15 Movies You Forgot Were Turned Into Animated Series

At this point in the evolution of popular media, it’s a cliché to say that everyone’s run out of ideas. You need only take a look at a recent year-end box office list to see just how many major properties are getting recycled all the time, rebooted and remade and turned into something new simply because it has built-in name recognition for audiences.

That kind of thing has, in fact, been going on for quite a while. Remakes have been happening since the earliest decades of film history, but in the 1980s and 1990s especially, many breakout movies were immediately monetized as much as possible, adapted into toy lines and breakfast cereals and, yes, Saturday morning cartoons. Some of those cartoons caught on, becoming bona fide smashes in their own right — for example, it can be jarring to watch the original “Beetlejuice” movie and realize that Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz were not, in fact, the besties they were in cartoon form. Other shows, though, faded from the cultural memory quite quickly. Read on for fifteen movies you forgot were turned into an animated series. 

Paul Verhoeven’s “RoboCop” had to cut a scene to avoid an X rating. It’s about a cop who gets his body rebuilt by technology after he’s nearly killed in a shootout, brought back to life as a brutal killing machine in order to crack down on a futuristic, crime-ridden Detroit. It’s an extremely violent film, one that’s making a point about the levels of violence we accept from our corporate and government overlords.

You might think that the twelve-episode 1988 cartoon by the same name would’ve sanded down the film’s edges for children — and you’d be correct. Still, “RoboCop” tackled some impressively grown-up subject matter. Sure, it’s not as grotesque as the live-action film, but kids were still exposed to episodes with some pretty heavy topics. “The Brotherhood” was about RoboCop battling a KKK-like organization of racists, while “Night of the Archer” imagined the citizens of Detroit rising up against the corporation that controls their lives, demanding reparations. “A Robot’s Revenge” even tackled peace in the Middle East!

This wouldn’t be the only attempt to turn “RoboCop” into a show for kids. “RoboCop: Alpha Commando” followed in 1998, running for an impressive forty episodes.

The 1989 film “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” featured a young Keanu Reeves in what would become one of his most memorable roles. Alongside Alex Winter, Reeves played a slacker who stumbles into a time-traveling telephone booth, allowing the affable dopes to bop around in time. The characters quickly became recognizable thanks to their distinct looks, and it turns out that styling Ted’s hair was no easy task. Winter later recalled, “Ted Hair had to be out like — and this was all [Reeves’] design — it had to be out of this kind of physically impossible level.”

That’s much easier to do when animated, as they learned on “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures.” The spin-off cartoon followed the slackers on further adventures through time, and unlike most shows on this list, the film’s cast largely returned to voice their animated counterparts. In addition to Winter and Reeves voicing Bill and Ted respectively, the animated show also featured George Carlin as Rufus, the sunglasses-sporting weirdo who guides the duo on their adventures. 

As with many other animated shows in the 1980s and ’90s, “Rambo: The Force of Freedom” was based on a property that’s not appropriate for kids. “First Blood” and “Rambo: First Blood Part II” are incredibly violent films, and they’re making points about the Vietnam War that would likely sail right over the heads of any kids who managed to sneak a watch. “Rambo: The Force of Freedom,” on the other hand, made Sylvester Stallone’s iconic character into a freedom-fighting machine that any kid could root for.

Like many movies that were turned into cartoons, “Rambo: The Force of Freedom” is a significant departure from the source material. In this version, Rambo is part of a patriotic organization fighting back against a terrorist network called S.A.V.A.G.E. – Specialist-Administrators of Vengeance, Anarchy and Global Extortion. If that reminds you of C.O.B.R.A. and you’re thinking that “Rambo: The Force of Freedom” sure sounds like a “G.I. Joe” ripoff, you’re not necessarily wrong; like that show, “Rambo” spawned a massive toy line.

Jim Carrey is a brilliant comedian in part because he can contort his face into any manner of ridiculous expressions, often looking like a cartoon brought to life. It makes sense, then, that three separate Carrey comedies were turned into animated shows in the 1990s. They even premiered the same year. In addition to “The Mask: The Animated Series,” that year brought us shows based on “Dumb and Dumber” and “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.”

The latter aired initially on CBS and then on Nickelodeon, ultimately lasting 41 episodes. The animation was pretty rudimentary, but the show’s zany spirit captured Carrey’s commitment to the live-action character (although this time, he was voiced by Michael Hall). As with the films, each episode featured the pet detective trying to track down a missing animal or otherwise save one involved in an ongoing crime. Some episodes were small, focused on things like missing pets, while others took Ace to Siberia to face off against a group of remote Soviet soldiers who thought they were still fighting the Cold War. The show also parodied pop culture staples like “Star Wars,” “Jurassic Park,” and “Westworld” … the 1973 movie, not the as-yet-unaired television show.

The same year we got animated shows based on Jim Carrey classics “The Mask” and “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” ABC also brought “Dumb and Dumber” to television in animated form. The movie was about two extremely stupid buddies named Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunn, played by Carrey and Daniels; the show matched them up with a purple beaver named Kitty.

