I was watching Alice reruns today and suddenly remembered the awful spin off show Flo
Then, I remembered the horrible show The Ropers which was a spin off of Three’s Company.
In the 1970s and 1980s, it was very commonn to spin off characters from a popular sitcom and give them their own show. Sitcoms were quite prominent in prime time tv, and of course, they worked well in syndication.
But, so many of them were horrible., with only a few successes. Facts of Life was a better show than Different Strokes, in my opinion.
What other examples can you think of? I’m sure I’m forgetting quite a few of them.
What didn’t work well in syndication, however, was when a timeslot would mix in the spinoff reruns in with the actual show reruns, which I’ve seen done with Three’s Company and The Ropers :eek:
I’m not sure if The Hogan Family counts as a spin-off or not. The show started out as “Valerie” but was renamed after Valerie Harper left. I remember liking the show at first but then it tanked later. Of course I’ve always had a seething hatred of Jason Bateman. The man should die in a fire.
Just the 10 of us was a spin-off from Growing Pains that was basically just a vehicle for comedian Bill Kirchenbauer wrapped with a bunch of Catholic jokes.
Spun off from Cheers, this had Dan Hedaya as greasy lothario Nick Tortelli and Jean Kasem as ditzy wife. Some other characters were added but none of them got much past “one note” and the depth and quality of the show didn’t come close to Cheers. Joey
Not terrible but not great either, imo. Joey from Friends moves to LA with his sister to become a movie star, becomes romantically involved with his married next door neighbor, and has a nerdy nephew that he can’t quite relate to. It was nice to see Jennifer Coolidge become more recognized as a comedic actor but Matt LeBlanc wasn’t a strong enough lead and Joey isn’t a strong enough character to front a TV show.
They are doing that now, mixing in “The Sixth Sense” episodes with reruns of “Night Gallery.” It required editing the hour-long show down to a half-hour timeslot and tacking on a Rod Serling intro.
As for other lame spinoffs, anyone remember “Archie Bunker’s Place”? I didn’t watch it so I don’t know if it was any good, but it didn’t seem to make much of a splash.
I’m not sure I can explain or justify it. He just bugs the XXXX out of me. I don’t consider him to be a very good actor. He certainly hasn’t demonstrated much of depth or variety of roles to me. Most of the time he is presented as a moderately over confident, bumbling Everyman with a touch of schemer that becomes overwhelmed by forces he may or may not have instigated, cannot understand or control and somehow everything works out in the end. He provides a framework around which things happen but doesn’t do much himself. My guess is that his career started of with him trying to do a nicer version of Ferris Bueller (which came out the same year as “Valerie”) and it worked well enough for him to make a go of it with the general public. It’s not floating my boat though and I just find him irritating.
To be fair, there are many prominent parts of his work history that I have not viewed. I see his name attached to something and I just move on. I’ve heard good things about Ozark and clearly he was very popular in Arrested Development. If you wish to correct my understanding of his body of work then please make a suggestion.
“Top of the Heap” from “Married…with Children”. Thank heavens the backdoor pilot set at a college radio station during an episode of “M…wC” didn’t sell…despite the presence of Keri Russell.
Out Of The Blue - an angel-in-training has hilarious adventures (notable because the show actually aired the week before the main character was in the backdoor pilot episode of Happy Days).
There were also failed pilot eps of The Ralph and Potsie Show and The Pinky Tuscedaro Show.
