When TV first invaded American homes in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the movie industry panicked.

Movies had been the country's dominant form of visual entertainment for over four decades. Filmmakers felt extremely threatened by this newfangled invention that brought actors and stories directly into people's homes.

The public also took to it and theater admissions dropped dramatically. The movie industry tried various technological enhancements, such as Cinemascope and stereo sound, plus concentrating on large-scale stories that TV couldn't handle, to win back audiences.

These gimmicks worked to a certain extent and most of them are still with us today. By the end of the 1950s, the film and TV industries had formed an uneasy truce, co-existing but operating separately.

Slowly, over the next few decades, the two entertainment forms began to merge, almost imperceptibly at first, but eventually forming an extremely symbiotic relationship.

Movie studios learned they could make more money off their films by selling them to TV, which was eager for programming.

TV revived and enhanced the careers of such film stars as Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope.

In the 1980s and '90s, the explosion of the cable industry strengthened that relationship even more. Whole networks were devoted to showing theatrical movies, from HBO to Turner Classic Movies.

Equally as important was that the movie industry began to realize that TV programming represented a virtually untapped gold mine. A single episode of a hit TV show is watched by millions more people than even the biggest blockbuster film. What if, the film industry wondered, these shows could be adapted into movies? Theoretically, the audience would be guaranteed, since the people who watched the shows on TV would certainly want to see their heroes in big screen adventures. Wouldn't they?

The TV-Film relationship actually began back in the 1950s. While the movie studios looked down on their TV colleagues, certain shows, particularly a large number of dramatic anthology programs, were creating quite innovative work.

A young generation of writers, directors and actors received a chance to experiment and enhance their craft. Shows like "Kraft TV Theatre" (1947-58), "Goodyear TV Playhouse" (1951-60) and "Playhouse 90" (1956-61) combined adaptations of great literary and theatre works with startling original stories, launching the careers of dozens of great actors, writers and directors, often reviving the careers of older actors whose film careers had slowed.

Possibly the single most acclaimed live drama in the history of TV aired on May 24, 1953. Written by Paddy Chayefsky ("Altered States" [1980]), "Marty," starring Rod Steiger ("Mars Attacks" [1996]), was an original story about a plain-looking, lonely, lower-class New York butcher who unexpectedly finds love.

The show's success resonated throughout both the TV and film industries. Actor Burt Lancaster ("Elmer Gantry" [1960]) bought the film rights and asked Chayefsky to adapt it for the big screen. The film version of "Marty" with Ernest Borgnine ("From Here to Eternity" [1953]) in the starring role opened to audience and critical acclaim in 1955.

"Marty" then shocked the movie industry by earning eight Academy Award^® nominations and winning Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director (Delbert Mann) and Best Screenplay. Obviously, the industry realized, something good could come from TV.

Another film that was based on a TV program was "Requiem for a Heavyweight." The original version aired as the second telecast of "Playhouse 90" on October 11, 1956.

Written by Rod Serling, creator of "The Twilight Zone" (1959-65), it starred Jack Palance ("Batman" [1989]) as an aging prizefighter who can't give up his career.

In 1962, Anthony Quinn ("Zorba the Greek" [1964]) took over the lead role for the acclaimed big screen adaptation, which featured boxing legends Jack Dempsey and Cassius Clay (who two years later changed his name to Muhammad Ali) in cameo roles.

During the 1960s, some hit TV shows tried to catch lightning in a bottle by releasing movie versions that were basically just expanded TV episodes.

Movies like "Batman" (1966, based on the 1966-68 series) and "McHale's Navy" (1964, based on the 1962-66 comedy series) met with some success, but were generally seen as what they were -- obvious attempts to generate more money from a hit series.

However, it was a TV show from the 1960s that showed Hollywood what a true treasury TV could be.

"Star Trek" premiered in September of 1966, the brainchild of a policeman-turned-writer named Gene Roddenberry.

Loosely based on the old Western TV series "Wagon Train" (1957-65), the series chronicled the voyages of the Starship Enterprise and its eclectic crew, including the dynamic Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the coldly logical Vulcan first officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy).

