Characters that changed when they went into animation

The print medium version of KRAZY KAT was, for the most part, male..

When the KING FEATURES Animation Division approached expatriate director GENE DEITCH with the plans to make the animated version they prevailed upon DEITCH NOT to retain the KAT's original gender....and EXPUNGE any kind of "homosexual overtones" in the character, and make KRAZY female..
 
That's odd-- I've got a couple of Krazy Kat books, and in most of the strips where Krazy Kat's gender is mentioned, it's usually "she". I read that in the cartoon (at least, the original theatrical ones), it was turned into a male, as well as getting rid of the other characters.
 
Well, Disney created 'Mickey Mouse' and helped write the comic strip which started in 1930 and was drawn by Ub Irwerks before it was taken over in the same year by Gottfredson who remained on it for several decades.

In Gottfredson's comic Mickey went on adventures around the world and battled villains like Peg-leg Pete, Dr. Vulter and The Phantom Blot. The comic strip could be pretty violent; for example in (my favorite of those I've read) Mickey outwits The Phantom Blot' The Blot tries to kill Mickey by hanging the mouse from a rafter (to be on the safe side, The Blot had given Mickey some "harmless sleeping powders" earlier). In an earlier storyline Mickey believes that Minnie has left him for another guy and tries to commit suicide.

Actually, the suicide-thing was Disney's idea. You can read more about it here: http://www.mouseplanet.com/articles.php?art=ww060906ws
 
According to the Garfield 25th Annviersary book, Arlene (Garfield's girlfriend), was replaced by some other girl cat.

Also, Heathcliff talks in the cartoons, but not in the comic strip.
 
Funny, some of my cousins couldn't tell Heathcliff and Garfield apart either, but they never looked anything alike to me. Go figure....
 
I always wrote it off that she dyed her hair.

J was a white guy in the original comics. K was more of a typical government "spook" that you did not want to mess with. They never showed Zed in the original comic series, either; he was just a voice from an intercom.

Well, J got changed to a black guy (Will Smith) for the first movie. By the end of the movie, J was acting like an old pro, which I didn't care for all that much. But in the animated series, J makes rookie mistakes throughout the entire first season, gradually gaining proficiency. By the end of the first season, he earns a small amount of respect from K but still has a long way to go with his training. (I know that the show continued for several more seasons but I never saw past the first one since that's all that was released -- never saw the show on television, unfortunately.)

Anyways, I really appreciated the changes made for the animated Men in Black. Season one is far better than the movies, in my opinion.



I've never really been "into" those kinds of comics. But I picked up Mickey Mouse this year on FCBD, mainly because it had Robin Hood on the cover. I was amazed at how different this Mickey Mouse (by Gottfredson) was! In this, Mickey not only went on adventures, he beat people up, had attitude, and a sense of humor. If Mickey Mouse had been like this when I was growing up, I would have liked him better than Bugs Bunny for sure.

I'm not an expert on the show but I think on Spider-man: TAS, Hobgoblin was introduced before the Green Goblin, which is backwards from the comics. They made quite a few changes to Marvel Comics continuity -- they totally jacked up Captain America's story as well as Secret Wars, for example. I could go on but I won't. :p

X-Men: Evolution changed a lot of the main characters ages. True, the X-Men were just kids when they started but Storm was not one of the teachers, for example. Actually, I think this is a great show despite the changes they made.

In Mutant League, Bones Jackson from the videogame Mutant League Football was changed to Bones Justice. Originally, the character's name was satire of the real football/baseball star, Bo Jackson. I do not know if the television show had any legal trouble and had to change the name or not, but they didn't change some of the other names, like Dark Star (ie, Bart Starr, another famous football player); then again, they didn't use other characters at all, like Scary Ice (ie, Jerry Rice) or Coach Bricka (Coach Ditka). Electronic Arts, creators of the videogames and producers of the show, had recently had a legal battle with ESPN over their fictional EASN logo for their sports videogames; the suit was settled out of court and EA changed their sports logo to the now famous EA Sports brand.

Also, Coach McWhimple coached the Sixty-Whiners in the videogame while in the show, he was head coach for the Monsters instead of Coach Bricka. I think they made this change mainly because Bones was the real team leader both on and off the field. McWhimple was too wimpy to give orders to anybody!
 
Keep in mind that X-Men: Evolution wasn't a prequel to the Fox series, or even the comics; it was set in its' own universe with its' own separate continuity. If it had been a true depiction of the original X-Men, it would've only featured Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Beast and Jean Grey, who was then known as Marvel Girl. Storm, Wolverine and Nightcrawler were on the 2nd X-Men team (along with Thunderbird, Banshee and Colossus) which was formed after the original X-Men (except for Cyclops) were seemingly killed on a mission. (It turned out they weren't dead, but were in the clutches of a living island-don't ask, long story.)
 
Tara's aversion to salt was from the movie (specifically, the sequel, Return of the Killer Tomatoes). Tara was actually a tomato, and being sprinkled with salt would turn her back into a vegetable.

The only real changes made in the Fox cartoon were that Chad and Tara were remade into kids, and Chad's lecherous best friend from the movie was dropped altogether.
 
I guess this was a change that had to be made due to censors and stuff, but Wolverine was govenrment assassin in the comics, but was just a violent brawler in X-Men: TAS and some sort of teacher chump in X-Men: Evolution. He's just not a character that makes a good transition from comics to animation.
 
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