Once in a while comes a TV series which outlives itself from being just a mere programme, it becomes a worldwide phenomenon. There have been TV shows which have found success in many countries in their national versions. Let’s take a look into 10 most widely adapted TV shows around the world.

Top 10 Most Widely Adapted TV Shows:

10. The Amazing Race

A one of a kind reality TV show, ‘The Amazing Race’ was first tested in the USA and soon found huge success, having premiered in 2001, it so far has completed 24 season with the 25th season going on air right now. The show puts 10-12 teams of two in a race around the world, where they travel to various countries to complete indigenous task.

The Show’s popularity is evident from the fact that it has been adapted into nine national and three continental versions. The US version has also been hugely praised by critics, winning 13 Emmys out of 65 nominations.

9. The Apprentice

‘The Apprentice’ was one of the first reality TV show to give contestants an opportunity to build a successful career in corporate world. In the show, 16 contestants fight each other in various tasks related to corporate world to get hired by a business tycoon like Donal Trump, Martha Steward, Tony Fernandes, Robert Justus, Tuncay Özilhan, etc. First aired in the US in 2004 13 seasons with Donald Trump and 1 season with Martha Steward, the show was immediately picked up for 20 national and 3 continental versions.

8. Popstars

One of the earliest talent hunt TV show which inspired innumerable singing reality TV shows is ‘Popstars’. Airing for the first time in New Zealand in 1999, the show is about individual contestants singing their hearts out to become part of a new singing band/group.

The show was adapted by 38 countries, creating bands such as L5, Viva, EyeQ, Bro’Sis, TrueBliss, Excellence, among others. The show served as the source of inspiration for many reality shows that came after it which ruled the TV industry.

7. MasterChef

One of the biggest cooking show, ‘Masterchef’ provided contestants the opportunity to start their culinary career in the most lavish and grandest possible way one can imagine. The original version, which started in the UK in 1990 was more of a game show rather than a reality show. It ran till 2001. The show was revived in 2005 by UK and subsequently adapted by more than 42 countries and generating one pan-regional version.

6. Fear Factor

‘Fear Factor’ brought something to the viewers, which they have never heard or seen before. Challenging people to face their fears, this show gained immense popularity throughout the years. The show aired for the first time in USA in 2001, and since then has been adapted into national versions by more than 35 countries.

Although different versions of the show have different formats, but the show basically involves contestants performing various stunts to win prize money Stunts include collecting flags while hanging from rooftop, walking on broken glass with bare feet, immersing one’s head or entire body in rats, spiders, snakes or making one’s car topple over a ramp, etc.

5. Got Talent Series

‘Got Talent’ series is a reality TV show which can be called the mother of all talent hunt shows, because it gives singers, dancers, magicians, stunt performers, painters, etc.; an opportunity to showcase their talent and win prize money.

The first ‘Got Talent’ series was held in U.S. under the name ‘America’s Got Talent’ in 2006. IT has so far completed 9 seasons there and has been adapted by more than 51 countries.

4. Top Model Series

One of the original fashion themed reality TV shows which brought out fashion industry’s work ethics to people’s eyes was the ‘Top Model’ series. Airing first in U.S as ‘America’s Next Top Model’ in 2003, the show has been picked up for more than 40 national and more than 5 pan-regional versions.

The premise of the show involves around 10-16 contestants who fight it out in various modelling challenges, photo-shoots and ramp-walks to launch their career in the modelling world to become a top model.

3. Idol Series

Perhaps the most popular singing reality show of all-time, ‘Idol’ series has its fair share of success worldwide. The show is about several contestants singing it out to become the idol and thus become the next big music sensation. The first version of the show aired in the U.K. under the name ‘Pop Idol’. Soon the concept spread to more than 41 countries.

It even spawned 6 multi-national versions. It has given the music world some of its current favourite stars in Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Abhijeet Sawant, Phillip Phillips, Guy Sebastian, Will Young, Carly Rae Jepsen, Ricki-Lee Dawn Coulter, etc.

2. Big Brother

One of most unique themed reality TV shows, which gave the birth of countless spin-offs globally is ‘Big Brother’. Originally airing in 1999 in Netherlands, the series now has 52 different worldwide versions. The format of the show is something like this – a group of contestants (in some versions, celebrity contestants are used) are locked inside a house with a garden and swimming pool and are stripped of any outside mode of communication like internet, newspaper, telephone, television, radio, etc.

Each week, they nominate among themselves to vote someone out and the persons with most nominations are voted out by public vote, until only one remains.

1. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire

This is the show which gave common people the chance to dream and hope to become a millionaire. The show, in which contestants have to answer a series of questions to become a millionaire, has been extremely popular with both critics and public alike. The first version was seen in Britain in 1998, and it now has been adapted by more than 35 countries. It allowed ordinary people to dare to dream.

Lots of iconic stuff is adapted from other iconic stuff – Jaws the movie from “Jaws” the novel, the Pirates Of The Caribbean skeleton monsters from Keith Richards, and the works of Terry Gilliam from full-blown dementia.

But not these. These iconic works are adapted from … well, weird crap. Crap you’d never think to adapt to film, unless you were on an obscene amount of cocaine, which is the only explanation we have for these:

This is an encore presentation of one of our lists as presented by our YouTube host Simon Whistler. You can read the full list here!

Have you ever heard about the first African-American princess, Tiana? She was the only princess of Disney with dimples, or Mulan. The famous princess based on an ancient Chinese legend of Hua Mulan. She was a female warrior, famously described in the poem, “The Ballad of Mulan”. The stories of most of the bravest women from history or mythology have been adapted in the comic’s universe, to tell those sagas in a colorful way to the children, or even to the adult readers. Even the gaming industry adopted some of the famous female characters with historical importance. These tales are about the historical significance of those princesses in colored comics’ pages; princesses who are attached mythically, historically or socially with real life scenarios, but, long forgotten. Here is the list of Top 10 Forgotten Princesses adapted in comics.

10. Corn Maiden

Corn Maiden, also called Corn Mother, is a mythological figure believed to be responsible for the origin of corn or maize among indigenous agricultural tribes in North America. Local legend tells about the overflowing corn storehouse when she was around. In the Arapaho tradition, to get rid of her, they tied her up and drowned her in the river, while, in the Zuni’s culture, she was frightened by the erotic gyrations of the male dancers. In the Tepecano version of this tale, when she spends her first night after marriage in a private room in her husband’s family house, it’s full of corn in the morning. According to other local legends, she was supposed to secretly produce grains of corn by rubbing her body, or by literally popping corns out and filling bucket after bucket.

9. Shajar Al-Durr

Shajar al-Durr, meaning Tree of Pearls. Actually played a crucial role after Sultan As-Salih Ayyub’s death during the Seventh Crusade against Egypt where the Battle of Fariskur took place and King Louis IX was captured. Shajar, described by historians as a beauty with the brain, started her life as a Turkish servant, purchased for the Sultan of Egypt. While being in a relationship with Aybak, Shajar al-Durr firmly established the Mamluk dynasty.

After she fought and captured King Louis IX, Shajar al-Durr negotiated a treaty to return the captured king to his country for ransom amount of 400,000 in the currency used in France during the middle age which was roughly about 30% of France’s total annual revenue. She was later caught in the act of killing Aybek and imprisoned by Aybek’s first wife who executed her by beating to death by servants with wooden clogs, and later her naked corpse was dumped over the wall of the city.

8. Pasiphaë

According to Greek mythology, Pasiphaë was the Greek queen and the daughter of Helios, the Sun. She married King Minos of Crete and was known for giving birth to Asterion aka Ruler of the Stars, also called the Minotaur by the Greeks. She was famous for having irresistible sexual drive towards a bull that Poseidon gave to King Minos. King Minos, also ironically the son of Zeus, took the form of a bull and mated with his mother Europa. Being a Bull Goddess, when Pasiphaë got to know that her husband was cheating on her, she made a charm such that if he slept with anyone he would ejaculate serpents and insects. But, Procris, the daughter of the ruler of Athens, laid with Minos with a protective herb.

7. Nzinga

Queen Anna Nzinga was a 17th-century queen of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms of the Mbundu people in Angola. Being the daughter of King Kiluanji, she was named Njinga, derived from the Kimbundu verb, Kujinga, which means, to twist or turn, because her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. When her brother was captured by Portuguese, she visited and demanded her brother’s return with a promise to leave Ndongo. At their meeting, the Portuguese offered her no chair but a floor mat to sit on, as a sign of disrespect.

In response, Nzinga ordered for one of her servants and sat on the servant as a chair. After she moved south, she started a new country by conquering the cannibal tribe known as the Jaga. According to local legend, Nzinga obtained a large group of 60 male harems at her disposal. Her men fought to death in order to spend the night with her, while, after a single night, they were put to death. It is also said that Nzinga made her male servants dress as women.

6. Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut, which means, The Foremost of Noble Ladies, was the fifth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt, whose mother gave birth to her in a lion’s den. She was one of the greatest pharaohs from Egypt, besides King Tut or Nefertiti. The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art has an entire room devoted to her. Fifteen hundred years before the birth of Jesus, she ruled her land for twenty-two years. She ruled Egypt wearing men’s clothing, including the pharaoh’s false beard. According to Egyptologist James Henry Breasted, she is the first great woman in history of whom we are informed. She constructed the Temple of Karnak and restored the original Precinct of Mut. Nine golden cartouches bearing the names of both Hatshepsut and Thutmose III were found in Karnak.

5. Wu Zelian

Wu Zelian, also known as Wu Zhao; China’s only female emperor in more than 4,000 years of ancient history who lived during the Tang dynasty. Wu was married to the Emperor Taizong and after his death, she married his successor and ninth son, Emperor Gaozong. After Gaozong’s died due to cardiac disease in 690, she ruled China until 705 AD. She had an enormous network of her secret police intelligence posted all over China and also famous for her “human pig” torture where all limbs and tongue were removed. Besides marrying twice, she also carried on an affair with a Buddhist monk, Huaiyi, in around 685. Her period of political and military leadership includes the major expansion of the Chinese empire beyond its previous territory, deep into Central Asia, and the upper Korean Peninsula.

4. Khutulun

Khutulun was the most famous daughter of Kaidu, the most powerful ruler of Central Asia, and the niece of Kublai Khan. Her name was founded in Marco Polo’s and Rashid al-Din’s writings. According to Marco Polo, Khutulun was described as being a superb warrior who fought beside her father in many battles.

When Emperor Kaidu desperately wanted to see his daughter, Khutulun’s marriage, she refused to do so unless she got the appropriate man who could defeat her in wrestling. With the consent from his father, she set up an offer for all the men in the dynasty to beat her in wrestling and marry her. But, the condition on the other side was, if someone lost the battle with her, he should present her 100 horses. But, no one was able to beat her, and she gain 10,000 horses. Khutulun is considered one of the last great nomadic warrior princesses.

3. La Maupin

Julie d’Aubigny, better known as Mademoiselle Maupin or La Maupin, born in 1673, was an amazing swordswoman and opera singer from 17th-century. She used to dress as a man from her early ages while learning dancing and fencing. This bisexual celebrity attended a royal ball while dressed as a man, thrown either by Louis XIV or his brother. She was famous for her Opera voice and debuted as Pallas Athena in Cadmus et Hermione by Jean-Baptiste Lully. But, when she kissed a young woman at a society ball and was challenged to duels by three different noblemen, she had to interrupt her career and leave Paris. Théophile Gautier in his novel Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835) based the title character, Madeleine de Maupin, on her.

2. Mai Bhago

She was taken from the real historical character, Mai Bhago, whose name, after converting to Khalsa, was Mai Bhag Kaur as Kaur was a surname all female Khalsas took. This 18th century Sikh warrior-saint was the only survivor of the Battle of Khidrana to save Gobind Singh Ji, who founded the Khalsa. Mai Bhago was born at her ancestral village of Jhabal Kalan, presently Amritsar. She was a Sikh by birth and later married to Nidhan Singh Waraich. At that time, India was ruled by the Mughals and Aurangzeb was the emperor when he sent imperial army in pursuit of Guru Gobind Singh. Mai Bhago stopped and challenged them near the pool of Khidrana with her forty Sikh warriors who attained martyrdom in this battle. Guru Gobind Singh Ji took Mai Bhago into his care and later, she was known for being one of his bodyguards, in male attire.

1. Noor Inayat Khan

Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan was an Allied Special Operation agent during the Second World War, and was later awarded the George Cross, the highest civilian award of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth nations. Belonging to an Indian origin, she was born in Moscow and began working as the only radio operator in occupied Paris. Where the average life span of that job was around a month due to heavy World War II chaos and continuous Nazi attack, she, with her amazing skills and bravery, lasted for almost 5 months. Her father, Hazrat Inayat Khan, was a noble Muslim Sufi who was a personal friend of Mahatma Gandhi. She was also the 2nd Class Aircraftwoman in Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. She was eventually caught, when a double agent betrayed her to the Nazis, and was moved to the Dachau Concentration Camp and shot dead.

There are many more females throughout the history and mythology whose tales deserve to get adapted in recent movies or comics. We always hope to see them in those mediums so that we can know about their significance in our history. Local legends are always fascinating and sometimes, more thrilling than fairy tales, and they also consist of many female characters who were brave, beautiful and absolute worthy to become the central characters of any productive media. With this dream, we end this list here and take a bow to all those brave warrior-princesses who were famous in their own ways.

Here are some other related lists, you may also like; Top 10 Iranian Queens in History, Top 10 Legendary Worriers in History, Top 10 Less-Known Folklore Creatures.