Shows adaptive from books or comics

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guatamala

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What cartoon tv series that were adaptive from the print media, either books, or the comics (either comic books or the comics in the paper) did the best job of making the transition and did the worst job?

I think most things taken from books or comics and turned into a cartoon series, that the cartoon show is not as the original. Most of the time, the characters are tooned down from the original version to play cade to the parents and sponsers. I think it is hard for me to think of a cartoon show that is better the original print media version, even some of my favorite cartoon shows of all time.

One of my favorite shows is Teen Titans. I love that show, and I always will. But I think the 1980's Marv Wolfman version is better. The stories were more gray, than black and white. Blackfire defentely was a better character in the comics. But I liked that in the cartoon show, they just went by their superhero names, they all lived under one roof, and the Titans were all friends, and not so mistrusting and had such a soap opera feel within the Titans. I guess in the case of the Teen Titans for me, it is a draw.

Any cartoon base on a comic strip has to be better right? I think Peanuts, Garfield, were improved on tv, because their stories were extended.
 
Good
Garfield - It was actually funny
The DCAU - It was toned down from the comics, but kept the spirit that made the comics nice and was still quite mature and serious
W.I.T.C.H. - While not really accurate until the second season, it's a nice show with it's own twist on some of the comic storylines and kept a lot of the spirit of the comic.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 - Great adaption that was more true to the original comics than the cheesy and goofy 80s series. It was dark, serious, and everything a great action cartoon should be.
X-Men: Evolution - It was a nice adaption and re-imagining of the early years of the X-Men. It had a nice story, and some nice characters that had some interesting re-imaginings compared to the comic-versions of them.

Bad
Teen Titans - For the exact opposite of the DCAU reasons; it really kiddied the series and dumbed it down a lot, such as everyone using their code-names even when they were in the privacy of their own tower, and just really goofy. It was actually more like Young Justice than Teen Titans, but I doubt DC would have made a Young Justice cartoon considering how much they pretend it never existed.
 
Peter Pan & The Pirates: The show took the concept and UN-Disneyfied them. We got a more serious and threatening Hook (One of Tim Curry's best animated roles), and the Lost Boys were all given distinct personalities.

Garfield & Friends One of THE best comic to t.v. adaptions, Garfield rarely had a bad episode, and Lorenzo Music is the only person who could ever get the voice down IMO.
 
Garfield, started as television specials and became a official cartoon series.

Catscratch, based on the comic Gear.

Martin Mysteries, based on an comic in Italy

Roughnecks:Starship Troopers Chronicles, follow the story from the novel.
 
I find that adaption quite terrible, actually. Where as Martin Mystery was originally a serial style mystery series with some odd sci-fi elements thrown in, the cartoon was all about comedy, and they turned it into a Frech manufactured anime wanna be. Worst still, they made them all teenagers, and changed their personalities.

For good adaptions I go for Garfield and friends, the Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show and Mother Goose and Grimm. Not only were these very close to the origianl source material, some segments were taken entirely from the source material. Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show especially. Most episodes of that one were cultivated from weeks of strips that had an actual story line.

Another great one would be the Asterix films, especially Asterix and Cleopatra (I'm talking about the animeted films, not the live action ones of which I know nothing). Some films are based off events that happened in the comics, while others were the comic in movie form, with musical numbers and other things to fill out time.
 
Here is an example of a cartoon show that I like and really enjoy, but it is not close to being as good as the comic book version.

Josie And The Pussycats -I like the show a lot (the original more than the Space spinoff), I even got the DVD, and it is very funny, I like the songs, and it is just fun show. But the comic book is much better. There is a lot more romatic storylines and shipping. You had Alexander who had a crush on Josie and Melody, almost every guy in town had the hots of Melody, etc. On the show, Josie and Alan was a couple with Alexandra trying to break them up, and that is it. Everyone else no romantic interest in anyone. Also on the cartoon show, Alexandra went soft, she was much more conviney and a trobule maker in the comics, so was Alexander BTW. Bottom line, even though the two cartoon series are classics, the comic book series was better.
 
There have been quite a few cartoon with literary antecedents.

Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century was a sci-fi pastiche of the Sherlock Holmes canon, even going so far as to have plots that were based loosely on the Holmes stories. If you could get past the fact that Dr. Watson was an android, and Inspector Lestrade was a hot Asian woman, it was pretty good.

Disney's Tarzan maintained some of the details from Edgar Rice Burroughs original books. A lot of Tarzan's terminology for animals was taken directly from the books, as was the city of Opar and the Leopard Men, both of which were featured in a couple of episodes.

Years ago, Hanna Barbera did a three-part miniseries based on Robert Heinlein's novel, Red Planet. The animation was not great, but I thought it was more faithful to the source novel than Paul Verheoven's Starship Troopers.

Filmation mined the world of pulp literature for several TV shows in the 1970's, including Tarzan, The Lone Ranger (novel series written by Fran Striker), and Zorro (long series of novels and stories written by Johnston McCulley). Filmation also produced one of several cartoons featuring Flash Gordon, based on the long-running comic strip.
 