The show was something of an anomaly at the time, using science-fiction settings to tackle serious social issues like racism, nuclear disarmament and the Vietnam War.

It was a far cry from other sci-fi series airing at the time, such as "Lost in Space" (1965- 68) and "Land of the Giants" (1968-70), which tended to be more fun and intentionally campy.

"Star Trek" was never really very successful during its original run and the network canceled it after its second season. However, a letter-writing campaign fueled by die-hard fans of the show convinced them to bring it back for a third and final season.

No one complained much after its second cancellation. Paramount Studios, which owned the show, sold it into syndication and figured it would die off quietly.

They couldn't have been more wrong. Airing regularly on local stations throughout the country, "Star Trek" grew into nothing short of a phenomenon.

By the early 1970s, fans across America were starting to hold conventions to talk about the show, listen to the actors who participated in it and buy and sell memorabilia.

The show and its optimistic view of the future touched the hearts and minds of millions across the world. Soon Paramount realized they had a potential cash cow on their hands.

Through most of the 1970s, Gene Roddenberry and Paramount argued over how best to resurrect the "Star Trek" franchise.

Fans across the world listened breathlessly as rumors steadily filtered out that the original cast would be brought back for a new series, or a TV movie or a theatrical movie.

Finally, the phenomenal success of "Star Wars" (1977) convinced the studio to put "Star Trek" on the big screen.

With the entire original cast back aboard the Enterprise, and with Academy Award^®- winning director Robert Wise ("The Sound of Music" [1965]) at the helm, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" blasted into America's movie theaters in December 1979.

The film featured stunning special effects overseen by Douglas Trumbull ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind" [1977]) and an Oscar^®-nominated musical score by Jerry Goldsmith ("U.S. Marshals" [1998]), but was somewhat undermined by a ponderous story that borrowed elements from several episodes of the original series.

Nevertheless, the movie was a huge hit, grossing nearly $100 million and spawning one of the most successful film series in history.

All told the original cast, including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForrest Kelly, made six films together, receiving a rousing sendoff in 1991's "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country."

By that time the success of the films and the enduring presence of the original TV series had caused Paramount to launch another addition to the franchise: a new, syndicated series titled "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987-94).

Starring Patrick Stewart ("Excalibur" [1981]) as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the series, set about 70 years after the original, created a whole new legion of fans and spurred the development of two more popular series "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (1993-99) and "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995- ).

In 1994, after seven years on the small screen, the "Next Generation" crew leaped to the big screen with "Star Trek: Generations." This hit film, which featured a symbolic "passing of the torch" between Captains Kirk and Picard, proved the new crew could survive and thrive in the movies, and to date has launched two more popular sequels "Star Trek: First Contact" (1996) and "Star Trek: Insurrection" (1998).

The entire "Star Trek" film series has grossed over a billion dollars worldwide so far, and with another film in the works, it's obvious that its success will continue.

With the continuing success of the "Star Trek" series, movie studios began to realize that basing films on TV shows could be quite a commercially sound proposition.

As the generation of "baby boomers" aged and began to wax nostalgic about the shows and characters from their youth, the studios realized they had a built-in audience for these projects, if they could do them right.

Still, it really wasn't until the 1990s that movies based on TV shows began to show up regularly in theaters. In the 1980s, only three major TV-based films were released, with varying degrees of success.

"Twilight Zone: The Movie" (1983), based on the classic 1959-65 science-fiction anthology series, was a pet project of mega-filmmaker Steven Spielberg ("The Color Purple" [1985]).

Teaming with celebrated directors John Landis ("An American Werewolf in London" [1981]), George Miller ("The Road Warrior" [1982]) and Joe Dante ("Gremlins" [1984]), Spielberg produced an anthology film using three stories from the original TV series and one original story written by Landis.

A more successful TV adaptation was 1987's "The Untouchables," directed by Brian De Palma ("The Bonfire of the Vanities" [1990]).

