they were doing it. It bombed. > > I was under the impression the the TV show Barefoot in the Park was based on the 1967 Robert Redford-Jane Fonda film (in turn based on the Neil Simon play). To be sure, Love, American Style may have run the pilot, but while this may have been the beginning of life for the television incarnation, the concept of the newlywed Brattons, and the title predated Love, American Style by a couple of years. Either you’re confused, or I mislead you. BITP certainly is based on the movie (based on the play), which is why I entered it in this thread. But my point is that the TV show started as a pilot on Love, American Style. ---
**Author:** ![Cynical\_Optimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Cynical\_Optimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cynical_Optimist)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/48 "2005-02-28T14:30:15Z")
**Down and Out in Beverly Hills** was already mentioned, but the other one I was going to suggest is **Gung Ho**. I remember seeing a commercial for it, but I never watched it. I supposed **After M_A_S\*H** could be considered a flop that followed the success though. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/49 "2005-02-28T14:33:16Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Either you’re confused, or I mislead you. BITP certainly is based on the movie (based on the play), which is why I entered it in this thread. But my point is that the TV show started as a pilot on Love, American Style. The television series _Barefoot in the Park_ was adapted directly from the Neil Simon play, not via the movie. The pilot was not created as a _Love, American Style_ episode. Much like the pilot of _Happy Days_, the pilot episode of _Barefoot_ was an orphan that ABC had not green-lighted for series production, so it was shown on _Love, American Style_ to get some use from it. The ratings were sufficiently good that the network was persuaded to put it into series production. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/50 "2005-02-28T15:15:25Z")
[Tom Waring](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0912270/) starred in “Nothing in Common” and “Splash Too.” The guy must really look like Tom Hanks. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/51 "2005-02-28T15:29:57Z")
> [@](#): > > The television series Barefoot in the Park was adapted directly from the Neil Simon play, not via the movie. Just curious – how do you know this? And would it have been adapted if the movie hadn’t existed? I can’t believe, for instance, that **The Odd Couple** would have become a TV series if it hadn’t been for the movie. Play-to-TV Series transitions do happen ( **The Hot L Baltimore** ), but they’re rare. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621/52 "2005-02-28T15:55:07Z")
There are very strict rules under Writers Guild of America about how a literary property and its author must be credited. Ditto for copyright registration: the work of origin must be named, with its author and format (play, story, etc.). The play of _Barefoot_ and the screenplay of _Barefoot_ have different (and often complex) royalty schemes, and any revenue must be funneled through the correct channels. For example, while royalties for the play may go solely to Neil Simon, royalties from the screenplay might be divided between Simon (who wrote the screenplay too), the studio, his agent, etc. So a clear distinction must be made. There are no elements original to the movie of _Barefoot_ that were used in the television series. Yes, the popularity of the movie no doubt influenced the decision of Paramount and ABC to make a television pilot, but the series was derived directly from the play, not the movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/big-screen-to-small-screen-failures/291621.md?page=2)