Sound to Screen Adaptation: Difference between revisions
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Hollywood is famed for being cautious about trying anything new, hence the constant stream of rip-offs, imitations and other-media adaptations that pour into cinemas like so much slurry. But the same is true of television, too.
One method that's particularly popular in Britain is adapting radio series - usually [[
Although it may seem cynical, there are two fairly sensible reasons for adapting from radio to television. First of all, it shows that there is an existing audience for the progamme, something which is important given the cost of modern TV productions. Secondly, it allows access to a pool of writing talent that is new to television but nevertheless has prior experience of putting together a weekly show. In Britain, many comedians see radio as the middle stage of career advancement, coming before TV but after stand-up and stage work (film being a fourth step, though not accessible to most).
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In America, this was more common in the 1950s, as a number of "golden age" [[Radio Drama]] programs made the transition to the tube.
Often leads to [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]] among the core radio audience.
For the reverse of this, see [[Audio Adaptation]].
{{examples
== Radio to Television ==
* [[Miranda]] started off as Miranda Hart's Joke Shop on radio.
* Groucho Marx's ''[[You Bet Your Life]]'' started life as a radio quiz. The hour long pilot/trial film was merely a filmed version of the audio broadcast.
* The spoof radio news show ''[[On The Hour]]'' was later turned into TV series ''[[The Day Today]]''
* Lee and Herring themselves had the ''[[Fist of Fun]]'' radio show, which was adapted into an identically-named TV series.
* ''[[The Mighty Boosh]]'' ran for one series on the radio (as ''The Boosh'') before the stories were adapted for television. Subsequent series have used all-new material.
* ''Blue Jam'', an hour-long psychedelic mix of disturbing 'ambient comedy' and music, was later translated to television minus the music in the form of ''[[Jam]]'' and the 'remix' show ''Jaaaaaam''. The majority of the sketches were taken directly from the radio show.
* ''[[Guiding Light]]'' is currently known as the longest-running scripted soap opera. This is assisted by the fact that it started out as a radio serial in the 1937, with the Tv version beginning in 1952. The show actually ran concurrently (running the same storylines) on radio and TV between 1952 and 1956. Notably, Guiding Light is the only radio soap opera to successfully transition to TV.
* ''[[
* ''On The Town With [[The League of Gentlemen]]'' retained most of its characters upon transferring to television, but changed the village's name from 'Spent' to 'Royston Vasey' (as a [[Shout
* Mark Steel's semi-educational radio biography series about''[[The Mark Steel Lecture]]'' was adapted into the TV series of the same name. It re-used most of the material but had lots of [[Anachronism Stew|anachronistic]] visual gags, like Charles Darwin watching 'Animal Hospital' on his TV.
* Sean Lock's radio series ''15 Minutes of Misery'' was adapted into ''another'' radio series, ''15StoreysHigh'', which itself was later adapted into the TV series of the same name.
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* Several episodes of ''[[The Goon Show]]'' were adapted for a 15-minute puppet version called ''The Telegoons'' starring the original cast as [[Voice Actors]]. There were also a couple of TV remakes of Goon Show episodes, but that was done by pointing cameras at a radio performance.
* ''Hello, Cheeky'' transferred to TV but viewers complained that it was also just a radio performance with no visual content.
* ''[[Dead Ringers (TV series)|Dead Ringers]]'' spent many happy years on radio before making the shift to television. There is still the occasional radio special.
* ''[[Armstrong And Miller]]'' also began on radio.
* Popular TV series ''[[Have I Got News for You]]'', which was originally devised as an adaptation of Radio Four's ''[[The News Quiz]]''.
* A yet earlier example was the various series of Tony Hancock.
** [[
* ''[[Little Britain]]''
* ''[[Absolute Power (
* ''[[The Mary Whitehouse Experience]]''
* ''[[Goodness Gracious Me]]''
* ''[[
* This editor, being an old fart, may be the only one to remember it but, ''Dick Barton, Special Agent'', possibly a British takeoff of his namesake Tracy, began as a radio show but had a telly season back in the '70s.
