Movies Based on TV Shows: They've Been Around for a Long Time!
Question: Do you know what was the first TV show to have a feature length movie made about it while the show was still on the air? Did that show see a bump in ratings because of the movie? - Ryan
FlickChick: This is an interesting question and I have to say up front that I have no way of answering the second part. I'm sure there is a way of getting ratings information for 1960s television shows and checking against the release dates of the appropriate feature films, but it would involve physically sifting through archived network information that isn't readily available to outsiders. And the more I think about it, the less I
am sure that the information is even there we're talking about the same networks that regularly reused videotapes or dumped the only copies of early shows into catch-all storage facilities and forgot about them. The first two Superbowl broadcasts were taped over and no-one knows what became of
Johnny Carson's first appearance on
The Tonight Show. No strong commitment to history.
All that aside, you made me very curious about the earliest examples TV shows that inspired feature films. The first I can think of and verify is
Dr. Who and the Daleks, the first of two theatrical films inspired by the pioneering BBC sci-fi series. The first iteration of
Doctor Who, which is still going strong (with periodic interruptions throughout the years), aired in 1963 and the film debuted in 1965.
Daleks--Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. followed in 1966, and both played while the first Who cycle, starring
William Hartnell, was still on TV. I leave it to
Doctor Who fans to address the controversy surrounding these films, which starred Hammer icon
Peter Cushing as the traveling time lord.
Following that, I think we're looking at
Batman (1966), which took off from the hugely popular
TV series that ran from '66 through 1968. That same year,
Thunderbirds Are GO was spun off from the puppet animated series
Thunderbirds (1965-1966), like
Doctor Who, a UK production. I suppose this is a borderline case
Thunderbirds was cancelled in August of 1966 and
Variety reviewed the film in December, so the movie was in production while the show was still on but opened after it was gone. And after that,
House of Dark Shadows (1970), which opened while the gothic supernatural soap
Dark Shadows (1966-1971) was still going strong.
Bob Rafelson's
Head (1968) opened shortly after
The Monkees (1966-1968) was cancelled, but it was counter-culture deconstruction of the pop TV show rather that a big-screen extension of it the posters didn't even feature the pre-fab four.
And then there are the judgment calls this is what I mean, by the way, when I lament that there's nothing more frustrating than to try answering a question that involves the word "first." Take
To Trap a Spy, made in 1964 as the pilot for the
Man From U.N.C.L.E. TV series (1964-1968), then re-edited and released to theaters in 1966, while the show was at the peak of its popularity. Complicating matters further, episodes of
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were cobbled together, re-edited and released as features throughout the run of the series; they were
The Spy With My Face (1965),
One Spy Too Many (1966),
The Spy in the Green Hat (1966),
One of our Spies is Missing (1966),
Karate Killers (1967),
The Helicopter Spies (1967) and
How To Steal The World (1968). Can you imagine the outrage if someone tried a stunt like that now? MGM, who produced both the series and the "movies" is lucky there was no internet then.
Recently, the only series I can think of that spawned feature films while they were still on the air are
South Park and
X-Files.
South Park debuted in 1997 and is still going strong;
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was released in 1999.
The X-Files ran from 1993 to 2002 and
The X-Files opened in 1998.