“Dumb and Dumber” is of particular interest to cartoon enthusiasts for a few reasons. Unlike many shows on this list, which featured animation that was, shall we say, less than stellar, “Dumb and Dumber” was the last Hanna-Barbera production to air on regular television. It also featured the voice talents of Bill Fagerbakke and Tom Kenny, who would become famous a few years later for voicing Patrick Star and SpongeBob Squarepants, respectively. “Tom was a guest and came walking in,” Fagerbakke told ComicsBeat. “He was so cool and was ready to play and sing. I didn’t see [him] again until we did the pilot for ‘SpongeBob.'” Kenny added, “It’s pretty crazy to work with people for that amount of time.”

If there’s one thing ’90s kids loved, it was ducks. For some reason, we were obsessed with “Darkwing Duck” in those days, as well as “DuckTales” and even “Quack Pack,” a short-lived spinoff show that followed Huey, Dewey, and Louie as teenagers.

At some point, someone somewhere realized that Disney had another duck-related property it could mine for cartoon-loving eyeballs. In 1996, they launched “The Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series,” a cartoon ostensibly inspired by the “Mighty Ducks” films. Those were live-action and about kid hockey players who were very much humans, but in cartoon form, the ducks were literally ducks. Well, that’s not quite right: They were actually humanoid, duck-shaped aliens who play hockey as a way to fight against different, more evil aliens on the planet Puckworld. Ian Ziering voiced Wildwing Flashblade, the lead duck, who, further complicating the series’ relationship with the movies, was designed to look like the mascot of the real-life Anaheim Ducks NHL hockey team.

Kids didn’t care that the show barely made sense as a spin-off of the films, though. After all, ducks were cool in the ’90s, and that was enough.

Long before “Teen Wolf” was a hit show on MTV, it was a 1985 film that starred Michael J. Fox as a high schooler coming to terms with the fact that his body has begun to grow hair in strange places … well, even stranger ones than normal. The following year, CBS turned the show into a cartoon, re-imagining the idea of an outcast teenage werewolf as a show about a town where lots of people are wolves.

In this version, Scott (Townsend Coleman) has a little sister named Lupe. His grandparents also live with them, and they live their lives in werewolf form, trying not to spend too much energy “passing” among the other townsfolk. For the most part, it’s a family sitcom, featuring silly scenarios that only occasionally dive deeper into the werewolf lore of Wolverton. In the series finale, Scott crosses paths with a teenage werewolf cousin named Todd; that’d be Jason Bateman’s character from “Teen Wolf Too,” the live-action sequel to the original film. Was this show canonical? Non-canonical? By the time “Teen Wolf” jumped to MTV, none of this mattered anymore.

The 1984 film “Police Academy” was an R-rated comedy about a world where anyone can become a cop. It’s foul-mouthed and risqué, full of sex workers, violence, and (gasp!) gay people. It would go on to spawn numerous live-action sequels, which got increasingly slapsticky and ridiculous; by the time “Police Academy: Mission to Moscow” was released in 1994, the “Police Academy” movies were rated PG.

That’s perfect fodder, then, for a cartoon spin-off series, which launched in 1988 and ran for 65 episodes. The movies imagine a police force made up of many different kinds of buffoons, and the animated show spins that idea out into a whole city full of colorful criminals. The cops come up against criminal clowns, hypnotists, cyborgs, surfers, cat-burglars, and many more, and there are villains who are clearly parodies of pop culture mainstays like James Bond’s Dr. No and comic book foes like Kingpin and The Riddler.

In 1989, NBC adapted “The Karate Kid” into a 13-episode cartoon that aired on Saturday mornings. Whereas the original films were about self-defense and karate tournaments, the series imagined Daniel LaRusso (voiced by Joey Dedio) and his mentor Mr. Miyagi going on a globe-trotting adventure to retrieve a mystical shrine. While Robert Ito voiced Miyagi during the actual episodes, the movie’s star, Pat Morita, provided narration to each episode.

Unlike many of the cartoons on this list, which were produced rather quickly and cheaply, the animated version of “The Karate Kid” still looks great. It was done anime-style, likely in order to pay homage to the Japanese influence on the films, which allowed the show to take some stylistic leaps.

“The Karate Kid” movies were reasonably realistic, though — as far as that goes — whereas in the television show, magic exists. There was an episode where the show’s Macguffin caused characters to have psychic visions, and others where it could make objects shrink in size. Like many of these cartoons produced in the 1980s and 90s, the show even had a requisite Cold War episode, featuring the characters traveling to the remnants of the Soviet Union. What a way for kids to learn about current events!

While many of the cartoons on this list were based on properties that were not especially geared toward kids, most of them tried to tone down their source material’s subject matter to make the animated spin-off palatable to children. That’s decidedly not the case with “Friday: The Animated Series,” a show based on the stoner classic. The cartoon retained the anything-goes spirit of the film because it aired on MTV2, a network that could afford to be a bit more risqué than, say, ABC on Saturday mornings.

As a result, the show was able to dive into topics that most cartoons wouldn’t touch, like government corruption, drugs, and the deaths of rappers who become local legends. One episode even featured Craig having an affair with Condoleeza Rice (who, for the record, did not voice herself).

