And yet another AITF spinoff was Gloria. The further advetures of Archie’s daughter after she and Meathead broke up. It lasted 21 episodes.
So that gives AITF The Jeffersons, Maude, Archie Bunker’s Place, Gloria the second generation spinoffs* Good Times* and Checking In and a spinoff about the house (Hey, why not? The terlet was a major point in many AITF episodes), 704 Houser. That makes seven.
It was also used as a dumping ground for pilots which is how Happy Days got there. Shortly after that, ABC was looking for a comedy and Gary Marshall had this available.
Marshall just did an interview with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast. Fairly interesting stuff.
Wikipedia has a page on this
It uses a looser definition of “spin-off”. The OP would consider many of them to be “sequels”. Especially among the reality shows and the Saturday morning cartoons.
Make Room for Daddy —> The Danny Thomas Show —> The Andy Griffith Show —> Gomer Pyle, USMC
Four Generations
Love, American Style —>Happy Days —> Laverne and Shirley —> Laverne and Shirley in the Army —> The Mork and Mindy/Laverne and Shirley/Fonz Hour
Three or five, depending on whether you count those last two cartoons.
Does Detective John Munch count as his own spinoff? Richard Belzer played him on Homicide: Life on the Street, then he moved to Law & Order:SVU, and he popped up in the regular Law & Order, Arrested Development, The X-Files, The Beat, Law & Order: Trial By Jury, The Wire, 30 Rock, and as a Muppet on Sesame Street.
Plus there’s also The Tommyverse.
“Beverly Hills 90210” > “Melrose Place” > “Models, Inc.”
“Dallas” > “Knot’s Landing”
“Cheers” > “the Tortellis” and “Frasier”
“The Carol Burnett Show” > “Mama’s Family”
“the Six Million Dollar Man” > “the Bionic Woman”
“the Love Boat” > “Fantasy Island” (Perhaps I’m wrong about this one, but I vaguely recall that “TLB” made some trips to “FI” and deposited characters/actor-guest stars as a way to introduce the latter series.)
“the Simpsons” > “the Critic” (OK, this was a backdoor pilot, but I think that counts.)
Add “The Tracy Ullman Show” to the start and you have 3 levels.
These represent their own category of spin-offs, where a pilot is an episode in another series. Gomer Pyle was already a recurring character on the AG show before his sequel was spun off. Andy was only on the one episode of Danny Thomas, and it was intended to be a pilot for the new show. I’m not sure if Mork’s appearance on Happy Days was considered for a spinoff originally, it was first shot with Mork being only a dream but I think later the ending was changed to show they intended to spin off a new show. I’m not sure about Laverne and Shirley though, they seemed to be introduced with the possibility of being recurring characters on Happy Days. The spin-off pilot episode was used for NCIS New Orleans, not sure about the LA show.
I’d consider shows like Gomer Pyle to be the true spin-offs, new shows based on regular and recurring characters on existing shows.
ETA: Maude was a spin-off from All in the Family. The character had been on the show a couple of times before the spin-off was launched. The Roper’s represented a common problem with spin-offs, the characters may not be as popular out of their original environment.
The Danny Thomas Show was essentially just a title change, not a sequel or spinoff. It was the TV equivalent of changing “The Supremes” to “Diana Ross and the Supremes.”
That had me confused, too. I always thought “Happy Days” was kind of a TV version of “American Graffiti”.
What do I know? I never watched it.
How many spin-offs are there from “Family Guy”? Aren’t there about six versions of that rehashed crap?
I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.
While they all more-or-less* inhabit the same universe, none of these are spin offs. None of the characters were regulars in the original shows. Not only that, Kent McCord played a similar but different police officer in a Dragnet episode before Adam-12. Emergency has no direct connection to either show backwards.
*More or less, because in one episode of Emergency, the characters are interacting with Reed and Malloy of Adam-12, then in another episode, they firemen are watching Adam-12 on TV!
There was an episode of NCIS where Gibbs and McGee visited the LA headquarters before the spinoff debuted. It differed somewhat from the form the show eventually took.
Garry Marshall’s “Love and the Happy Days” (that was the name of the episode) aired on 25 February 1972 as part of Love, American Style. George Lucas’s American Graffiti (one of my favorite movies) was released on 1 August 1973.
I think the only thing they had in common was the casting of Ron Howard and (later) Cindy Williams.
Married…With Children –> Top of the Heap –> Vinnie & Bobby
Both spinoffs only lasted 7 episodes.
Were these true spinoffs, though? There were several crossover episodes, but none of the characters appeared in the “parent” series prior to its debut.
(Oddly, in a later episode of Emergency!, Johnny Gage was depicted as an obsessed fan of Adam-12, despite Reed & Malloy having appeared in the pilot.)
[ETA: Or, what JAQ said…]
American Graffiti, BTW, was set in 1962, not the '50s. And Happy Days had about as much to do with the '50s as The Jetsons did.
V&B was just a rebadged TofH, not a spin off.
1962 was in the '50s. The 60s didn’t start until the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan.
Had no idea! Thanks for that. I recall “Love American Style” was (for the time) kind of raunchy (at least that was the vibe I got, but I was just a kid), so I find this kind of surprising.
But I never watched much “Happy Days”, so what do I know?
Hang on to your hat: Marco, of the “Emergency” firemen, is watching himself on that “Adam-12” episode!
I think the only episode I ever watched of LAS was the one where Connie Kreski (Playboy’s Playmate of the Year, 1969) was a topless waitress :o (and of course, they only showed her from the back and the shoulders up :mad: ).
WARNING: NSFW!
Here’s her segment:
