That sounds like something he would do. I don’t remember that particular episode though.
There were a couple of specials on CBS and ABC, in 1996 and 2004 respectively, dedicated to unsold pilots. A good place to start for those interested in the topic.
The Greatest Shows You Never Saw
Best TV Shows That Never Were
One that caught my eye: Poor Devil, 1973. It starred Sammy Davis Junior as a clutzy minion of Lucifer, who can’t seem to harvest his requisite quota of souls. Just to see Sammy with horns, flashing the Devil sign like at a Black Sabbath concert…
The accounts I’ve seen indicate that Campo 44 was written and pitched before Hogan’s Heroes but couldn’t go to pilot until after.
Sounds like the Abbie Hoffman book Steal this Book where he wrote about various scams. As you might guess it was turned down by many publishers before it was released.
Disney was talking about a traditionally animated TV version of an Incredibles series.
Vanished.
And it was re-tooled yet again, as Strange New World.
Supernatural had two backdoor pilots–Wayward Sisters, which should have become a series, and Bloodlines, which good riddance.
There was also a non-Roddenberry pilot called Earth II with Gary Lockwood and two-navelled Mariette Hartley on a space station.
There was also a non-Roddenberry pilot called Earth II with Gary Lockwood and two-navelled Mariette Hartley on a space station.
ETA: Sorry folks, duplicate post. Beachballs, spinning tabs and time-out pages.
“Zelda” would have spun off Sheila James’ character from “Dobie Gillis” in 1961. Sadly enough, Sheila would relate the reason it never got past the pilot stage was the network execs found out she was a lesbian.
“Snip” from 1976 was yanked from the schedule before airing for much the same reasons–the show featured a gay character.
In a much lighter vein, probably Norman Lear’s biggest flop was a producer was 1979’s “A Dog’s Life”, which only saw the pilot aired. The reason–it was awful
My favorite parts were how to get free food by crashing weddings and funerals, and how to manufacture coins for pay phones and vending machines by Scotch taping over appropriately sized washers. 
There was a pilot for a tv series version of Zero Effect. I saw it on a program called “Brilliant but Cancelled”. There was another good sounding pilot in there, but damn if I can remember what it was.
One more of Roddenberry’s pre-***TOS ***pilots that was produced but not picked up: Police Story, which featured both DeForest Kelley and Grace Lee Whitney. From what I’ve read, it was an early ***CSI ***concept. It was apparently Kelley’s performance as the medical examiner that led to his casting as Dr McCoy, replacing Paul Fix as the *Enterprise *CMO in the second ***ST ***pilot.
I’ve mentioned this one many times before. I’m a big fan of Robert H. Van Gulik’s Judge Dee detectiove series, based on the T’ang era Chinese Judge (who really existed) who was a sort of Sherlock Holmes in a series of 18th century novels. Van Gulik translated the original, then went on to wroite an entire series based on the character, using elements of real Chiunese detective novels. I learned about this by stumbling across a broadcast of an ABC movie of the week, Judge Dee and the Monastery Murders, made by the King of TV Movies, Nicholas Meyer. It was unique not only in bringing to the American TV screen a setting as alien as the planets in Star Trek, but in using an almost entirely Asian-ancestry cast to play all the roles.*
The TV movie, like several of the entries in the ABC Movie of the Week, was a trial for a TV series. But the Powers That Be, although they liked K.D. as a detective, didn’t like the whole T’ang dynasty setting. Maybe they figured it would be too expensive every week, or that most Americans wouldn’t be interested in a show with no caucasian characters in it. They made a few episodes of a series entitled Chang! that starred K.D. as a detective in modern-day San Francisco (with none of the other cast members), and it flopped.
I would’ve loved to have seen a Judge Dee series.
Years later I heard that Paul Veerhoeven was looking into making a Judge Dee movie, but it never happened. There have been two “Judge Dee” movies out of China, but they’re vastly different from Van Gulik’s Judge Dee, or even the Judge Dee of the Chinese novels. They turned him into a martial-arts wizard, with tons of wire work and heav y supernatural elements.
(I’ve always suspected, by the way, that the Judge Dredd franchise owes something to JUdge Dee. Both are public safety officials who take an active role in pursuing and catching criminals sa well as carrying out judgment. The Judge Dredd series started in Britain after the run of the British TV series. The name supposedly came from reggae artist Alexander Minto Hughes, who called himself “Judge Dread”, but I suspect a bit of the Dee influence in the naming. )
*Ironically, the lead role, Judge Dee himself, was played by Khigh Dheigh, an actor of Ethiopian-British ancestry who specialized in playing “Asian” roles (Like Wo Fat on Hawaii Five O), even though he apparently had no Asian ancestry. His stage name was a phonetic spelling of his initials “K.D>” for Kenneth Dickerson. There had earlier been a British TV series based on the Judge Dee books, but I don’t think they used any Asian actors. Timothy Dalton appeared in one episode.
If you get a chance, please watch the pilot for Virtuality, which was released and aired on TV as a movie.
It is a crying shame this did not become a show. My wife and I were blown away by it and ready for it to be awesome.
The Adventures of Superpup was supposed to capitalize on the success of Superman. It was filmed but never seen on TV. The few clips I’ve seen look hilarious, but I guess somebody decided it was too ridiculous.
Clip: SuperPup - YouTube
It’s available for viewing on Amazon Prime right now! And it’s got — Adam West, Christopher Lee, and Jack Klugman? What the heck kind of a fever dream is this?
I think you’re a little confused here. Mariette Harltley played a two-naveled lady Lyra-a in Roddenberry’s Genesis II in 1973, which had no space station.
She played a one-naveled Lisa Karger aboard a space station alongside Gary Lockwood in Earth II in 1971, a series that had nothing to do with Roddenberry.
Unless, of course, I’m being whooshed and you’re deliberately conflating the two.
Didn’t realize she was on both those pilots. My mistake re: navels.
As long as we’re setting the record straight, the Khigh Dhiegh* show was called Khan!
- Not Dheigh.
Khan! actually got on the air, on CBS I think, in the winter of '74–'75. It lasted only three or four episodes before it was yanked.