Writers rarely, if ever, crank out a perfect story on the first try. More often than not they go through a few drafts and sometimes the final product is vastly different from the original version. In the modern age, with stories being translated and updated from much older texts, not to mention being adapted into TV shows and movies, many details can be lost. Not just subtle things either, but whole plot lines, characters and much more.
10. Pinocchio Murdered Jiminy Cricket Then Gets Hanged
The story of Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who becomes a boy, has been adapted to film literally dozens of times. The original story was called The Adventures of Pinocchio and was written back in 1881 by Carlo Collodi as a serial story. The book as a whole was released in 1883.
As is the case with many tales intended for children from a bygone era, the original Pinocchio was a bit more grim than today’s version. For instance, while the original featured the talking cricket who was later named Jiminy, he was not really a friend of the titular hero. Instead, when the talking cricket decides to give Pinocchio an order, the puppet angrily throws a hammer at the bug’s head and kills it.
Pinocchio himself ends up dying in the story, at least for a little while. After Gepetto is arrested for abusing the puppet, Pinocchio meets a fox and a cat who learn that he has some gold so they hang him from a tree and steal it.
Pinocchio’s death was supposed to end the story, a little morality tale about the dangers of lying and disobedience, but his editor encouraged him to continue the tale, so the Blue Fairy arrives and saves him and his adventures continue until, eventually, he ends up becoming a real boy.
9. Pazuzu, From The Exorcist, Was Invoked to Fight Off Worse Demons
The name Pazuzu was not exactly a well known one before the 1973 movie The Exorcist. In that story, Pazuzu is the demon that possesses Linda Blair’s character ostensibly to punish the priest, Father Karras, for his lack of faith. He encountered representations of the demon earlier in his life in Iraq and it clearly took an interest in him.
The author of the book The Exorcist, didn’t pull the name Pazuzu out of the air. In real life, Pazuzu comes from Mesopotamia where it was the personification of the West Wind. He is the king of the wind demons and has two pairs of wings, a monstrous head and a scorpion’s tail. But our modern idea of what a demon is was not necessarily what it was to the people between the 8th and 6th centuries BC when Pazuzu was in his prime.
Demonic though he may have been, Pazuzu was also the bane of other, more malevolent spirits like Lamashtu. Invoking Pazuzu could protect you from Lamashtu, who was thought to prey upon pregnant women and newborn babies. In his own way, Pazuzu was an exorcist who kept a far worse demon at bay.
8. The One Ring Was Not the One Ring in the Original Hobbit
Before The Lord of the Rings became a massive, worldwide success worth hundreds of millions of dollars, it was a humble series of children’s books written by J. R. R. Tolkien. And before there was a Lord of the Rings there was simply The Hobbit.
The Hobbit was originally published in 1937 and at that time it was a standalone book that Tolkien hadn’t particularly intended to turn into a vast universe. Because of this, the original Hobbit is actually different from The Hobbit we know. Once Tolkien set about expanding his story with the Lord of the Rings, he had to revise The Hobbit to make the story work. In particular, the One Ring and Gollum needed substantial edits for the further story to work.
Prior to revisions, the One Ring was not the One Ring at all. It was just a ring. It was magical, sure, but not in any significant way. The wearer was invisible but that was no big deal. When Bilbo met Gollum, Gollum was happy to bet his magic ring on their little contest because it didn’t matter to him that much. He still uses the name Precious, but he’s talking about himself, not the ring. After Bilbo wins the ring, they go their separate ways and Gollum seems to not really care one way or the other.
7. Sherlock Holmes Was Originally a Cocaine Addict
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is one of literature’s greatest characters and endures to this day in new tales in print and on the screen. His first appearance was in A Study in Scarlet in 1887 and his keen observation skills and intellect made him an instant classic as well as a model for numerous fictional detectives that followed.
One major difference between the original Sherlock and what became of him was that Sherlock Holmes was originally a cocaine addict. And not just a casual coke head, this man loved his cocaine. In Sherlock’s second novel, The Sign of the Four, published in 1890, the book actually opens with Watson annoyed that Sherlock is shooting up again. Holmes states in no uncertain terms that he’s using cocaine, a 7 percent solution, and even offers some to Watson. This is after Watson points out he’s watched Holmes inject himself three times a day for “many months.”
While Watson doesn’t approve, Holmes counters that while cocaine may be physically harmful, the mental effects are worth it because he finds it “transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind.”
By 1904, Holmes was no longer an addict, as clarified in the short story The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter. There, we learn Watson had weaned him off the drug. This coincides with the time period when cocaine, once used in all manner of products including Coca-Cola, was being banned because of the harmful effects.
