12 Movies You Didn’t Realise Were Originally TV Shows

4. My Favorite Martian

If you remember My Favorite Martian, the television series, well then that's quite a memory for oldies you've got there (or you're just kind of old, in which case, sorry). If you remember My Favorite Martian the movie, then condolences, because it really wasn't very good. The 1999 big screen version starred Christoper Lloyd, Elizabeth Hurley, and Jeff Daniels, with Lloyd playing a zany Martian crashed to Earth and Daniels the hapless news producer who gives him shelter. It was a box office disaster. Few remembered or frankly cared about the 1960s series then, which had centred around an alien having crashed to earth who is taken in by a human, Tim (Bill Bixby), and passed off as his uncle. In the show, the alien is played by Ray Walston, and is a humanoid; in the film version, Lloyd's Martian has shape-shifting tech. Film goers weren't concerned with the change in premise, they did question, however, why such an obscure property was optioned in the first place, if they realised at all that it had once been a television show. My Favorite Martian, the series, never had the lasting impact of Mork And Mindy, ALF, or Third Rock From The Sun, but it did manage to spawn a spin-off cartoon, and can still be found on DVD. Avoid the movie at all costs.