Author: Seth Harris

The Addams Family (1991)
Written by Caroline Thompson & Larry Wilson
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

Few television-to-film adaptations are as good as the first two Addams Family movies. I didn’t realize it until recently, but The Addams Family television series only ran for two seasons, with an impressive 64 episodes total. In syndicated reruns, the series would gain a cult fanbase that kept it in the cultural spotlight. Beyond the theme song and encounters with “normals,” the film’s tone is not based on the television show. Instead, the filmmakers drew inspiration from the original New Yorker comics by Charles Addams. This was the correct decision, and the result is studio comedy that sits in the perfect middle ground between crowd pleaser and dark humor. It’s also a strange case where the sequel is arguably better than the original film.

Dragnet (1987)
Written by Dan Aykroyd, Alan Zweibel, and Tom Mankiewicz
Directed by Tom Mankiewicz

In the 1960s, just a couple decades into television’s public rollout in the United States, studios began producing movies based on shows. One of the most common methods of making these films was to edit and repackage episodes of the show as a movie. There were original stories, though. The Batman movie in 1966 was created in response to the first season’s explosive success. In the United Kingdom, Doctor Who was spun off into two films that completely reimagined the program’s concept and centered it around the Daleks. As soon as The Munsters wrapped filming of the series, Munsters Go Home went into production for theatrical release. The 1980s was when Baby Boomers had gotten into positions of power within Hollywood and were ready to greenlight some of their favorite shows as feature films. Sometimes this was done with great reverence to the source material, while others were extremely tongue in cheek. I’ll be looking at just a few of these movies, a mix of ones I’ve seen and some new ones. I’ll be reviewing them not just as movies but also in how well they stayed true to the conceit of the original series and if that was the right choice.