Based on the 1959-63 crime series that starred Robert Stack ("Airplane!" [1980]) as real-life gangster-buster Eliot Ness, the film was a hit at the box office, solidifying the star status of young up-and-comer Kevin Costner ("Message in a Bottle" [1999]) and earning a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award^® for screen legend Sean Connery ("The Rock" [1996]).

1987 also saw the release of "Dragnet." The original detective series, which ran from 1952-59, then again from 1967-70, is considered one of the classics of TV.

Based on actual cases from the Los Angeles Police Department, the show was famous for its spare, documentary style, and created one of TV's great icons in Jack Webb's dour, "just the facts" Sgt. Joe Friday. Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd starred.

'90s Nostalgia Boom

The 1990s saw an explosion in the TV-to-film genre. The trend was unofficially launched by the success of "The Addams Family" (1991), based on the 1964-66 ghoulish comedy series.

Like "Star Trek," the TV series was not a hit at first and was overshadowed by its rival "The Munsters" (1964-66). But the show's sly humor and hilarious performances by leads John Astin ("National Lampoon's European Vacation" [1985]) and Jackie Coogan ("The Kid" [1921]) helped it live on and grow in popularity in syndication.

Featuring Raul Julia ("Tequila Sunrise" [1988]) as the devilishly romantic Gomez and Oscar^® winner Anjelica Huston ("The Witches" [1990]) as his cadaverous wife, Morticia, "The Addams Family" was a huge hit when it was released in November of 1991 and spawned a clever sequel, "Addams Family Values" (1993), plus the well-received telefilm "Addams Family Reunion" (1998).

The trend was solidified by the critical and box-office success of "The Fugitive" (1993). The original series, which ran from 1963-67, was loosely based on a real- life criminal case from the 1950s.

Chronicling the efforts of noble Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen, "Two-Minute Warning" [1976]) to elude the law, clear his name, and find the one-armed killer of his wife, the show was a huge hit. The final episode, in which Kimble finally catches the One-Armed Man, was the most-watched TV show in history to that time.

Warner Bros. hired acclaimed action director Andrew Davis ("Under Siege" [1992]), landed Tommy Lee Jones ("JFK" [1991]) to play U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard and cast Harrison Ford ("Presumed Innocent" [1990]) as Dr. Kimble.

The adventure grossed over $180 million in the U.S. and earned seven Academy Award^® nominations, with Jones winning for Best Supporting Actor. Jones returned to play Gerard in the 1998 sequel "U.S. Marshals," this time chasing rogue government agent Wesley Snipes ("Passenger 57" [1992]).

In 1994, another hit TV show from "The Fugitive" creator Roy Webb reached America's theaters.

"Maverick" was based on the popular lighthearted Western series that starred James Garner ("Victor/Victoria" [1982]) and ran from 1957-62.

Garner starred in the film opposite Mel Gibson ("Lethal Weapon" [1987]) and Jodie Foster ("Contact" [1997]), and it was directed by Richard Donner ("Superman: The Movie" [1978]).

Gibson played the lead role of cardshark/gunfighter Bret Maverick (Garner's role in the series), with Foster as a card-playing femme fatale and Garner as an (apparent) lawman after Maverick. Like "The Fugitive," "Maverick" was a box-office success, grossing over $100 million.

In 1996, "The Untouchables" director Brian De Palma tackled the big-screen version of another hit TV series from the '60s: "Mission: Impossible."

The original series, which ran from 1966-73 and chronicled the adventures of the Impossible Missions Force, an elite team of government espionage agents, starred Peter Graves ("Airplane!" [1980]) as Jim Phelps, and future Oscar^® winner Martin Landau ("Ed Wood" [1994]) as master of disguise Rollin Hand.

In 1969, Landau was replaced by "Star Trek" icon Leonard Nimoy. The film version starred Tom Cruise ("Eyes Wide Shut" 1999), while Academy Award^®-winner Jon Voight ("Deliverance" [1972]) took over the Jim Phelps role. It was a worldwide blockbuster, grossing nearly $200 million in the U.S. alone.