Though “Friday: The Animated Series” only lasted eight episodes, Ice Cube told Buzzfeed in 2015 that the film itself lives on. “People are still into it like it just came out last week,” he reflected. “It’s a movie that never gets old for a lot of people.”

Most cartoon adaptations of hit films make some changes to their source material; after all, you need some kind of engine that’ll allow that source material to generate an ideally-infinite number of episodes. But few cartoons on this list made as many changes as “Free Willy,” the animated series about a boy named Jesse and his best friend, who just so happens to be a killer whale.

Whereas the original “Free Willy” film was based on lies, it was still realistic. On the other end of the spectrum, the boy in the “Free Willy” cartoon discovers that he can talk to animals. Cartoons are often a good way to introduce heady ideas to young minds, and as in the franchise’s live-action films, the “Free Willy” animated series often contained eco-conscious takeaways meant to get kids thinking about the importance of preserving the environment. But the show is also full-on sci-fi; it’s not just a story about a boy and his whale, but a show about a boy and his whale being pursued by an evil cyborg. Most episodes of the show feature this villain, a businessman called The Machine, and they’re often about Jesse foiling The Machine’s various plots and schemes. Business is bad, kids! Save the whales!

“Back to the Future: Part III” hit theaters in 1990, signaling the end of the incredible trilogy about a boy, his favorite local mad scientist, and their time-traveling DeLorean. The following year, however, CBS picked up the property and turned it into an animated sitcom, this time imagining that a retired Doc Brown sends his two sons off on adventures with Marty McFly.

Unlike most of the cartoons on this list, “Back to the Future: The Animated Series” featured live-action segments that bookended each episode. Though Christopher Lloyd didn’t voice his iconic character in the animated segments, he appeared in live-action as Doc Brown.

“Back to the Future: The Animated Series” is a powerful curiosity in television history for another reason, too. Doc Brown was given a live-action assistant in those segments, a science guy played by one Bill Nye. John Ludin, a writer on the animated series, later told Fatherly, “I remember during the filming of his scenes, Bill would talk to me about this idea for a TV show he had where he’d do all kinds of experiments. ‘I’d call it ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy,’ he used to tell me, and I just said, ‘Okay Bill, good luck with that.'”

The first “Planet of the Apes” movie was released in 1968, adapting Pierre Bouelle’s novel. The film is about astronauts crash-landing on a planet ruled by apes, and you’ll excuse us if we paraphrase “The Simpsons” in spoiling the decades-old film’s shocking twist: It was Earth all along. 

In Bouelle’s novel, the ape society was far more futuristic than the one depicted in the film. In the 1975 cartoon “Return to the Planet of the Apes,” on the other hand, the apes live in a much more technologically-advanced society than the films explored. That being said, bigwigs were worried about the national conversation about violence in media — after all, people were seeing horrific images out of Vietnam every night on the news — so the creators of the cartoon were not allowed to depict any violence that children might try to copy.

Unlike most of the shows on this list, “Return to the Planet of the Apes” was serialized, with each episode ending on a cliffhanger that the next episode picked up. The resulting show was deliciously weird, featuring philosophical digressions and more detailed art than you were likely to find elsewhere. Shame it only lasted 13 episodes.

The 1992 film “Beethoven” became a cartoon two years later, following the further adventures of the gigantic St. Bernard and the hapless Newton family who loves him. Unlike in the movies, Beethoven can talk in the cartoon, which lets him get himself into all sorts of silly shenanigans. He even has a bunch of new friends along for the ride, including several canine sidekicks.

The series only ran for 13 episodes and the animation was kind of janky, but the show featured a stellar voice cast that means it’s still worth revisiting. Disney legend Dean Jones (“That Darn Cat!”, “The Love Bug”) voiced George Newton, the father of the family who always runs afoul of their furry friend’s adventures. Future “SpongeBob SquarePants” star Bill Fagerbakke played a Great Dane named Caesar, and the show also included voice-acting royalty like Hank Azaria, Christine Cavanaugh, Tress MacNeille, and Dan Castellaneta. The show even featured recent “The Last of Us” guest star Joe Pantoliano as the voice of a Jack Russell terrier.

Saturday morning cartoons loved to reference other media, teaching kids about pop culture while also providing something for parents to giggle over. In 1986, “Muppet Babies” aired an episode based on the cult film “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,” even including clips from the movie to tell a story about Fozzie facing off against “Silly Tomatoes” who were mad about his lame jokes. Writer Costa Dillon told Bon Appetit that the episode was the show’s biggest hit, leading directly to the 1988 movie “Return of the Killer Tomatoes.” Then, he said, “Fox picked it up as a cartoon show, and we had toys and lunchboxes and all that stuff. We didn’t really intend to go back to ‘Killer Tomatoes.'”

The movies are silly fun, but “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: The Animated Series” is downright weird. It’s about a mad scientist named Dr. Putrid T. Gangreen who creates a humanoid tomato called Tara Boumdeay. She teams up with a guy named Chad, and together they try to stop the scientist from taking over the world. Repeatedly. The show was full of references to other media, including episodes based around Dracula, “The Terminator,” “War of the Worlds,” and many more.