Worse still was when Magnum P.I. and Simon and Simon would do their crossovers, because they would air the first one as a Magnum episode and the next as a Simon and Simon episode. So now it’s impossible to find both parts, ie. Starz currently has Magnum P.I. but not Simon and Simon.
John Byner was originally offered the part and refused it. Williams was called in at the last minute to audition. He walked into the room and sat on his face in a chair. He nailed the part. If Byner had played the part of Mork, it would have been an utter turd.
IIRC, when The Pretender and Profiler did a crossover, they had two separate endings for the first part. One for syndication, and one for lead in to the second part of the crossover. Just to avoid this. It’s been years since I saw it, but I recall that it was an absolute mess, with the plot not really working in the crossover version, because the hints, etc. didn’t make sense. It’s just there were two crossovers with these two shows, but I can’t recall if this applied to the first or the second one.
The same with a Law and Order/Homicide crossover. In syndication, I’ve seen the L&O half several times, but never the end (I did see it back in the day)
It is the definition of “Didn’t age well.” Also included is Happy Days itself and Robin Williams comedy.
To those who replied about Happy Days…Fonzie once made an appearance on Laverne and Shirley. Pathetic. As an adult I’m now embarrassed that I was a fan of those shows…not to mention Welcome Back, Kotter. I watch reruns of any of the three and cringe with shame.
The Simon/Magnum crossover is Emmy material, compared to the “Murder, She Wrote”/“Magnum P.I.” crossover.
I’m not quite sure why you call that pathetic. Laverne and Shirley were first written as friends of Fonzie. He needed Ritchie to go with them as part of a double date. When their own show started their personalities had changed a bit. After that there were several drop ins on the other show. It was pretty natural since from the beginning it was established that both were set in Milwaukee in the same universe. Unlike many other examples it made sense that they appeared on each other’s shows. But you are right, neither show aged well.
How about a crossover from shows that were 40 years apart? The character of Dr. Bombay, played by Bernard Fox, made several appearances on the soap opera Passions. For a witch that is supposed to live for hundreds(or even thousands) of years, Doc Bombay sure aged a hell of a lot in just forty years.
“I had a rough evening last night, young man, and am a bit under the weather, but I’ll be back in the pink momentarily. Haw!”
Circa late 1960s…
Plastic Man and one of the ponderously serious DC superhero comics like Superman or Batman.
Plastic Man is (or at least was) kind of silly and surreal. If you were going to make a Plastic Man movie you’d totally want Jim Carrey for the role. I mean, they didn’t write him like he was Reed Richards, the stretchy guy from Marvel’s Fantastic Four. So in this godforsaken hybrid smashup comic, Superman (or Batman) is alternatively wincing and shitgrinning his way through sillyass plot and character situations and it was just painful.
What show did it crossover with?
Was this in a TV show or a comic book? I don’t recall Plas ever showing up on TV, even in a cartoon, but I wasn’t really paying close attention.
Plastic Man, by the way, seems to be the origin of the “super stretchy superhero” trope, created by manic (and tragic) artist Jack Cole. Every other rubber-band hero is a copy of him*, and Cole did it right. The goofy, turning into anything capability of the character was his defining characteristic. Frank Miller, in his Dark Knight Returns II, has Plastic Man accosting DC’s Elongated Man, telling him he’s “the most boring hero I ever met. You never turn INTO anything!”
*I’m sure they all knew this, and acknowledged it by making the name of their characters resemble “Plastic man” in some way:
Mr. Fantastic from Marvel
ELASTIC Lad (and ELASTIC Lass) From DC
ELASTIgirl from The Incredibles
The one that didn’t fit was DC’s Elongated Man, who has one of the most unwieldy and barely-appropriate names for a superhero.
There were one or two cartoons starring Plaz, but i don’t recall any crossovers.
He was on Batman: The Brave and the Bold pretty frequently, along with his sidekick, Woozy Winks. And yes, Bats found him to be pretty annoying. He was also in Justice League Unlimited, where he usually commiserated with Elongated Man about being relegated to a backup role.
He showed up in one episode of the 1973 version of Super Friends–the first, clunky season, featuring Wendy and Marvin as the teenage sidekicks/designated hostages. He was used to retrieve a mouse from deep inside the inner works of a giant computer. Seriously, that was the plot. He was played as a fairly straight-laced, stretchy-guy hero, with none of the wackiness Cole gave him. Frankly, he might as well have been Elongated Man! 
I wouldn’t call it a crossover, though–it’s not like he was a regular character on another show of the time, making a guest appearance on Super Friends. It was more of a cameo appearance by another comic book character.
Comic book. The old 12¢ variety. And… mm hmm I see the thread did specify television (oops)
What about the Petticoat Junction/Green Acres/Beverly Hillbillies nexus? Characters from all three shows appeared on each others’ courtesy of CBS’ seamless sitcom universe.
Those worked pretty good, though-nowhere near the worst when it comes to crossovers.