Trivia / Franny K. Stein

• Sequel Gap: The eighth book, Bad Hair Day, was released 11 years after the previous book The Frandidate.
• Screwed by the Network: As described below and despite the success it has had, the series has always unfortunately been screwed out of it's chances to get an Animated Adaptation be produced.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jim Benton originally envisioned Franny as having long hair before changing it to pigtails after realizing that long hair would be impractical for laboratory work.
  • Franny was originally going to be named Angeline Frankenstein, but Jim Benton went with Franny K. Stein because he liked that name better.
  • The film rights of the series were optioned in June 2007 to an independent production company called East of Doheny, who intended to collaborate with Gotham Group to create an animated film series based off the series. As of 2024, no word on the film series' progress has been made and it is very likely that East of Doheny Productions has quietly gone out of business, so any movie plans are almost uncertainly not moving forward.
  • Although the timing of when it happened is unknown, another attempt at an animated adaptation from an anonymous studio was pitched sometime later. As described in a 2023 video, this pitch had Franny be aged up to be in high school and have strong jealousy of the school's popular pretty girl. Benton rejected the offer immediately as he saw they misunderstood his creation completely.
• Word of God: When asked why Franny's hair was purple, Jim Benton explained that it became that way from Franny's time working with strange chemicals.
• Written for My Kids: Jim Benton created Franny K. Stein because he had a daughter who was very fond of scary stuff and he noticed that there weren't many characters targeted towards girls who shared his daughter's interests.