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Popular Shows That Had Episoded Intended To Spin Off

Started by roadman65, April 25, 2018, 08:56:31 PM

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roadman65

If you watch many of your favorite shows you will find episodes where guest stars take the lead and the main characters are in a few scenes.  That is because many are called back door pilots and the producers use another show to help launch their ideas. 

Shows like Gomer Pyle USMC, who's season four finale of the Andy Griffith Show was used to introduce what became a successful spin off to the CBS Television Network.  Also one Season Five Episode of All In The Family was pilot to the 8 season The Jeffersons Sitcom, and the first season finale of Different Strokes launched the successful Facts Of Life Sitcom as well.  However, one other Different Strokes episode tried to launch a spin off that never took, which was in the fourth season that was to be about an Asian School Teacher teaching night school to a bunch of immigrants that flopped.

Other such attempts were on the Brady Bunch, season five's episode titled Kelly's Kids which would have had Ken Berry (post Mayberry RFD) in another situation comedy about raising three kids of different races with the trials and tribulations that went on with that scenario.  Then Star Trek TOS tried to spin off a James Bond type of sci fi show with Robert Lansing as Agent Six and Terri Gar as his female secretary in one third season episode.

Both Laverne and Shirley, and Welcome Back Kotter tried to spin off characters in their respective series finale. The former would have had Carmine Ragusso (Eddie Mekka) have a sitcom of him in NYC trying to make it as a Broadway actor, and the latter where Arnold Horshack (Ron Pallilo) would have continued his Sweathog Character working in a mail order place, hence his getting married in that show's third to final episode.

Then you have Empty Nest, a spin off of the Golden Girls, that originally was to have Rita Moreno and Paul Dooley play a married couple with empty nest syndrome, but producers nixed the original cast and made it about a widowed doctor (played by Richard Mulligan) and his two adult daughters who came to live with him as both could not be responsible enough to take care of themselves instead.  So you could say it was sort of a failed pilot of an already popular show.

Any more episodes that could have had another show spin from it?
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe


Rothman

Laverne and Shirley was spun off from Happy Days.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

roadman65

#2
Quote from: Rothman on April 25, 2018, 08:59:06 PM
Laverne and Shirley was spun off from Happy Days.
Yes it was which means it was not a failed pilot from its parent show.  The end of that one did have no go at giving Mekka his own series though.

Maude too was a spin off of All In The Family, but spun off Good Times also.  Though not the Florida Evans from Tuckahoe, NY; but another Mrs. Evans (the same character though) from Chicago. So in a way its a failed spin off attempt as just like Empty Nest, the concept was retooled.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe

Big John


KEVIN_224

The Jeffersons went from 1975 to 1985 on CBS.

Was ABC's Three's A Crowd ever set up at the end of Three's Company? That show only went one season (1985-86). I don't think I ever saw East Hartford's own Mary Cardorette in any other show after that.

roadman65

Quote from: Big John on April 25, 2018, 09:31:44 PM
Mork and Mindy was a spinoff to Happy Days too.
But it was a series.  I am talking about a pilot used in a preexisting TV Show episode that never got produced.

Mork and Mindy lasted 4 seasons and even though Threes A Crowd lasted one complete season, it still made it after its pilot which technically begun as the Three's Company eighth season finale.  Three's Company actually aired for two episodes in the would be ninth season to write off Terri and Janet as the former moved to Hawaii and the latter got married.

Though the reception Three's A Crowd got, it even if it made it to one episode would still not of been a flop as I am talking about shows that were pitched that never got one episode produced.
Every day is a winding road, you just got to get used to it.

Sheryl Crowe

davewiecking

So you're looking for something like "Top of the Town", the unsuccessful Matt LeBlanc spinoff from "Married with Children".

Honestly, from your OP, I had no clue you were asking about any failed series.

Rothman

Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

inkyatari

I think there was supposed to be a spin off of One Day at a Time, following Schnider, as was hinted at in the series finale.
I'm never wrong, just wildly inaccurate.

