Inspired by my hijack in the “Early bit parts by actors famous later” thread and Knead to Know and Kirkland1244’s confirmations that it really was intended to be a spin-off that never happened:
[ul]
[li]What other episodes of famous TV shows were obvious feeble attempts at creating a spin-off show that never happened? (i.e. the “Gary Seven” episode above)[/li][li]What other episodes of famous TV shows actually did create a spin-off, successful or not? I’m talking a couple guest appearances ala Mork and Mindy, not spinning-off major characters into their own shows ala The Tortellis.[/li][li]What other episodes of famous TV shows were obvious feeble attempts to create interest in other crappy already-existing shows on the same network? (i.e. Paul Reiser is Kramer’s landlord!)[/li][/ul]
Lavern and Shirley also came from Happy Days. So did Joanie loves Chachi (or however its spelled). IMDB also lists these spinoffs which i’ve never heard of:
“Blansky’s Beauties” (1977)
“Out of the Blue” (1979)
“Fonz and the Happy Days Gang” (1980)
forgot to add IMDB also says Happy Days is a spinoff of Love American Style, which also span off Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, which i have also never heard off.
And don;t forget the week on NBC the hurricane hit the universe that the Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and some Nurse show inhabited and the characters kepts showing up on each others’ shows.
There were several episodes of Charles in Charge that were essentially pilots for other planned mediocre syndicated sitcoms.
One episode had Charles dropping his car off at a car wash for the day. Guess what the episode was about… The Car Wash people and their wacky antics. Charles appeared for 2 minutes at the begining and 2 at the end. I can’t recall the other ones off the top of my head. I know one was supposed to be about Charles mom (played by John Travoltas sister) but maybe that was the car wash one aswell.
Small Wonder almost had a spin-off about the Evil Sister Robot.
Jennifer Love-Hewitt had an extremely short run spin-off of Party of 5.
That epitome of mediocrity, Hello Larry starring McLean Stevenson spawned a spinoff whose name I can’t recall, starring a basketball player named Meadowlark Lemon.
(Or maybe it was the other way around. Hey, it’s been 23 years.)
Let’s not forget the episode of Green Acres (a spin-off of Petticoat Junction which was a derivative but not exactly a spin-off of the Beverly Hillbillies) where Oliver and Lisa went to Hawaii and spent the entire episode caught in the plot about the sincere widowed resort owner (Don Porter, father of Gidget) and his equally sincere but blundering daughter.
714 Hauser Street took place in Archie’s old house with a black family.
Also, The Jeffersons spun off Checking In with Marla “Florence” Gibbs getting a job in the housekeeping department of a large hotel. It also starred Larry “Frank Burns” Linville as her boss. It lasted four eps and Florence got her job back at the Jeffersons.
714 Hauser Street took place in Archie’s old house with a black family.
Also, The Jeffersons spun off Checking In with Marla “Florence” Gibbs getting a job in the housekeeping department of a large hotel. It also starred Larry “Frank Burns” Linville as her boss. It lasted four eps and Florence got her job back at the Jeffersons.
And Hello Larry was of course a spin-off of Diff’rent Strokes. It came from that episode when Phillip’s “army buddy” came to visit (as if that Nancy-boy Drummond could’ve survived boot camp. Yeah, that’s believable.), and they spent the whole episode calling each other “big lug” and “son of a gun.”
Diff’rent Strokes’ other spin-off, The Facts of Life, did much better.
Of course, I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that one day I’ll open my TV Guide and see “The Love-Matic Grampa” scheduled to follow “Scrubs.”
Mary Tyler Moore
Phillis
Lou Grant
Rhoda
There’s one more and I can’t think of it.
There were a few spin-offs from “Married With Children” in which characters were introduced just to give them their own show. Mercifully, I don’t remember any of them. I believe the same thing happened on “Who’s the Boss?” with some teenage models.
Depending on your definition, “Baretta,” was spun off from “Toma.”
