Trivia: Marla Gibbs was 44 years old and working a reservation desk for Delta Airlines when she got the role on The Jeffersons and she was so unsure of the success of the show and so terrified of being without an income when it folded that she kept the Delta job for the first year. When she was offered Checking In as a spinoff she said “No!”- she wanted the sure thing that was The Jeffersons. The Ropers and Flo, both featuring supporting characters at least as popular as Florence, had flopped, and McLean Stevenson and Harvey Korman and numerous other actors had left major success on one sitcom for shows nobody remembers (Larry Linville was a co-star on Checking In and had never matched the success of MASH*, and she didn’t want to be another career fatality, but the network was insistent and of course there was a substantial raise for going to the new show.
She had the foresight to agree but only under the following condition: IF the show lasted less than three full seasons she could come back to The Jeffersons as a full time character and retain her Checking In salary. (She figured if it lasted for more than three seasons the difference in paycheck would offset.)
The network hemmed and hawed, but ultimately allowed it. Gibbs made a very wise decision: the show flopped after a few episodes. (Bad news for Roseanna Christiansen, who played the Jeffersons new maid, Carmen, BUT she was hired with the understanding Marla Gibbs might come back at anytime- though she was probably surprised how fast she came back.)
Golden Girls had two spin offs, Golden Palace and Empty Nest. Empty Nest had a spinoff to Nurses.
MAS*H had AfterMash (shudder) and Trapper John MD
Henry Winkler was another actor who refused a spin off. When his Fonzie character became a hit on Happy Days, the network wanted him to star in his own series. Winkler said he’d rather stay on Happy Days.
*Dragnet –> Adam-12 –> Emergency -> Emergency +4 (the animated spinoff) *
And don’t forget the one and only episode of*** WALTE*R ***(yes, that was the logo) the spinoff featuring Radar (which took place in St.Louis in 1954)
If you’ve never seen it and have 24 minutes to kill…
Well, that was only a pilot that didn’t get up. And I didn’t need to know about it.
Yeah, but it was a spinoff.
At least they didn’t spinoff an animated MAS*H series.
Not a spin-off, but MUS*H.
Also, Norman Fell was reluctant to leave Three’s Company for The Ropers and only accepted the spin-off if he and Audra Linley could return to Three’s Company if The Ropers lasted less than a year. Unfortunately, it ran for over a year and by that time, Don Knotts had become established as Mr. Furley on 3’sC as well.
Good Times was the most tenuous of spin-offs. Esther Role was supposed to be the same woman as in Maude but how she went from being a domestic servant in an upper class New England home to suddenly having a husband and three kids living in the Chicago projects was never explained. Neither show ever once mentioned anything about the other (this was easy to do back in the 70s). Similarly I wouldn’t really consider Lou Grant to be a true spin-off of Mary Tyler Moore the way Rhoda and Phyllis were because it started after the original had ended, and mostly because it was a completely different kind of show. Ed Asner was playing the character Lou Grant 90% in name only.
Love, American Style was a special case because it was a type of series that went extinct a long time ago, the anthology, a series with only a common general theme but no recurring characters or settings of any kind. Another similar example is making a series around a popular skit from a variety show (The Jackie Gleason Show and The Honeymooners, The Carol Burnett Show and Mama’s Family etc.) I wouldn’t consider either of those spin-offs.
Norman Fell felt that ABC cheated him on this, from Wiki:
The cancellation of The Ropers came just one month after the one-year contractual deadline had passed. Fell would later state that he always believed the decision to pull the plug on the show had been made much earlier, but that the network deliberately postponed making the cancellation official until after the one-year mark specifically to be relieved of the obligation to allow Fell and Lindley to return to Three’s Company.
The term ‘spin-off’ itself has sort of fallen out of favor as being too simplistic. And as being something of a ‘jinx’ because far, far more spin-offs have failed than have ever succeeded. I’m sure that when Law & Order: SVU premiered back in '99 it was routinely referred to as a ‘spin-off’, but nowadays shows like it and CSI and NCIS etc. are all referred to as ‘franchises’ instead.
Not to be a nit pick (oh, hell, I’m taking time to write this so I guess I am) the series Maude took place in suburban Tuckahoe, Westchester County, New York.
But you’re right, I don’t believe they ever explained how Florida, James and their family suddenly were living in Chicago on Good Times.
After reading through these posts it looks as if the 1970’s could be called the decade of the spin off since so many seemed to be born then and the two series with the most from that decade:
All In The Family - which begat: Maude (which in turn, begat Good Times), The Jeffersons (which in turn begat Checking In), Gloria and then finally Archie Bunkers Place (and I guess to a lesser extent) 704 Houser.
Happy Days - which begat: Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, Joanie Loves Chachi, *Blansky’s Beauties *(even though it took a leap into the future) and to a lesser extent Out of the Blue
Has anyone mentioned Happy Days yet?
Happy Days ==> Joanie Loves Chachi ==> Masterpiece Theater.
Andy Griffith Show > Gomer Pyle > Fish Boyle*
in which Corporal Boyle retires from the USMC and gets a job as a fishmonger*
**(or maybe I just dreamt that?)
mmm
Three’s Company also spun off Three’s a Crowd, one of the worse spin offs ever.
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was renamed to Forever Fernwood after the Louise Lasser left the show, and then spun off from there was Fernwood Tonight with Martin Mull, a local talk show which spun itself off as national talkshow America 2Night. America 2Night was really a sequel though.
Um, yeah. I laid it all out 20 minutes before you posted. Right above your post.
Well, since Three’s Company, a single man living with two single women, was an American version of the British series Man About The House, a single man living with two single women, that when in England, they decided to spinoff from Man About The House with the series Robin’s Nest, where the male character from the original opens up his own bistro, it’s not surprising that the spin off from the American version, Three’s Company was the series Three’s A Crowd, where the male character from the original opens up his own bistro.
I’m pretty sure he knew that.