Watched ABC’s 20/20 Golden Girls anniversary show last night.
Did a Wikipedia search just to refresh my memory about the show and it had 2 spinoffs, “The Golden Palace” which I kind of remember, “Empty Nest” that I do remember, and a spinoff of that called “Nurses” that I don’t remember at all.
Any other TV shows that one of the spinoffs had a spinoff that involved the same characters played by the same actors? The Big Bang Theory had the same characters (Sheldon, Mary, Meemaw) but different actors so George and Mandy doesn’t fit what I am asking.
I thought at one time Frasier, a spinoff from Cheers, was to have a spinoff involving Niles and Daphne but don’t know if it ever made it into production.
Good Times was a spinoff from Maude - featuring the same actress playing the same character- and Maude spunoff All in the Family - with Bea Arthur as Maude in both cases
Happy Days → Laverne & Shirley → Laverne & Shirley in the Army
All in the Family → Maude → Good Times
All in the Family → The Jeffersons → Checking In
JAG → NCIS → Any of the NCIS spin-offs
Yeah, forgot about “All in the Family” spinoffs. The Jeffersons to Checking In I remember. Maude to Good Times, didn’t realize the connection as I was somewhat younger and wasn’t allowed to watch Maude.
Lavern and Shirley in the Army? Never heard of it.
Cartoon. Which had some of the live-action cast as voice actors. If cartoons count, then you also have The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, since Happy Days is a spinoff of Love, American Style. (Which makes Lavern and Shirley in the Army a spinoff of a spinoff of a spinoff.)
Liquid Television —> Beavis and Butthead → Daria / King of the Hill. Too much of a reach calling Beavis and Butthead a spinoff from Liquid Television? Aeon Flux and The Maxx also spun off from it.
Is that really a spinoff though? When I think spinoff, I tend to think more along the lines of Frasier where a main character goes off and has their own show. Less so ones where they include a character in a backdoor pilot way, like having Mork from Ork in Happy Days, or having Gibbs in two episodes of JAG to spin NCIS off.
But that’s more like a SNL skit that became its own show; it feels a little different than a typical spinoff.
I think most Star Trek series are a new creation in the same universe and not a spin-off. I think of spinoffs as starring the character lifted from the earlier show (like Joey being a spinoff of Friends) so, for instance, wouldn’t really consider DSN to be a spinoff of TNG because it isn’t primarily The Adventures of Miles O’Brien. (Just as Prodegy isn’t a spinoff of Voyager even though it includes Janeway). But others may be less strict about that definition.
They took place in the same “universe,” and shared some secondary characters and locales (particularly the latter two), but I’m not sure if they were spin-offs, so much as “sister shows.”