Sitcom to Silver Screen

Classic action and drama series weren't the only ones showing up on America's movie screens. Hit sitcoms from the 1960s were also turned into movies, although not with quite as much success.

"The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962-71), starring Buddy Ebsen ("Breakfast at Tiffany's" [1961]) and Irene Ryan ("Heading for Heaven" [1947]), was one of the most popular TV shows of the 1960s.

In 1993, director Penelope Spheeris ("Wayne's World" [1992]) essentially re-filmed the original episode of the TV series for the big screen, with Jim Varney ("Ernest Saves Christmas" [1988]) as Jed Clampett and Cloris Leachman ("The Last Picture Show" [1971]) as Granny.

More successful was the big-screen adaptation of another of America's favorite TV families, "The Brady Bunch" (1969-74). "The Brady Bunch Movie" (1995) used the clever device of taking the Bradys out of their original 1970s setting and dropping them unchanged into the 1990s.

This clash of cultures, and the dead-on impersonations of the original Brady characters by actors like Gary Cole ("Office Space" [1999]) and Shelley Long ("Cheers" [1982-93]), helped the film become a moderate success and cult favorite, leading to the fun but less-successful "A Very Brady Sequel" (1996).

The late 1990s also saw a spate of unsuccessful TV show adaptations, as filmmakers struggled to figure out a formula for success in the genre. "Flipper" (1996, based on the 1964-68 family series), "McHale's Navy" (1997, based on the 1962-66 comedy series), "Leave It to Beaver" (1997, based on the 1957-63 comedy series), "The Saint" (1997, based on the 1967-69 adventure series) and "My Favorite Martian" (1999, based on the 1963-66 comedy series).

Live from New York, It's...the Movies!

In addition to old comedy and drama series, a somewhat surprising TV source for movies emerged in the 1990s.

"Saturday Night Live" was created in 1975 by producer Lorne Michaels as a hip antithesis to the standard variety shows of the era. Airing live at 11:30 pm ET, the show captured audiences' imagination and skirted the network's censors with hilarious, satirical sketch comedy.

"Saturday Night Live" also proved a fertile launching pad for several generations of comic actors, including Chevy Chase ("Foul Play" [1978]), Dan Aykroyd ("Driving Miss Daisy" [1989]), Bill Murray ("Caddyshack" [1980]), Eddie Murphy ("Beverly Hills Cop" [1984]), Billy Crystal ("Analyze This" [1999]) and Mike Myers ("Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" [1997]).

The first "Saturday Night Live" spinoff was "The Blue Brothers" (1980) which starred Aykroyd and John Belushi. But it was Myers who started a trend.

During his 1989-96 stint on the show, one of Myers' most popular recurring sketches was "Wayne's World," a cheesy sendup of cable access shows with Myers playing guitar-strumming slacker Wayne Campbell and Dana Carvey ("Clean Slate" [1994]) as his shy, drum-playing sidekick Garth.

Introducing such popular phrases as "Schwing!" and "No way!/Way!" the sketches touched a nerve in audiences, and in 1992, Myers and producer Lorne Michaels decided to see if that popularity could be transferred to the movies.

Opening in the usually slow month of March, "Wayne's World" stunned the industry by raking in over $100 million at the box office. The sequel "Wayne's World 2" opened successfully the following year, and a virtual comedy subgenre was born.

In 1993 came "Coneheads," with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin ("Third Rock from the Sun" [1996- ]) reprising their original "SNL" roles as beer-guzzling, strange-headed aliens. "It's Pat!" (1994) starred Julia Sweeney ("God Said Ha!" [1999]) as an androgynous office worker whose mysterious sexual identity drives everyone crazy.

Al Franken ("Lateline" [1998-99]) wrote and starred in "Stuart Saves His Family" (1995), based on his "SNL" new-age advice character Stuart Smalley. And Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell brought their popular, dimwitted dancing fools the Roxbury Boys to the screen in 1998 in "A Night at the Roxbury."