Rothman

Jago and Litefoot from the Doctor Who episode The Talons of Weng-Chiang were supposed to have their own spinoff series, but it never got off the ground.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

jp the roadgeek

Quote from: KEVIN_224 on April 25, 2018, 09:35:01 PM
The Jeffersons went from 1975 to 1985 on CBS.
Norman Lear tested the waters for a Jeffersons spinoff with the All in the Family episode involving Lionel's engagement party.  While most of the supporting actors didn't end up being the same (save for Zara Cully as Mother Jefferson), we were introduced to the Willises being a bi-racial couple, and the groundwork was laid for the premise for a spin off, which occured in the episode where George and Louise move to Manhattan.  In this episode, all the supporting characters are played by the regular cast members.

Maude also developed as a backdoor pilot from AITF.  Maude was introduced as a character in the episode where she comes to take care of the Bunkers when a flu bug infiltrates the household.  The second appearance ended up being a backdoor pilot where Archie and Edith go to Maude's home for Carol's wedding.  Here, we meet Maude's family.  Bill Macy does play Walter in the episode, but Andrienne Barbeau doesn't play Carol.

Archie Bunker's Place was a direct continuation spin-off, as Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers had left the series (save for a couple of guest appearances), and Edith was being phased out, eventually passing away in Season 2 of ABP.  Archie buying the bar laid the groundwork, and many of the regulars in ABP were introduced in the last 2 seasons of AITF (Barney Hefner even earlier).  The short lived series Gloria developed from a backdoor pilot ABP episode where Gloria divorces Mike, moves back east with Joey, and takes a veterinary assistant job upstate. 

Joanie Loves Chachi was a spin-off of Happy Days as well.  It was a short-lived side series where they move to Chicago and try to make it as musicians.  When it was cancelled, they rejoined the HD cast. 
Interstates I've clinched: 97, 290 (MA), 291 (CT), 291 (MA), 293, 295 (DE-NJ-PA), 295 (RI-MA), 384, 391, 395 (CT-MA), 395 (MD), 495 (DE), 610 (LA), 684, 691, 695 (MD), 695 (NY), 795 (MD)

roadman

Quote from: Big John on April 25, 2018, 09:31:44 PM
Mork and Mindy was a spinoff to Happy Days too.
Not quite.  Mork from Ork was a "one-off" episode of Happy Days.  He was not a principal character of the show.
"And ninety-five is the route you were on.  It was not the speed limit sign."  - Jim Croce (from Speedball Tucker)

"My life has been a tapestry
Of years of roads and highway signs" (with apologies to Carole King and Tom Rush)

abefroman329

This is a fascinating read:

https://tv.avclub.com/tonight-s-special-guests-the-cast-of-a-whole-new-show-1798219928

It's interesting that Married...with Children had a total of three.

More recently, there's a theory that the episode of Stranger Things S2 where Eleven escapes to Chicago is intended to be a backdoor pilot.

abefroman329

There's also a page at tvtropes.org about backdoor pilots, but I can't get to it from work.

jeffandnicole

Young Sheldon has done surprisingly well; and was renewed for a 2nd season.

PHLBOS

Quote from: roadman65 on April 25, 2018, 08:56:31 PMThen Star Trek TOS tried to spin off a James Bond type of sci fi show with Robert Lansing as Agent Gary Seven and Terri Gar as his female secretary in one second season episode.
FTFY.  The episode was titled Assignment Earth; it was the final episode of the second season.
GPS does NOT equal GOD

Henry

IIRC, Frasier announced that he was moving back home (to Seattle) in the final season of Cheers. That may or may not have been the last-ever episode, but I know that he had just divorced Lilith and found no reason to stay in Boston.
Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today!

abefroman329

Quote from: Henry on April 26, 2018, 10:15:51 AM
IIRC, Frasier announced that he was moving back home (to Seattle) in the final season of Cheers. That may or may not have been the last-ever episode, but I know that he had just divorced Lilith and found no reason to stay in Boston.

Considering Frasier on Cheers didn't have a brother and his father wasn't an ex-cop, I doubt they were that careful about tying the two shows together.  I don't even know if it was ever established on Cheers that he was originally from Boston.

jon daly

Quote from: abefroman329 on April 26, 2018, 09:08:12 AM
There's also a page at tvtropes.org about backdoor pilots, but I can't get to it from work.

