Stephen King Turned Toy Story Into a Nightmare, and TNT Premiered It 20 Years Ago
Forget unfilmable: in 2006, a TNT anthology turned Stephen King’s Toy Story–from–hell into gleeful small‑screen mayhem, the strangest triumph in his TV canon.
Stephen King adaptations have covered a lot of ground, but only one TV show ever gave us his twisted riff on Toy Story: a 2006 TNT anthology that turns tiny plastic soldiers into a full-on siege. Yes, really.
King is famously "unfilmable" — until he isn't
People love to say certain King stories can't be adapted — too gory, too trippy, or both. And yet, time after time, filmmakers pull it off. Case in point: his 1986 monster of a novel It. Between the two hit movies and a prequel series at Max called Welcome to Derry, that story proved it can live on screen without losing its bones.
Short stories are a tougher nut to crack since there's less on the page to stretch into an hour. That's why TNT's 2006 anthology Nightmares & Dreamscapes deserves some credit: it took King's mean little short Battleground and turned it into a tight, nasty, surprisingly funny episode that keeps the story's pitch-black humor intact.
The strangest King-to-TV flex: Battleground (2006)
First published in Cavalier magazine and later collected in King's debut short story collection Night Shift — the same book that gave us Jerusalem's Lot, Strawberry Spring, and Children of the Corn — Battleground is one of the odder entries in the bunch. The setup is simple and nasty: a hitman comes home after murdering a toymaker and finds a mysterious package from the victim's mother waiting for him.
Inside? A battalion of toy soldiers that are very much alive and very much armed. We're talking tiny machine guns, miniature tanks, the works. Before long, this professional killer is pinned down in his own bathroom trying to outthink an army the size of action figures. It's a dark fantasy caper with a finale twist sharp enough to catch even seasoned King readers off guard.
How TNT pulled it off
Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King kicked off in 2006 with Battleground as its pilot. Brian Henson — yes, the director of The Muppet Christmas Carol — brought the episode to life, working from a script by Richard Christian Matheson. William Hurt anchors the whole thing as the hitman in a self-contained, largely wordless siege that plays like Toy Story reimagined as urban warfare. You can feel some of Henson's playful visual timing from his Muppet days, even as the episode slides into legitimately creepy territory.
Other episodes worth your time
- Battleground (Pilot) — King's killer-toys showdown, directed by Brian Henson, starring William Hurt; a jet-black comedy turned apartment siege.
- Episode 5: The Road Virus Heads North — features a King baddie who can stand toe-to-toe with Pennywise in the nightmare-fuel department.
- Episode 7: Autopsy Room Four — one of King's boldest, weirdest twist endings on TV, delivered with nerve-jangling precision.
If you want to see King's nasty, nerve-rattling take on Toy Story, start with Nightmares & Dreamscapes episode 1. It's the must-watch installment and a small-screen reminder that the stories people call unfilmable are often just waiting for the right weirdos to try.