Although none of these films proved to be as successful with audiences or critics as "Wayne's World," more "SNL" spinoffs are planned for the near future.

These include "Superstar" (1999), starring Molly Shannon ("Analyze This" [1999]) as Catholic schoolgirl/superstar wannabe Mary Katherine Gallagher, and an upcoming feature film based on "Sprockets," with Mike Myers reprising his character of Dieter, the warped, black-clad host of a New Wave German TV show.

Yabba-Dabba Wow!

Cartoons from the 1960s through the '90s also started turning up in the local multiplexes, often with astonishing success.

The trend began in 1994 with the release of the live-action film "The Flintstones," based on the classic animated series which ran in prime-time from 1960-66 and continues today in syndication and on cable.

Starring John Goodman ("Raising Arizona" [1987]) as Fred Flintstone and featuring screen legend Elizabeth Taylor ("Giant" [1956]) as his mother-in-law, the fun, effects-filled film grossed over $100 million at the box office and set the stage for more cartoon adaptations.

"Casper" (1995), a live-action film based on the 1963-69 animated series about a friendly, child ghost (who first appeared in theatrical animated shorts for Paramount in the 1940s), featured state-of-the-art special effects and eventually joined "The Flintstones" in the $100-million club.

Another live-action box-office hit was "George of the Jungle" (1997), based on the loopy 1967-70 Jay Ward cartoon series about a dim-witted, muscle-bound, would-be Tarzan.

The film catapulted Brendan Fraser ("With Honors" [1994]) to stardom. This led to him being cast in another adaptation of a classic Jay Ward cartoon "Dudley Do-Right" (1999, based on the 1969-70 series), playing a heroic but not-too-bright Canadian Mountie.

Ward's most famous creations, Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Moose, stars of their own long-running series (1961-73), will show up as computer-generated characters in "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" (2000), playing opposite live actors Jason Alexander ("Seinfeld" [1990-98]) as Boris Badenov and Rene Russo ("Lethal Weapon 4" [1998]) as his sidekick Natasha, with Oscar^® winner Robert De Niro ("GoodFellas" [1990]) appearing as their boss, Fearless Leader.

Cartoons don't have to be turned into live-action films to be hits, however. That was proven with the unexpected success of "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" (1996), based on a crude, rude cartoon series created by animator Mike Judge ("King of the Hill" [1997- ]), which aired on the MTV cable network from 1993-97.

The movie garnered surprisingly good reviews and earned over $60 million, becoming the top-grossing non-Disney animated film in history to that time. That record was broken in 1998 by "The Rugrats Movie," based on the still-popular animated series which premiered on the Nickelodeon cable network in 1991.

In fact, "The Rugrats Movie" became the first non-Disney animated film to surpass $100 million at the U.S. box office.

Nickelodeon followed up the success of "Rugrats" with "Doug's 1st Movie" (1999), based on another of its long-running hit animated series that also premiered in 1991.

In addition, the summer of 1999 saw the release of "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut," based on the animated cult cable TV series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone ("BASEketball" [1998]).

As animated shows continue to grow in number and popularity on TV, it's assured that more of them will be making the move to the big screen as well.

The Wild, Wild Future

With their (hopefully) built-in audiences and ease of marketing, TV shows continue to provide strong fodder for the movie industry. Two cult series from the 1960s, "The Avengers" (1962-69) and "Lost in Space" (1965-68), were turned into big-budget films in 1998.

Rumored upcoming TV-to-film projects include "Green Acres" (based on the 1965-71 comedy series), "I Dream of Jeannie" (based on the 1965-70 comedy series) and "Charlie's Angels" (based on the 1976-81 detective series).

As long as shows like these continue to live on in syndication and cable, bringing back fond memories for audiences and attracting the interest of big stars and directors, you can be sure this trend will continue.

During the 1999 releases of Warner Bros.' DVDs, they actually made good use of the medium by placing such essays and articles as these.  My hats off to the W.B.  Too bad they couldn't keep up the good work though.