I can think of one show which in its final season morphed into a completely different genre, I don’t recall any other show which did that.
I’m talking about Burke’s Law with Gene Barry. It ran for a few years as a cop show, pretty good one too, with Barry playing the Police Commissioner. Then in its final season, spurred no doubt by the popularity of James Bond and The Man From Uncle, the producers changed the whole thing and Barry, playing the same character, suddenly switched professions and became Amos Burke, Secret Agent. From cop show to spy show in the blink of an eye. Not just that, from a good cop show to a jaw-droppingly bad spy show. The patient did not survive the operation.
No, Mary Hartman² was a strictly comedic parody of a daytime soap opera, same as *Fernwood *was to talk shows. Some people didn’t get it because it had no laugh track nor studio audience, and the humor was derived from the simple, standard clichés of all soap operas just rapped up a tiny (or sometimes ridiculous) amount.
Both shows were very funny BTW, incredibly ahead of their time.
Lou Grant is the first thing I thought of. Trapped John MD was a spin-off in name only. Without looking it up I wouldn’t be surprised if that show was 99% finished and at the last minute the network pinned the “Trapper John” moniker onto it just to boost interest in it. May have worked because it was an incredibly banal medical drama yet it ran for several seasons. As a kid who was a fan of MAS*H I watched the premiere for that very reason. The opening scene was of Pernell Roberts snoozing at the hospital, waking up and saying, “Hawkeye? Radar where’s Hawkeye?” Some nurse says something about not being in Korea anymore, and that was about the only link to the previous show they ever did!
Well hell, Richard Belzer’s *Det. Munch * character was on almost every other show ever made!
I recall reading (it may have been on this very board, but if so I can’t find the thread) that the producers of Trapper John always insisted their show was not a spinoff of the TV show MASH*, but a show based on a character from the filmMASH*.
I’m guessing the distinction had more to do with rights and royalties that any real creative choices, but I found it interesting anyway.
I don’t know of any legal rights under copyright law (or trademark law for that matter) that would be avoided merely by avoiding use of the word “spinoff.”
In the 70s and 80s lots of sitcoms spun off animated shows and in almost all those cases the animated shows added sci fi or other fantastical elements.
The 1960s military sitcom “McHale’s Navy” started as a drama episode on the ABC “Alcoa Presents” anthology series in 1962. It starred Ernest Borgnine as Lt Cdr Quinton McHale on an island with his PT crew, living life away from the war with native girls and a still. A young lieutenant parachutes in and McHale is forced to choose between living a life of ease away from the war and risking his life to save his fellow Americans.
It’s not a television show, but (as I understand it) the mexploitation action film Machete was spun off from the children’s film Spy Kids.
(In a similar vein, but perhaps more controversially, I’d argue that The Lord of the Rings — an epic and sprawling fantasy — was spun off from the IMO much more enjoyable children’s book The Hobbit.)
It probably doesn’t count, but speaking of MASH the original book was a mostly true, ha-ha-only-serious treatment of serving in the Korean war. Its author Richard Hooker attempted to cash in on its film and TV success by spinning it off into a few rather less serious books about characters working as doctors in the states; and several more farcical/fantastic books were ghostwritten besides.
That reminds me of the other Brady Bunch spin-offs. The original series (1969-1974) was a sit-com. The Brady Kids (1972-1973), as you noted, was a Saturday morning cartoon. The Brady Bunch Hour (1976-1977) was a variety show. The Bradys (1990) was a drama series. And if you want to stretch the point there was also a reality show, My Fair Brady (2005-2008).
Yeah. I only watched a couple of B&B episodes, but it seemed like it was a very loose plot that was mostly used as a bridge between the guys watching and commenting on music videos.
*Daria *was a complete half-hour “dramedy” (mostly comedy, but it got a little heavy occasionally, especially in the movies) with a full plot, no music videos, and no Beavis and Butt-head.
The movie was a fairly reasonable representation of the book. I’ve read all of his later books (and one of the ghost written ones based on the characters in the TV series) and I suspect they were partially written in response to the way the series spun the characters. In the books Hawkeye’s favorite curse word is “Democrat” and there is a great story at a trial about how he rounded up a sea serpent to incinerate Hiroshima when the bomb didn’t work. Not exactly Alan Alda material.
My entry is The Prisoner paranoid science fiction parable spun off from Danger Man/Secret Agent. Yes I know the official word is the Number Six is not Drake, but if McGoohan ever admitted this he’d have to pay the creator of Danger Man mucho royalties. We watched all the Danger Man episodes, and people say “Be seeing you” and Drake’s bosses screw him over time and again. You’ll have no trouble at all seeing why he resigned, even ignoring the last few awful color episodes which turn him into a super secret agent which made McGoohan resign.