The Spin Off Thread

[Paul Raven]

A place to discuss all things to do with spin off series.

Which were your favorites?

Which worked and which failed and why?

Spin offs you would like to have seen.

Proposed spin offs that never made it .

I guess one of  the most successful spin off that comes to mind is The Jeffersons.

 

[AMCOLTLLover]

Angel! I loved that they gave David Boreanaz his own show and that he left Buffy.

Angel was more mature and quiet the stronger storylines. They developed Cordelia, Angel, Darla etc. 

It’s a shame some behind the scenes stuff made them ruin Cordelia’s character but overall she had a great development.

 

[Khan]

On the one hand, it was great to see a series about a Black family NOT living in the ghetto.  On the other hand, I don't think "The Jeffersons" ever had the quality of writing that its' parent show, "All in the Family," had in its' first several years.

As for some other AITF/Norman Lear-produced spinoffs...

"Maude" was probably the best, with writing that sometimes outmatched AITF's.

"Archie Bunker's Place" was probably the worst, thanks to Carroll O'Connor having too much control.

"Good Times," which was a spinoff OF a spinoff, was pretty bad as well, thanks to some almost minstrel show-level writing.  (And I say that as someone who loved GT.)

Of all the spin-offs that I've seen, none have been more frustrating than "Rhoda."  The show had a good cast and good production team behind it, but they never found the right guy OR right job for Rhoda.  (David Groh was a dud as Joe, and so was Kenneth McMillan as her latter-seasons boss, Jack Doyle, at the costume company.)

[I Am A Swede]

I know there were talks about doing a spin off from "Upstairs, Downstairs" when that show ended in 1975. It was supposed to feature Hudson, Mrs. Bridges and Ruby from the original show. Sadly Angela Baddeley who played Mrs. Bridges died shortly after UD ended, so it never materialized.

[AbcNbc247]

Family Matters and The Facts of Life were my favorites.

The Facts of Life also had a lot of attempted spin-offs which never materialized...

• "Brian & Sylvia" – A season two episode in which Tootie and Natalie go to Buffalo, New York to visit Tootie's Aunt Sylvia, a black woman (played by Rosanne Katon) who has recently married a white man, played by Richard Dean Anderson (the future star of MacGyver and Stargate SG-1). Ja'Net DuBois of Good Times played Ethel, who was both Tootie's grandmother and Sylvia's mother.^[28] The episode never developed into a series and in the season five episode "Crossing the Line", Tootie mentions Brian's and Sylvia's interracial marriage and says that the two have recently gotten divorced.
• "The Academy" – A season three episode set at Stone Academy, an all-boys military school that was near Eastland. In this episode, the girls at Eastland attended a dance with the boys from the military school. The boys included actors Jimmy Baio, Ben Marley, David Ackroyd, Peter Frechette, and John P. Navin Jr.
• "Jo's Cousin" – Another season three episode, in which Jo visits her family in the Bronx, including her cousin Terry, a fourteen-year-old girl (played by Megan Follows) going through adolescence in a family full of men. The family included actors Grant Cramer, John Mengatti, Donnelly Rhodes, and D.W. Brown.
• "The Big Fight" – A season four episode set at Stone Academy, a boys' military school. Natalie comes to visit a boy who tries to impress her with his boxing. This episode includes the same cast from the season three episode "The Academy", with the addition of '80s 'nerd' icon Eddie Deezen.
• "Graduation" – This spin-off was to revolve around Blair and Jo's life at Langley College.
• "Big Apple Blues" – A season nine episode in which Natalie spends the night with a group of eccentric young people living in a SoHo loft, and decides to remain in New York to begin her life. Two of the tenants in the loft were played by David Spade and Richard Grieco.
• "The Beginning of the End/Beginning of the Beginning" – The two-part series finale sees Blair buying Eastland to prevent its closing. Blair finds that the school is in such dire financial straits that she is forced to make the school co-ed. Blair then essentially adopts the Mrs. Garrett role as she presides over the school and is forced to deal with the trouble-making students in a plot line that is highly reminiscent of the season two premiere. The new Eastland students included Seth Green, Mayim Bialik, future Oscar-nominee Juliette Lewis, and Meredith Scott Lynn.

[Soaplovers]

I would have liked the Blair buying Eastland concept if Jo was the teacher working there..and the two having to be co Mrs Garrett's.

[Paul Raven]

In looking at ratings for the 80's thread, I saw that Flo,the Alice spinoff finished in the Top 10 after a six episode run following MASH.

So CBS moved it to 8pm Monday where it floundered and got shunted to Sat and that was it.

I remember watching the first episode and it was good but the writing seemed to taper off.

With most of these unsuccessful spinoffs, the characters never return to the main show.

You would think that the actors would have it in their contracts to return, but that doesn't seem to be standard practice.

Polly Holiday for instance, would instantly lose the yearly salary from Alice, while the rest of the cast keep those checks rolling in.

[kalbir]

@AbcNbc247 I loved Family Matters back in the day. I would've loved a Perfect Strangers/Family Matters crossover where Balki met Urkel 

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[AbcNbc247]

Yeah lol I don't get why the two shows never crossed over. Mark Linn Baker did appear in one episode of Family Matters but he played a different character.

[DRW50]

Weren't there rumors of bad blood between Polly and Linda Lavin? 

I know in the case of the Ropers, the actors were upset that they were not moved back to Three's Company. Hadn't they even been promised (not in writing I guess) they would be? 

[BetterForgotten]

I guess The Simpsons is the most obvious example? But I guess only 5 people remember The Tracey Ullman Show these days.

Those Miller-Boyette shows always made my teeth itch. Even as a kid I knew what I was being served was generally stupid as hell and fairly light fluff. 

Edited March 4, 2022 by BetterForgotten

[Khan]

And I'm proud to be one of those five. 

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They weren't just rumors, lol.  Linda Lavin had a hard time with anyone she felt was stealing the show from her.  That's why Diane Ladd, who succeeded Polly Holliday, also quit after one year.

"Flo" might have been a flop for Holliday, but there was no way she was gonna return to "Alice."

According to Norman Fell, they were.  IIRC, the agreement was that if "The Ropers" ran for less than a year, then he and Audra Lindley would be allowed to return to "Three's Company."

In fact, Fell once theorized that the network deliberately dragged its' feet on officially cancelling "The Ropers" in order to prevent him and Lindley from going back to the mother show, which had successfully replaced the two with Don Knotts.

An exception to that rule, though, would be Marla Gibbs.  IIRC, Marla refused to leave "The Jeffersons" for her own show ("Checking In") unless it was guaranteed that she would be able to return to "The Jeffersons" if "Checking In" had flopped...which it did...spectacularly.

Similarly, Isabel Sanford was unwilling to leave "All in the Family" for "The Jeffersons" unless the producers promised to write her (and Sherman Hemsley) back into the show if their own spinoff had been cancelled.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Khan

[DRW50]

I was a big fan of the Tracey Ullman Show. It's a shame the show is so hard to find now. 

Speaking of failed spinoff pilots, I think the Kate & Allie producers tried to make one for Andrea Martin, who played a public access producer at a station Allie worked for.

[I Am A Swede]

I'm a bit surprised that shows like "Frasier", "Melrose Place" and "Knots Landing" haven't even been mentioned yet..... 

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[DRW50]

I have to admit that a true spinoff in my eyes is one that had characters who were popular in their own right and then moved to another show, rather than being introduced just to be spun off. For that reason I separate Melrose from the other two.