DIAGNOSIS MURDER (A show my wife likes) had some. One I saw was awful. It was basically LETHAL WEAPON with two female cops.

briantroutman

One I'm aware of that the above-linked A.V. Club article missed–

Toward the end of the series, an episode of The Rockford Files titled "Just a Coupla Guys"  had Jim Rockford travel to New Jersey on a case where he crossed paths with a pair of half-charming but half-witted would-be gangsters–and supposedly this episode was pitched to NBC as a pilot for a spin-off series (which the network declined). But interestingly, the episode was written by David Chase, who created The Sopranos twenty years later.

And on a slightly related topic: I've wondered the same about insurance company commercials, which have largely been comedic, episodic, and centered around a spokes-character for the last decade. A company will have a have a main mascot featured in most of their commercials (e.g. the GEICO gecko, Progressive's Flo), yet they periodically launch one-off commercials with characters that sometimes reappear in subsequent ads and become sort of a secondary mascot–like GEICO's Maxwell the Pig or Progressive's "box guy" . I wonder to what extent the companies are either trying out new mascots to see what might resonate with audiences or at least are trying to hedge their bets in case the actor playing the main mascot's role decides to quit or hold out for a bigger paycheck.

jakeroot

Quote from: abefroman329 on April 26, 2018, 10:35:56 AM
Quote from: Henry on April 26, 2018, 10:15:51 AM
IIRC, Frasier announced that he was moving back home (to Seattle) in the final season of Cheers. That may or may not have been the last-ever episode, but I know that he had just divorced Lilith and found no reason to stay in Boston.

Considering Frasier on Cheers didn't have a brother and his father wasn't an ex-cop, I doubt they were that careful about tying the two shows together.  I don't even know if it was ever established on Cheers that he was originally from Boston.

I've watched virtually every episode of Frasier, but almost none of Cheers (on my list of things to-do). Was it established that Frasier did in fact not have a brother, and that his dad was in fact not a cop? Or were these both things that were not addressed on Cheers that Frasier (the show) was free to exploit?

allniter89

Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 26, 2018, 09:25:57 AM
Young Sheldon has done surprisingly well and was renewed for a 2nd season.

I'm glad to hear of YSs 2nd season. I enjoyed the 1st season, I think Annie Potts is a hoot playing mom/memaw/mom in law.
BUY AMERICAN MADE.
SPEED SAFELY.

cjk374

Quote from: briantroutman on May 14, 2018, 10:09:19 PM
One I'm aware of that the above-linked A.V. Club article missed–

Toward the end of the series, an episode of The Rockford Files titled "Just a Coupla Guys"  had Jim Rockford travel to New Jersey on a case where he crossed paths with a pair of half-charming but half-witted would-be gangsters–and supposedly this episode was pitched to NBC as a pilot for a spin-off series (which the network declined). But interestingly, the episode was written by David Chase, who created The Sopranos twenty years later.

And on a slightly related topic: I've wondered the same about insurance company commercials, which have largely been comedic, episodic, and centered around a spokes-character for the last decade. A company will have a have a main mascot featured in most of their commercials (e.g. the GEICO gecko, Progressive's Flo), yet they periodically launch one-off commercials with characters that sometimes reappear in subsequent ads and become sort of a secondary mascot–like GEICO's Maxwell the Pig or Progressive's "box guy" . I wonder to what extent the companies are either trying out new mascots to see what might resonate with audiences or at least are trying to hedge their bets in case the actor playing the main mascot's role decides to quit or hold out for a bigger paycheck.

Remember Geico's Caveman mascot? ABC tried to make a sit-com with that, but it flopped after only a couple of episodes.
Runnin' roads and polishin' rails.

US71

Quote from: Rothman on April 25, 2018, 11:10:08 PM
Jago and Litefoot from the Doctor Who episode The Talons of Weng-Chiang were supposed to have their own spinoff series, but it never got off the ground.

Big Finish did some audio adventures with Jago and Litefoot.

But you forgot Torchwood, K-9, and The Sarah Jane Adventures (also, K-9 and company).

Katy Manning is also doing Big Finish audio adventures as Iris Wildthyme which is another DW-related series.

Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Rothman

All those spinoffs at least got off the ground.  I was talking within the context of concepts that never occurred or outright failed.

(And, the K-9 series was K-9 and Company)

...

Dweeks who think the audio stuff or additonal novels are canonical make me snicker.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.



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