Goodnight Moon - Film, TV, Music, and Theatrical Adaptations

Film, TV, Music, and Theatrical Adaptations

In a 1998 movie Playing by Heart, Ellen Burstyn is reciting it to her son dying of AIDS, played by Jay Mohr.

In 1999, HBO released Good Night Moon and Other Sleepytime Tales, a set of animations mixed with vignettes of children talking about sleeping and dreaming. "Goodnight Moon" is the first story and is revisited again at the end of the 30-minute special.

A one-hour children's musical was recently adapted by Chad Henry and premiered in Seattle, Washington followed by a run at the North Shore Music Theatre. It is targeted towards very young children and includes many of the objects from the story such as the bears in chairs and the cow jumping over the moon coming to life. The Chicago Children's Theatre will run the musical in Chicago, Oct 27th - Dec 24th 2011, at the historical Victory Gardens Biograph theatre.

The Dixie Chicks released a song written by Rodney Foster called "Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)". It references "Goodnight Moon".

In The Wire episode Took, Kima Greggs ad libs a version to her son on the windowsill overlooking Baltimore cityscape and he repeats each line. "Goodnight moon, goodnight stars, goodnight po-pos, goodnight fiends, goodnight hoppers, goodnight hustlers, goodnight scammers, goodnight to everybody, goodnight one and all."

The Vancouver based indie band "Said The Whale" released a song called "Goodnight Moon" that contains direct references to the plot of the story book. Specifically, lyrics alluding to the children's book include "red balloon, great green room," and make reference to the childhood experience of the lyricist.

There is a reference to the book in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, as Batman lets himself fade into the afterlife he reminisces on the book and sets similar wording to Gotham City.

The final panel of Berke Breathed's comic strip Opus showed Opus sleeping in a bed pictured in the children's book "Goodnight Moon". Unfortunately, this panel was available only online, and the Humane Society page that displayed it no longer exists. It does exist via the waybackmachine:

In the episode of The Simpsons entitled "Insane Clown Poppy" Christopher Walken (played by Jay Mohr) reads "Goodnight Moon" to a group of children, who recoil from his scary visage and tone despite his reassurances and exhortations for them to come closer.

In 2010, ASL Inside released an American Sign Language (ASL) version of Goodnight Moon through Scholastic. This version is available at http://www.aslinside.com and includes the original story, artwork, voiceover, music and read along captions.

A two-part episode of Knots Landing, broadcast in December 1987 was named "Noises Everywhere", after the final line of the book. The first part was the show's 200th episode. Both episodes - which were largely improvised by the cast - are considered an important moment in the show's history. They focus on the aftermath of the death of Laura Avery-Sumner, who had been present since the first episode. Laura has made a video, in which she says her goodbyes to her friends and family. In the closing moments of part two, Laura's infant daughter, Meg is seen alone in a room, watching her mother read "Goodnight Moon" to her on the video.

The Tallahassee, Florida band, Go Radio, released a song called "Goodnight Moon" on their EP Do Overs and Second Chances. Following the writing style of the story, the first line of the chorus reads "Goodnight moon and goodnight you," and ends "Sit in our bedroom and read aloud, like a passage from Goodnight Moon."

The group Shivaree recorded a song "Goodnight Moon," a narrative of trying to sleep alone while fearing night noises and imagined terrors. The last line and last chorus line is, "No it won't be too soon 'til I say goodnight moon."

In a Sunday version of the American comic strip Zits, Jeremy uses the "Goodnight..." phrase to describe a teenager going to sleep, ending with "Goodnight, dude."

In January 2011, German automaker Audi released a television advertisement showcasing the new A8. The commercial, conceived by the San Francisco-based advertising agency Venables Bell & Partners, was based on the book "Goodnight Moon". According to website greatads.blogspot.com, the highlight of the ad is a wry shot at Mercedes-Benz, with the phrase: "Goodnight old luxury and all of your wares, goodnight bygones everywhere", as a Mercedes S-Class shown in the driveway extinguishes its headlights. The commercial ends with "Good morning illumination, good morning innovation, good morning unequalled inspiration.", as features of the A8 sedan are shown.

In April 2012, composer Eric Whitacre released a song titled, "Goodnight Moon." The song is the first ever adaptation of the full text of the book to music, and is included on the album "Water Night."