*Loved the song when I was a kid too!* Had no idea there was a book.
I didn't know there was a book either.
Oh, yes. That special moment when you find out that movie/show you have just is based on something else. It is even more amusing when years passed since you saw it.
Few years ago when the first movie based on the Chronicles of Narnia premiered, I read a girl complaning she constantly met younger people were shocked of hearing that movie was based on a book. Similarly, not long ago I found out 101 Dalmatians was based on a book. And the less said about Twilight fan girls who believe Universal ripped off Stephanie Meyers when they remade The Wolfman better...
In the past century, a lot of Western novels and child literature were adapted in anime (for example, Little Women). In the seventies, Alps no Shojo Heidi (http://en.wikipedia....irl_of_the_Alps) was aired in my country and it still is one of the most popular anime series where I live (pick a random person in the street and they can not know who is Naruto, and they definitely will not know who Rei Ayanami or Ichigo is, but they SHALL know who is Heidi), but nearly nobody knows it is based on a Swiss child novel written in 1880.
Anyway the movie only adapted the first half of the book.
Nate, if it helps, Michael Ende (http://en.wikipedia....ki/Michael_Ende), author of The Neverending Story novel, also hated the movie adaptation. In fact, he was so disgusted with it that:
Ende requested they halt production or change the movie's name, as it had drastically deviated from his novel; when they did neither, he sued them and subsequently lost the case.[4]
http://www3.plala.or...mig/me1-uk.html (check 1984 date)
So you can feel vindicated knowing that the original author also thought it sucked.
