I was watching the Disney Channel last Friday night and I saw the schedule lineup for the channel. I was shocked, the Disney Channel was playing old television shows, usually they only run the new shows they have on, but they were running old television shows I used to watch when I was a child. One of the shows was The Little Mermaid and another was Timon and Pumbaa. This got me thinking, are the television shows that are based off the movie actually as good as the movie.
Lets take a look at how I feel and think about this topic.
I think I have mentioned this in a previous article but I will mention it again. One of my favorite Disney movies is Aladdin. Disney made a show of the movie and I loved the show when I was younger. I loved the show so much that I taped a good majority of the episodes.
Aladdin, Jasmine, Genie, and everyone would go on adventures, either trying to steal back stolen treasure or help out a young boy in need. In the end, Aladdin always won and defeated the enemy or helped out the people of the city.
I remember watching Jungle Cubs before breakfast while staying in a hotel in Orlando in the Disney area. That is my first memory of the televisions show and I have no idea how long ago that was. The show is based off the movie The Jungle Book, but the animals are all young, or cubs. It was a typical children's cartoon, the animals went on adventures and had fun.
Not too much to say about the show.
I love Toy Story, but I don't think that making a show about Buzz Lightyear was a good idea. He's a great character, but he can't hold up a television show. In the show, there are way too many new characters and it's as if Buzz never met Woody or any of the toys. The show doesn't even take place on Earth, it takes place somewhere off in some unknown galaxy. I watched about one episode and quickly found something else to watch instead of that.
Personally, one of my favorite villains is Cruella DeVil, but loving her so much did not make me watch the 101 Dalmatians television show. I love the original cartoon movie, not so much the live action movie. I think Glenn Close does a great job portraying Cruella, but I liked the carton better. When the show first came on, I was expecting it to be more like the cartoon, but it was more like the live action movie instead, which had just come out at the time.
There were other Disney themed movie television shows such as: Hercules, The Little Mermaid, and Timon and Pumbaa, but I did not watch those. I have seen a few episodes here and there but I never really got into them. It's odd, I love all of the Disney movies I have mentioned (except Hercules because I have never seen that movie) but I did not love the television shows (with the exception of Aladdin). Another thing I noticed was that, not all of these shows lasted a long time on the air. Maybe the viewers would rather watch the movie instead, I do not know.
In conclusion, television producers tried to make shows that are based off popular movies at the time; it only makes sense to do so. They are trying to capture the popularity and success of the movie and bring it to television. They are still hoping to cash in on the success of the movie. Sometimes the shows work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes people should just leave it as a movie.
