Sweeney Todd Appearances
Sweeney Todd first appeared in penny dreadfuls; cheaply printed literature produced in the UK in the mid nineteenth century, often featuring sensational crime or horror stories. Like a lot of these tales it's likely an embelishment of some true crime story, but just what the details of those stories were is a subject debated by historians.
Penny dreadful stories were prime fodder for early cinema, like the 1928 silent film Sweeney Todd starring Moore Mariott. A lot of the details we now recognize as part of the Sweeny Todd story weren't yet present.
The 1936 slasher film The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was part of a very popular series of horror films staring Tod Slaughter, which is the most metal name of a horror film star ever.
Sondheim's 1979 musical is really where a lot of the elements that we now universally recognize as part of Sweeny Todd's story actually all came together for the first time. The part was originated by Len Cariou and he is just staggeringly good. This play is always in production somewhere and there are countless actors we could list, but Cariou really is ultimate stage Sweeney
Even with the tradition of the Sondheim musical, there are still renditions of the character that are more focused on the adapting the original penny dreadfuls, like the 2006 BBC movie Sweeney Todd starring Ray Winstone.
Obviously, GND's Sweeney is based on Johnny Depp's character in the 2007 Tim Burton adaptation of the Sondheim musical. It's probably important to mention that this was a pre-2016 Johnny Depp.