Your comment got me smiling on a day when smiles were few and far between. Thanks.
I just remembered the theme music was the same too.
This one has to qualify as some kind of megafailure. It so totally failed to deliver that it seems to have retroactively erased the public memory of the spun-off movie and its star/writer Nia Vardalos, despite her modestly endearing personality, saucy brown eyes, and respectably big gazoinks.
My wife just mentioned one that might or might not qualify. Character actor Warren Oates made a pilot of True Grit the TV series but it never made it further than the pilot which was shown as a special TV movie presentation or something.
Wasn’t the TV series “McCloud” sort of based on the film “Coogan’s Bluff”?
The Cowboys
Planet of the Apes
A weird turn of events was when a successful show, The Fugitive begat a successful big screen adaptation.
This inspired producers to give the thing a second shot on the SMALL screen. Flop.
The sequel to the Big Screen film also did poorly.
Didja know that the successful TV series “Dukes of Hazzard” was based on the movie “Moonrunners” about a pair of moonshine smugglers? There was no Duke family, but you had Waylon Jennings as the Balladeer (narrator), James Best as Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane, and characters named Cooter (the mechanic), Uncle Jesse (the good-guy moonshiner), and Boss Hogg (the bad-guy moonshiner/brothel owner). They cleaned a lot of it up for the TV show.
Apparently, there was a failed live-action pilot too, but it was never aired.
I loved Friday the 13th The Series.
It lasted 2 seasons, so I’m not sure you’d call it a flop, but not exactly a hit either.
And little known fact is that it was supposed to cross over into the series by having them hunt down Jason’s hockey mask as one of the objects. However, that episode was never shot.
I Remember Mama/Mama
Paper Moon
Paper Chase
Gidget
. . . Although, all of these movies were adapted from literary properties, so it could be argued that the television shows were adapted not from the movie, but from the literary property.
Odinoneeye
Do you have a cite for that?
Droids
It’s been a while since I’ve seen any of the episodes, but I remember this being a pretty good show.
Buck Rogers
I’d never describe it as good. But, if you want over the top fun with aliens, rayguns, robots and chicks in spandex, this is the show for you. I watched a few episodes just last year.
And my own addition to the thread
Nothing In Common
Based on a very serious film starring Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason, this was a sitcom which left out all the important aspects of the characters.
Uncle Buck
Proving my hypothesis that without John Candy, Uncle Buck is a pile of crap.
I was under the impression the the TV show Barefoot in the Park was based on the 1967 Robert Redford-Jane Fonda film (in turn based on the Neil Simon play). To be sure, Love, American Style may have run the pilot, but while this may have been the beginning of life for the television incarnation, the concept of the newlywed Brattons, and the title predated Love, American Style by a couple of years.
And since my only example of a silver screen-to-CRT flop was going to be My Big Fat Greek Life, I guess I’ll shut up here.
A League of Their Own. I’m not sure if it lasted an entire season or not. I watched it a couple of times and couldn’t believe how bland they’d managed to make everything.
Mmmmm…Robey…
Clueless
Down and Out in Beverly Hills
Flipper
The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
As I remember, Clueless lasted two or three seasons (I could be wrong) and Flipper and Courtship of Eddie’s Father lasted quite a few seasons (Ron Howard in that film, amazing) so they wouldn’t exactly qualify as failures.
Actually, those three might even qualify in an even more rare list along with Weird Science - TV series that were better than the original film. It was definitely the case with Courtship…. However it might get a fight on Clueless. There are some people that love the film.
Excellent choice with Down and Out in Beverly Hills, though. I vividly remember the film with Nolte, Midler, Dryfus et al, but have no recollection regarding the series.
Paper Chase only aired one season in its initial run, but it was a critical success, and Showtime later picked it up and made three additional seasons. Cite.
Mama lasted from 1949 to 1956, as shown here.
The Four Seasons, no idea what the film was about, however, it was one of Alan Alda’s first post-MASH** films and it was turned into a TV series with Alan Alda starring in the pilot episode, but probably never appearing again (since the show was quickly cancelled).