Going further back, “December Bride,” spun off the series “Pete and Gladys.”
There was also a spin off of “Burns and Allen” starring Bea Benederet.
As far as failed spin-off are concerned, the original “Outer Limits” episode “Forms of Things Unknown,” was written with the idea of spinning off a show. Back in the 60s, a successful should would occasionally have an episode that was a potential spinoff. It saved the cost of doing a pilot, and potentially created viewer interest (though I think they had a very low rate of being picked up).
There was an episode of “The Golden Girls” once that focused almost exclusively on some neighbors of the GGs. They were a middle-aged married couple, and the man was mentally ill. I’m pretty sure that it was meant to lead into a spin-off, but am also pretty sure that said spin-off never happened.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Telemark *
[There were a few spin-offs from “Married With Children” in which characters were introduced just to give them their own show. Mercifully, I don’t remember any of them.
I remember there were a few episodes with a pre-friends Joey and his father, in which Matt Leblanc basically played Joey. I don’t know if they got their own show, but they did appear in Married with Children quite a few times.
How come no one has mentioned cartoons? Does Space Ghost Coast to Coast count as a spinoff of Space Ghost?
Love American Style was used to “try out” a lot of series. Wait 'til Your Father Gets Home was a cartoon series that tried to grapple with some surprisingly adult themes. It didn’t make it – adult cartoons that work are more along the lines of Rocky and Bullwinkle or The Simpsons. They tried another cartoon spin-off that involved a detective who could disguide himself as anything (like, say, a vacuum cleaner). I’m surprised it made it on LAS. It certainly never got as far as a series.
Love American Style also had a brilliant pilot episode for Barefoot in the Park. It starred, IIRC, David (Al) Hedison, and it stood out as far better written and acted than most sitcoms, and certainly most LAS fare. Alas, when they decided to make a series out of it they suddenly wanted to be Socially Relevant. So they made the actors all black, apparently figuring that all you had to do was switch the actors, and not take account of the writing, or the Black Experience. The show bombed, despite a good cast. I still wonder how it would have done if they’d left Hedison in it.
The Twilight Zone had a tryout episode for a series starring Orson Bean as Mr. Bemis (or Bevis). It was one of the “funny” episodes that Serling wrote. For all his talent, though, Serling couldn’t do comedy. It never went anywhere. (See “The Twilight Zone Companion” by Mark Scott Zicree for details).
The Six Million Dollar Man spun off The Bionic Woman, and there was an episode about an agent with chips in his brain that alllowed him to download and store information he could use to pose as other people and infiltrate criminal/enemy groups. The info would only last for a certain period of time and, of course, he’d always end up using his own wits to finish the mission.
The Cosby Show had an episode set at a community center run by Tony Orlando and his wife/girlfriend. The Huxtables popped in and out, but it was pretty obviously an attempt at a spinoff.
The Brady Bunch tried to spin Ken Barry into a show where his character and his wife adopted 3 young boys, one white, one black, and one asian. Also, don’t forget The Brady Kids cartoon. I guess that counts.
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home was a cartoon with Tom Bosley voicing the father. Bizarrely, the same voice tracks were used in a second series where the characters were a pride of lions instead of humans. I forget what it was called or how many episodes were actually made, but I saw a piece about it a few years ago on a show about prime time cartoons.
Spin off episodes always feel weird since the familiar characters from the show are almost non existent. I’m not sure that’s the best way to introduce a new concept to viewers, although admittedly it has worked fairly often.
I don’t think Space Ghost Coast to Coast counts as a spinoff. More of an affectionate parody.
I’m still waiting for the MST3K spinoff Servo with a Smile.
Crappy self-promotion like the hurricane one Tars Tarkas mentioned: Salem the Cat from Sabrina once escaped and made all of the TGiF shows travel through time. ABC also had a “big storm” theme to plug their Steven King’s The Storm of the Century.