Was talking to a friend who used to be on the Warner Brother’s TV lot during the late 50s about this thread and he said Warner Brothers was doing it all the time. Characters from **77 Sunset Strip **would visit Hawaiian Eye for an episode or visa versa, as would the detectives from Burbon Street Beat and Surf Side 6. As a matter of fact, he said that when Burbon Street Beat was cancelled one of the characters (played by Andrew Duggan) moved over to become a regular on Surf Side 6.
He said it was also true among the Westerns from Warner Brothers. Bronco Layne (Ty Harden) would visit Sugarfoot (Will Hutchins) who would visit The Lawman which had a character (played by Peter Brown) that visited Colt 45 (Christopher Colt’s character played by Wayde Presten) and periodically some of them would visit Cheyenne and Maverick. Sometime two or three would visit at the same time.
He said his favorite crossover character, however, was played by Adam West. Yes, that Adam West. Despite not having a Western of his own at the time, he played Doc. Holiday in most of the Warner Brothers Westerns. He would go from Sugarfoot as Doc., to Bronco Layne, to Colt 45 almost as a unifying character among them.
There was some kind of crossover with Kramer on Mad About You. Don’t remember the details much. I think Kramer’s apartment used to be Paul’s and maybe his brother’s too.
The comments regarding The Bob Newhart Show reminded me of one. On Murphy Brown there was a running joke about how Murphy could never find a competent secretary. There was one episode where Marcia Wallace appeared as Carol, the receptionist she had played on The Bob Newhart Show. She is, of course, perfect for the job. Then Dr. Bob Hartley and Dr. Jerry Robinson come in and beg her to come back to her old job, because they haven’y been able to find anyone to replace her.
I liked the episode overall but didn’t care for the Critic’s appearance in it. I did like a joke at the end, though, when the Critic invited the Simpsons onto his own show. Bart said something like, “nah, we won’t be doing that.”
There was an Ally McBeal/The Practice crossover: the Ally McBeal episode “The Inmates” was part one and then The Practice episode “Axe Murderer” concluded the story. Each show was shot in its usual style (a bit shiny and fantastical for the former, gritty and serious for the latter) but it flowed quite well. Dylan McDermitt showed up on another episode of Ally McBeal later on as well. This crossover was interesting as the shows were actually on different networks, but this was the power of David E Kelley in the 90s. (confirming the episode titles on wikipedia, I see that The Practice also crossed over with Gideon’s Crossing and Boston Public, forming a whole DEK Cinematic Universe of sorts)
The Arrowverse shows all crossed over with each other, and it became a tradition for a few years that they were all on the air. The Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover was particularly great, and fan-service just oozed out of the screen. Not only did Green Arrow, the Flash, the Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman and Supergirl all team up over five episodes, the producers also brought in Black Lightning, not to mention characters from Birds of Prey (which had been off the air for about eighteen years at that point), Smallville, the animated Batman series, the original 1960s Batman series (Burt Ward was one of the first people to appear), Contantine and even Lucifer, which wasn’t even a superhero show but it worked. Most impressively, they tied in the 2005 Superman movie, giving Brandon Routh another chance to play Clark Kent, and Ezra Miller from the then-current DC Cinematic Universe, met his TV counterpart. To my mind, this five-parter multiverse story crushed the big screen ones like a grape.
My all-time favorite, though has to be the two parter “The Stolen Earth”/“Journey’s End” that wrapped up the fourth season of the Doctor Who relaunch, crossing over with both its spinoff shows Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures. David Tennant’s last (…right) day of shooting as the Doctor, before turning the TARDIS over to Matt Smith, was a cameo on the SJA (“The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith”); Matt Smith dropped by a year later (“Death of the Doctor”) as well.
It was established that Mad About You, Seinfeld and Friends shared a continuity. Phoebe’s identical twin sister was a recurring character on Mad About You, and Jamie in turn dropped by Central Perk at some point. I think there was a blackout across NYC that tied three episodes together.
Oh, that reminded me of another. One episode of Sports Night segued into Spin City, with Michael J. Fox and (maybe Carla Gugino? I didn’t watch that show often) watching the late-night broadcast while lying in bed.
While the crossovers between Law and order and Homicide were numerous and bi-directional* (and mentioned) I like the crossover (Homicide? SVU? maybe it was just a character crossover?) of Munch into the X-files.
*What I hate is the channels that show multiple L&O episodes a day will show the L&O half of the crossover but never the corresponding Homicide part. So we the audience never know the outcome.
In bad crossovers I’ll mention the Magnum/Simon and Simon crossover, mostly because it revealed what assholes S&S really were when you take them out of their own context. It kind of ruined S&S for me.
Speaking of Friends, one of the relatively early episodes featured George Clooney and Noah Wylie as emergency-room doctors who met Monica and Rachel at the hospital when Rachel sprained her ankle. I don’t know if they were specifically their characters from E.R., though.
In the Kramer appearing on Mad About You episode, near the end Paul asks Kramer whether the neighbor across the hall still lived there. Kramer acknowledge he did. Paul rolled his eyes. Jerry doesn’t appear.
But in one of the last episodes of MAY, Paul is hopped on a certain blue pill and runs into Jerry in the street. It’s clear that this Jerry is not the same Jerry that lives across from Kramer. Paul idolizes this Jerry How that works is puzzling.
Note that the actor who played Kramer in the Jerry pilot appears as a security guard in one MAY episode. Some in some sense, Kramer appeared twice in the show. (And yes, he did steal the raisins.)
Friends: Ursula became a porn star but used Phoebe’s name professionally. This caused a problem which resulted in a face to face confrontation using the usual over-the-shoulder shots, etc.
I thought, and I might be wrong or misremembering, that on Seinfeld they watch Mad About You, or refer to it as a TV show. Meaning that in the Mad about You/Friends universe Kramer, Jerry, etc. are people who live with them in the same city, but in the Seinfeld universe, Paul, Jamie, etc. are characters in a TV show.
I also thought Seinfeld didn’t participate in the black out crossover event.
In animated shows, Ben 10 had a crossover with (the much superior show) Generation Rex. It was fun and had a good introduction of each IMHO. A pity they never did it again, but I think the showrunner didn’t care for it.
