Since the beginning of the 20th century, this famous story has been adapted many times for the stage, feature-length motion pictures, and animated cartoons. The earliest film version was Fox's 1921 silent version. In 1927, the novel was adapted into the musical A Connecticut Yankee by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. A 1931 film, also called A Connecticut Yankee, starred Will Rogers. The story was adapted as an hour-long radio play on the October 5, 1947, broadcast of the Ford Theatre, starring Karl Swenson. A 1949 musical film featured Bing Crosby and Rhonda Fleming, with music by Jimmy Van Heusen and Victor Young. In 1960, Tennessee Ernie Ford starred in a television adaptation. In 1970, the book was adapted into a 74-minute animated TV special directed by Zoran Janjic with Orson Bean as the voice of the title character. In 1978 an episode of Once Upon a Classic, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", was an adaptation,[16] which starred Paul Rudd and Tovah Feldshuh, with Richard Basehart as Arthur and Roscoe Lee Browne as Merlin. This episode was released as though a feature on VHS and laserdisc by MasterVision in 1987 with the cover title, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee...,[17] and later as a double feature DVD with The Amazing Mr. Blunden. The DVD version, released by budget label East West DVD at a suggested retail price of $1, lacks the series intro and Bill Bixby's introduction. Also in 1979 was the Disney film Unidentified Flying Oddball, also known as A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court. The TV series The Transformers had a second-season episode, "A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court", that had a group of Autobots and Decepticons sent back to the Middle Ages.[18] In 1988, the Soviet variation called New Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's Court appeared. More recently it was adapted into a 1989 television film by Paul Zindel which starred Keshia Knight Pulliam and René Auberjonois.[19] In 1987, Disney even paid homage to the story in a first-season episode of DuckTales ("Sir Gyro de Gearloose"), in which Gyro builds a time machine and flees the modern age for the time of King Arthur, taking Huey, Dewey and Louie along for the adventure.
It has also inspired many variations and parodies, such as the 1979 Bugs Bunny special A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur's Court. A Knight for a Day is a 1946 Disney short film starring Goofy that is loosely inspired by the novel. In 1995, Walt Disney Studios adapted the book into the feature film A Kid in King Arthur's Court. Also in 1995, Philippe Ross played a transported high-schooler in A Young Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, with Michael York as Merlin. A 1992 cartoon series, King Arthur & the Knights of Justice, could also be seen as deriving inspiration from the novel. Terry Pratchett's 1995 short story "Once and Future" tells a similar story of a time-traveller, Mervin, stranded in a pre-Arthurian "Avalon", who refers to himself as being like "the Connecticut Yankee". In 1998 Disney made another adaption with Whoopi Goldberg in A Knight in Camelot.
Several independent films produced during the 1990s drew inspiration from the novel, such as Army of Darkness (1992) and the fourth and fifth entries in the Trancers series. The 2001 film Black Knight similarly transports a modern-day American to Medieval England (but not in the time of King Arthur but in the year 1328), while adding a racial element to the time-traveller plot line.
In the Carl Sagan novel Contact, the protagonist, Eleanor Arroway, is reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, specifically the scene where Hank first approaches Camelot, when she finds out about her father's death. The quotation "'Bridgeport?' Said I. 'Camelot,' Said he" is also used later in the book, and the story is used as a metaphor for contact between civilizations at very different levels of technological and ethical advancement.[20]
Yankee has also greatly influenced the premier Soviet sci-fi writers, Strugatsky Brothers, and their two seminal books. In humorous Monday Begins on Saturday Merlin's character is taken entirely from the Mark Twain's book, and he often references it. Hard to Be a God is essentially a remake of Yankee, concentrating on the moral and ethical questions of "civilizing the uncivilized." Its ending is almost identical to Yankee: both main protagonists crumble under the weight of dead bodies of those they tried to civilize.
The fifth season of TV series Once Upon a Time features Hank Morgan. He is introduced in the episode "Dreamcatcher" as Sir Morgan, a widower with a teenaged daughter, Violet, living in a Camelot that exists in a magical reality. Violet becomes a love interest for main character Henry Mills. Morgan does not appear on screen again, but is mentioned in later episodes. He and Violet, along with other Camelot residents, are transported to Storybrooke in the "real" world. When most of Arthur's court returns to Camelot, Violet informs Henry that she and her father will stay in Storybrooke, as her father is originally from Connecticut in the same world. A tie-in novel, Henry and Violet, confirms other details consistent with Twain's novel, such as Hank leaving Connecticut in the year 1889.
In the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series by James A. Owen, Hank appears in several books as a time-travelling "Messenger" recruited by Mark Twain. Hank is able to travel through time and space at will using an enchanted pocketwatch, which eventually suffers a malfunction that strands him in the time stream. (Sandy and Hello-Central are not mentioned in the series.)
The television series MacGyver includes a two-part adaptation ("Good Knight MacGyver", season 7, episodes 7 & 8, 1991) in which a modern-day engineer is transported to Arthur's court, where he uses his "magic" (science) to assist Merlin and save the king from a deadly plot. After over six seasons on the air, the second part is the only episode to ever reveal MacGyver's first name.
