Top 10 movies spawned from TV shows

It's super-easy to list the worst movies whose origins were in television: "Scooby-Doo," "The Smurfs," "The A-Team," "Sex and the City," "The Flintstones," "Wild Wild West" … the list goes on and on.

Good transitions from the boob tube to the silver screen are rare, but they do happen. These 10 films made the most graceful leaps.

10. 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' (1990, rated PG)

This movie is dumb, but it's dumb in exactly the way it needs to be, given that it's about anthropomorphic-mutated-turtle-ninjas named after Renaissance artists with a rat for a sensei. The film, piggybacking off the success of the '80s cartoon series, embraces the silliness with humor, the wisecracking pizza lovers played by people in turtle costumes and puppets courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop. That's better than any CGI.

9. 'The Untouchables' (1987, rated R)

Cool has never been Kevin Costner's strong suit. But it's impossible to be otherwise acting alongside Sean Connery in a Brian De Palma-directed period gangster flick. Costner plays good guy Eliot Ness, a righteous Chicago lawman whose moral code is strained to the limit as he fights to nab notorious gangster Al Capone (Robert De Niro) during Prohibition. You have to give him this: Costner has certainly never looked better.

8. 'South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut' (1999, rated R)

Mad geniuses Trey Parker and Matt Stone took their crudely animated, foul-mouthed gaggle of small-town folk to the big screen for a film that was every bit alike in spirit to the best "South Park" episodes. But it has two advantages over a typical episode: an R rating and a longer running time. And thanks to those two factors, we were gifted with the song "Blame Canada," and a delightful performance by Robin Williams when it was nominated for an Oscar. Don't feel sorry for Canada, it's not even a real country anyway.

7. 'Wayne's World' (1992, rated PG-13)

Good luck making it through 1992 without hearing someone say "We're not worthy," "Ex-squeeze me?" or "Schwing!" Mike Myers and Dana Carvey did good by their "Saturday Night Live" skit about a pair of basement-dwelling goofs, Wayne and Garth, who host an equally goofy public-access TV show. The movie gets meta when the duo are lured to the big time by a skeevy TV producer who buys the rights to their show. The film will forever get props for reintroducing Queen's epically awesome "Bohemian Rhapsody" into public consciousness.

6. 'Serenity' (2005, rated PG-13)

Fans wailed when "Firefly," Joss Whedon's brilliantly fun swashbuckling space adventure, got canned after one measly season. But you can't keep a ragtag team of rebellious space pirates down. The film picks up where the series left off, with the crew of the spaceship Serenity on the run from the supergovernment that fiddled with River's (Summer Glau) brain and turned her into a weapon. The film is every bit as witty, fun, philosophical and thrilling as the TV show, just with a bigger budget and bigger ambitions.

5. 'The Fugitive' (1993, rated PG-13)

Big-screen efforts based on television properties rarely turn out as well as this one did. But then, they rarely star Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones in their prime. Here, Ford embodies his frequent reluctant-hero type as Dr. Richard Kimble, a man unjustly accused of murdering his wife, on the run from a team of U.S. marshals (led by Jones). The thrill of their sparring lends extra zing to what is, essentially, one long, expertly crafted chase sequence.

4. 'The Addams Family' (1991, rated PG-13)

The long-running New Yorker cartoon about a nuclear family of macabre misfits was first adapted into a '60s TV show, which had a memorable pop-culture presence that seemed hard to top. But the film is a riot, a wickedly clever update that places the bizarre family in the (then) modern world to contend with the sudden return of long-missing Uncle Fester, who doesn't quite seem to be himself. Clever writing is only part of the film's success — it has a stellar cast, and Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston and Christopher Lloyd inhabit their characters fully. But little Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams was the film's best discovery.

3. 'The Muppet Movie' (1979, rated G)

Everyone has their own favorite Muppet movie (and several are great, including "The Great Muppet Caper" and 2011's Muppets love letter, "The Muppets"), but the first one gets a leg up on the rest for being a trailblazer (and for "The Rainbow Connection"). It's a crowd-pleasing take on the classic road-trip format as Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear and crew take off for Hollywood with their unique brand of burlesque and variety-sketch comedy in search of stardom. Eight feature films later, it's safe to say they found it.

2. 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan' (1982, rated PG)

Easily the best of the "Star Trek" movies and one of the best sci-fi films of the '80s (and that was a great decade for the genre). The second space adventure based on the beloved TV show brims with swashbuckling charm as the aging crew members of the Enterprise face off against an old foe: Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban), an exiled genetically engineered superman out for vengeance. A movie is only ever as good as its villain, and Montalban's performance is as memorable as his outrageous pecs.

1. 'The Blues Brothers' (1980, rated R)

It started as a musical sketch on "Saturday Night Live," cast members Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi assuming the characters of "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues to front a blues revivalist band. With the help of John Landis, they took those characters to the big screen in an improbably awesome movie with musical performances by such greats as Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Ray Charles. Jake's release from prison sets the brothers on a mission from God to save an orphanage — a mission that happens to include battling neo-Nazis and taking part in the mother of all car chases.

Reach the reporter at barbara.vandenburgh@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8371. Twitter.com/BabsVan.