Or drama to sitcom.
This thread mentions the show MAS*H and I got to thinking about spin-offs. The most notable from this show being Trapper John, M.D. (w/ Pernell Roberts in the title role). Then I started to wonder if there were any other televisions shows that made the switch from comedy to drama through a spin off (or vice versa).
I couldn’t come up with any, but admittably my brain doesn’t function best when I just wake up. Are there others ?
“Mary Tyler Moore” begat “Lou Grant”
I can’t think of any others offhand.
“Love American Style” begat “Happy Days,” but the change wasn’t all that much.
If you talk about variety shows spawning comedies, there are more choices: “The Jackie Gleason Show” --> “The Honeymooners” and “Tracy Ullman” --> “The Simpsons”
Of course, if your definition of “drama” is “something that’s just not funny”, the number of spin-offs from comedies that could be considered dramas goes up dramatically 
“The Brady Bunch” eventually spun themselves off as “The Bradys” wherein everyone had a “real” problem. It sucked, of course.
This DID in fact happen, at least once, but not really through a spinoff.
“Tattinger’s” debuted on NBC in 1988 as an hour-long drama, about a restauranteur in New York City. The show didn’t do very well, but the network obviously had faith in someone. The show was retooled, and became “Nick And Hillary”. Same basic set-up, same characters, same actors, but now it was a half-hour sitcom.
Sorry, but Trapper John, M.D. wasn’t a spin-off of MASH. It was an original show based of the MOVIE MASH.
There was a court case – PREMINGER v. 20th Century Fox, which decided legally) that TRAPPER JOHN, MD was a spinoff of the movie MASH, and a “sister” series to the TV MASH (as opposed to a spinoff of the TV show)… this allowed for Ingo Preminger,producer of the movie MASH, to win a share of the profits from TRAPPER JOHN, M.D. Conversely, this would mean that the TV-MASH’s profit participants did not get any share of the TRAPPER JOHN profits.
:rolleyes: Seriously. Get it right.
:: poster secretly ashamed he knows this tidbit of information and chooses to act like its common knowledge to compensate::