Java was kept a 200,000 caveman. The series did shows paranormal, and is also serious.

Here is more

Redwall, follows three book but there was some change.

Wayside is based on an book series. I remember seeing the books in the library.

The Oblongs the characters were adapted from the book Creepy Susie and 13 Other Tragic Tales for Troubled Children.
 
That's not toning down, that's changing tone entirely. Was Dr. Strangelove toned down by turning the original, serious short story into a hilarious comedy?

Now, something like Legion or so, that feels pretty dumbed down. But Teen Titans did respect its viewers' intelligence, even though it hardly ever requested they take it seriously.
 
Can I say it's totally hypocritical if the same people that thought that Teen Titans was dumbed down prefer the old TMNT to the new one? Seems like the same idea.
 
The Teen Titans was toned down a little bit, but they did have their serious moments, the story arcs from season 1, 2, and 4 for sure, were very serious and dramatic storylines.

I liked that it was toned down, I like action shows that can also make me laugh. For those that say the characters both hero and villain were to silly, they are less silly than the Kim Possible characters.
 
My take:

Filmation, for all its faults, tended to stay on point with their literary adaptations, with one big exception.

The studio stupidly decided that the Hardy Boys had to be a rock band (1969). Granted, this predated the live-action series that made a teen idol out of Shaun Cassidy by 7-8 years, but by targeting the bubblegum pop audience they themselves mined a year earlier with the Archies, Filmation misfired badly with the Hardys. The work done with Superman, Tarzan, Zorro, Flash Gordon, et al, on the other hand, was largely on point.

Comics adaptations in the last four decades have suffered from creative misguidance. Consider the following:

Plastic Man (Ruby-Spears/ABC, 1979-81): Woozy Winks is replaced by a Hawaiian bumbler (Hula-Hula) AND a sexy Southern belle (Penny), who'd marry Plas off camera in between seasons, despite the fact that Plas had been chasing the female Chief.

The Thing (H-B/NBC, 1979-80): Ben Grimm suddenly becomes a teenage shapeshifter for his solo series? Someone at either the studio or the network must've been on daily cocaine highs to diss the FF for a 2nd season (we won't talk about the 1978 DFE FF series).

Most Marvel shows of the last decade plus have fallen to compressed continuity, meaning, the producers are picking certain aspects from different eras (see X-Men for an example) and trying to mush them together. It doesn't always work.

Spider-Man Unlimited & Avengers (Saban/Fox 1999) were thrown under the Pokemon Express and cancelled rather quickly before building an audience. Given how Saban screwed up the latter series, well......!:shrug:
 
How about:
Arthur
Curious George
The Magic School Bus
Timothy Goes to School
Marvin the Tap Dancing Horse
George Shrinks
Rolie Polie Olie
The Puppy's New Adventures
Seven Little Monsters
Berenstain Bears
Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat
Remy
Belle and Sebastian
The World of David the Gnome

...all were based on children's books.
 
Yes, Tim Curry's Hook is by far my favorite interpretation of the character.

The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer

Based on one of my favorite comics, this cartoon was a good adaption, not on par with, say, Batman:TAS but I still found it highly enjoyable. Alot of things were changed from the original stories though, such as having Blake along for the ride in the time-machine in The Diabolical Trap or replacing the asian enemy in The Secret of The Swordfish to caucasians in black uniforms (I suppose the latter change was due to political correctness).
 
Even thought this doesn't really qualify as a series, as this was just a movie, It did have a Novel/book overtone.

Rankin/Bass Came out in 1982 with an animated feature called The Flight of Dragons. This animated film was based off the Novel by Gordon R. *****on Called The Dragon and the George.

So in a way this does meet the Bood adpatation rule.. even though it is a "one shot."

:coyote:
 
I think the 90s X-Men the animated series, was probably one of the best comic to animation translations I can think of in the last 20 years. While the cast may have been different from some of the cast members in the comic the story adaptations were pretty darn close to that of the comics, in particular the Dark Phoenix Saga. Sure they changed some things for the show (Jean didn't "die", Rogue replaced Collossus), but overall, if you had read the stories you were pleased with the results.

The inital 2000 TMNT story run had stories in it that were directly from the original Mirage comics in look and feel.

The one animated translation from comic to toon I think that actually improved on the comic material were all the Batman TAS and Justice League Unlimited series. I have found the stories told in them and characterizations to be actually better than they are in the comics (John Stewart GL as a big, so much better on the show than in the comic example).
 
Spider-Man Unlimited to me had a lot of promise because in my opinion, while the costume was different, the character of Spider-Man felt more and sounded more like what "Spider-Man" should have than how he was done in the Animated Series (he was way too whiney and not quippy enough for me like he was in Unlimited). PLus, with it being a different dimension they had more freedom to do different things while still having other Marvel Characters you normally wouldn't see on screen.


OH, Silver Surfer was a good adaptation from comic to toon.
 
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