6. The Original Stage Version of Wizard of Oz Had a Cow Instead of Toto
Most of us know the story of the Wizard of Oz and, even if you aren’t a fan, you’re aware there’s a lion, a tinman, a scarecrow and even a little dog named Toto. That’s because of how popular the original Hollywood movie was. But not every Wizard of Oz followed that blueprint.
Before The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland was a film in 1939, it was a novel by L. Frank Baum published in 1900. And in between those two events there was a Broadway musical in 1902. That version inspired an 1910 silent movie, and neither one is the story you’d recognize.
The stage show, and subsequent silent film, featured notable changes like Toto being replaced by a cow named Imogen. Dorothy went to Oz with her cow. Word is this was because the stage production didn’t want to have to rely on a trained dog.
When Dorothy arrives in Oz she meets a lunatic, a streetcar conductor and an anarchist, among others. There are no Munchkins and while the witches do exist, they don’t do much. The Witch of the West is only mentioned, never seen.
5. There Were No Rats in the Original Pied Piper Tale
The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a legend that dates back hundreds of years to the town of Hamelin in Germany. It tells the tale of a piper hired to rid the town of rats, which he does. The town, shady characters that they are, decide not to pay the man. So he uses his pipe to lure their children away as well. It fits the dark aesthetic of many of these old legends and fairy tales that seem light and cute until they become dark and grim.
In a much darker twist, if you follow the story back to its origins there is some evidence that there were originally no rats at all, and that it actually happened. The real town of Hamelin had chronicled the tale apparently as far back as the year 1300 where it was a part of a stained glass window in a church. According to written accounts of the long-lost window, in that version a piper appeared and 130 kids disappeared.
So what truly happened? Theories range from the story being a metaphor for some great tragedy and the Piper being death,to him being a kind of recruiter, leading a migration out of Germany.
4. Peter Pan May Kill the Lost Boys
Like Pinocchio, Peter Pan is another childhood favorite made popular by Walt Disney. In the story, Peter lives in Neverland and while modern audiences may know this as a place where no one grows old, that’s not how it was in the original. Only Peter stayed young, the Lost Boys did age out of their place.
In J. M. Barrie’s original text, published in various forms in the early 1900s before finally being released as one full novel called Peter and Wendy in 1911, the Lost Boys were acknowledged to grow up. Chapter five begins by describing the lost boys out looking for Peter and the pirates looking for the lost boys. It then describes how the number of boys varies on account of some being killed and others growing too old, which is against the rules. The text says “when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out.”
The exact meaning of this is never established, but it seems like it can only mean Peter sends them away or kills them. One theory from fans even suggested Captain Hook’s animosity is because he was a lost boy who grew up, survived, and came back for revenge.
3. The Room Originally had Vampires
Tommy Wiseau’s The Room is, infamously, one of the worst movies ever made and beloved for that fact. Rumor has it that it was almost even more bizarre than the finished product we actually got.
According to Greg Sestero, the other star of the film, one of Wiseau’s early ideas was to reveal his character was actually a vampire. This would have really been hit home with a scene that would have had Johnny’s car flying away into the night because, you know, he’s a vampire.
2. In the Original Myths Medusa was Always a Monster
Medusa is one of the more well-known creatures from Greek Mythology, a Gorgon with snakes for hair who can turn those who see her to stone. In the most well known version of the story, she was a beautiful mortal who had been a lover of Poseidon/Neptune who was later cursed by Minerva/Athena to become a monster who no one could even gaze upon. But that was Ovid’s version of the tale, written many years after the original myth.
As one of the Gorgon sisters, Medusa was originally always a monster, never a mortal woman. It was only later that she was transformed into a mortal while two monster sisters, and beautiful as opposed to hideous, to make the whole story more tragic.
1. There is No Balcony in Romeo and Juliet
If you Google Romeo and Juliet right now as an image search, you’ll notice a common theme in many of the images. The scene depicted is often the famous balcony scene.Formally, this is Act II, Scene II and one of the most quoted parts of the play. It features Romeo’s “but soft, what light through yonder window breaks,” speech. In dozens, if not hundreds, of movies and stage productions it features Romeo in a garden with Juliet on a balcony above him. All of this is quite ironic since Shakespeare never wrote of a balcony.
Remarkably, the word balcony never appeared in print until 20 years after Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. Balconies weren’t a thing back then. But they were a thing when Thomas Otway‘s famous play The History and Fall of Caius Marius was staged, years after Shakespeare had fallen out of favor and his plays were never being performed.
Caius Marius was, for lack of a better term, plagiarized. Otway stole whole scenes and dialogue from Shakespeare and his balcony scene, which heavily stole from Shakespeare, happened on a balcony. And the play was very popular, being performed 30 times over a 30 year period in which Shakespeare was never performed once. So the scene, to most people, became heavily associated with the balcony because that was how it was always presented to them.