* Many old time radio shows, mostly comedies, later became successful TV shows. Examples include ''[[The Jack Benny Program]]'' (radio: 1932-55, TV: 1952-65)and Burns & Allen (radio: 1933-52, TV: 1950-58), whose shows made the transition with almost no changes in format.
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** Slightly lesser known, (and shorter lived), ''[[The Frantics]]''.
** Probably the most famous was ''[[Wayne and Shuster]]'', who started in radio in 1941, moved to TV in the 1950s, stayed on until the 1980s, and their show was in reruns well into the 1990s.
* Not a direct switch, but some of the cast of ''[[Monty Python]]'' started out on ''[[
* This was one step taken by the ''Doctor in the House'' series of stories; originally a collection of books by Richard Gordon, they were adapted into a series of films starring Dirk Bogarde and directed by Ralph Thomas in the 1950s and early 1960s. In the late 1960s, some of the stories were adapted for radio in two thirteen-episode series, ''Doctor in the House'' and ''Doctor at Large'', starring [[The Good Life|Richard Briers]] and Ray Cooney (Cooney also wrote the scripts). Between 1969 and 1979, the stories were adapted for television, with the characters re-named, in the series ''Doctor in the House'', ''Doctor at Large'', ''Doctor in Charge'', ''Doctor at Sea'', ''Doctor on the Go'', the Australian transplant ''Doctor Down Under'', and the short lived early 1990s revival ''Doctor at the Top''. The television series is perhaps more notable for its writing staff and its guest cast than for its primary cast (which at various times included Martin Shaw (''[[The Professionals]]''), Jonathan Lynn (co-writer of ''[[Yes Minister]]''), George Layton (successful comedy writer and initial star of ''[[
* ''[[This American Life]]'' on <s>[[NPR]]</s> PRI, and now [[Showtime]]. Very, very rare modern American example.
* When ''[[Amos N Andy]]'' was adapted to Television, the title roles had to be recast, as the characters were black, but the radio performers were white.
* BBC Radio 4 stalwart ''[[Just a Minute]]'' was adapted for television several times, with unreleased pilots made in 1969 and 1981, a regional London series in 1994 (with some minor visual gimmicks), another series in 1995 (playing out some kind of bizarre Midlands vs. London team game with Dale Winton and Tony Slattery as captains), and finally a proper BBC TV broadcast in the original format in 1999. Unlike the short-lived TV versions, the radio version continues to this day.
* The original ''[[Dragnet]]'' was a famous example, with creator and lead actor Jack Webb bringing most of his radio team with him to the new show.
* ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]'' started as a BBC radio program.
* ''[[Meet the Press]]''
* ''[[Adventures in Odyssey]]'' has about seventeen video episodes, which occasionally air on TV. As a whole, they're pretty different experiences.
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* ''The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet''
* ''The Life of Riley'' had two TV versions, the first starring a young Jackie Gleason and the other with original radio star William Bendix.
* A TV pilot of ''[[
* ''[[Old
* Italian radio show ''[[Lo Zoo
* ''[[Bold Venture]]'' was turned into a TV series in 1959.
== Radio to Film ==
* ''[[A Prairie Home Companion]]'' is one of the few examples of a ''movie'' based on a radio show. And a [[Meta Fiction|Meta]] one at that.
* Several Golden Age radio shows were adapted into films, including ''[[Fibber McGee and Molly]]'', ''The Great Gildersleeve'', ''The Life Of Riley'' (prior to its better-known TV adaptation), ''A Date With Judy'', and ''My Friend Irma''.
* ''[[The Shadow]]'', starring Alec Baldwin, about an amoral man given the power of telepathy during a trip to the mysterious East. Pulp crime-fighting ensues.
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== Radio to Multiple Media ==
* Probably the best known example is ''[[The
* ''[[Navy Lark]]'' has had both two television shows (both latest for a short time) and one film.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Media Adaptation Tropes]]
[[Category:Radio Tropes]]
[[Category:British Media Tropes]]
[[Category:Sound
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