The book is always better
Snow fell yesterday and today in Salt Lake City, and outside feels more like January than November. I took the dog on a long walk tonight, and I'm already yearning for spring.
Rather than write about warmer seasons, I'll tell a wintertime story that doesn't have anything to do with winter other than it occurred in December.
In 1980, Mom, my sisters and I, along with some neighbors, attended a kids' Christmas party thrown by a women's or seniors' group in our Oriole Park neighborhood. The event was held at the Oriole Park field house in the gym, and for a 10-year-old who didn't believe in Santa anymore, it was boring. A middle-aged (at least) woman dressed up as a boy from the 1930s and sang "I'm Getting Nothin' for Christmas." Santa made an appearance. All the kids got books for presents.
Unbeknownst to me, the book, published in 1978, had already been adapted for television. On the day after Christmas, a few friends convened at my friend Chris' house to hang out and bring the electronics we received the day before (the electronic Space Invaders was a big hit that year). The TV was on, and surprise, "The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn" was airing on Ch. 2.
The show, which was interwoven with commentary from Sherlock Holmes and Watson (this was CBS' mystery theater for kids), starred Dody Goodman, Al Lewis (Grandpa from "The Munsters"), and the kid from "Adventures in Babysitting." After loving the book, I was eager to watch the show, Space Invaders be damned.
I was disappointed.
Even as a 10-year-old, I recognized how cheesy, predictable, and slow the adaptation was. The story was almost entirely changed. The acting wasn't believable. The interludes with Sherlock Holmes were annoying.
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And thus, I learned a valuable lesson about popular entertainment: The book is always better than the movie or TV show.
Sure, there are exceptions in which the movie lives up to the book -- but usually, it's an entirely different story based on the book, such as "Moneyball" and the original "War of the Worlds. Occasionally, the book isn't that good and there's nowhere to go but up, as with "Jaws" and "The Godfather."
For The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn, the adaptation was so bad I almost questioned if the book was really that good. But years later, I still had good memories of it. Somehow, I came to own a different copy of it -- I think I may have bought it for my little siblings, and one time at my dad's house when they were clearing stuff out, I saw it and brought it back to Utah for the boys to read. They've outgrown it, but I just reread it last month.
Then, I found the TV adaptation on YouTube and rewatched it.
The book was fun, though not quite the meaty story I remember. I could definitely see how the 10-year-old me would have loved it, the same way I liked Hardy Boys books.
The TV show was even worse 40 years later. This didn't apply to the whole industry -- "Schoolhouse Rock" is great example of smart children's programming -- but why did television producers assume kids were stupid and could be entertained by anything?
I've read more books in 2020 than I have in a long time. I'm tempted to dig up or take out the library some other favorites from my youth. I found Johnny Tremain in a little library a few weeks ago, and The Westing Game was another mystery I loved (and it's a Newberry Award winner).
Maybe I'll skip the movies for both ...
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