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I realize there are a lot of these, so I’ve kind of arbitrarily picked. Feel free to share your favorites (or least favorites, I suppose) in the comments!
1. The Tortellis, spun off from Cheers. Based on Carla’s ex-husband Nick and his new wife and family, it was only on the air for three episodes in 1987.
2. Day by Day, spun off from Family Ties. Loosely spun off, anyway. It starred Thora Birch, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Courtney Thorne-Smith, among others. The connection to Family Ties is that the dad in Day by Day apparently was a college roommate of Steven Keaton.
3. Just the Ten of Us, spun off from Growing Pains. I remember Just the Ten of Us and never realized the connection to the Seaver family. The Lubbock family patriarch, Graham, was the gym teacher at Mike and Carol Seaver’s high school. He ends up losing his job at that high school, though, and gets another job at an all-boys Catholic school in California. It lasted three seasons, so compared to others on this list, it wasn’t such a disaster.
4. Blansky’s Beauties, spun off from Happy Days. In 1977, it seemed like a good idea to make a sitcom based on Howard Cunningham’s cousin from Las Vegas. The cousin, Nancy Blansky, was in charge of a bunch of Las Vegas showgirls living together in an apartment like it was a dormitory. Only 13 episodes were made.
5. Grady, spun off from Sanford and Son. Based on Fred Sanford’s widower pal Grady (go figure), this one was cancelled after 12 episodes. Great, now I’m going to have the Sanford and Son theme song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
6. Sons of Thunder proves that even being associated with Chuck Norris doesn’t guarantee series gold. Spun off from Walker, Texas Ranger, Sons only lasted six episodes. After Walker’s buddy, Reverend Thunder Malloy, dies, his son comes home.
7. Mr. T and Tina, spun off from Welcome Back, Kotter. No, not the Mr. T. Mr. T. was Taro Takahashi, a Japanese inventor played by Pat Morita. He lives with a free-spirited American girl names Tina and hilarity ensues. At least, it did for five episodes in 1976. Pat Morita was also in Blansky’s Beauties, oddly enough. Good thing he eventually found the Karate Kid!
8. Living Dolls, spun off of Who’s the Boss. You may know Leah Remini from King of Queens, and I may know her as Stacey Carosi from Saved by the Bell, but before both of those she starred in this brief sitcom. Leah played Charlie Briscoe, one of Samantha Micelli’s old friends. She is discovered by a modeling agency and the rest is sitcom history. Except not: it was canceled in 1989 after 12 episodes. Interesting trivia, though – Vivica A. Fox and Halle Berry played the same character on the show (kind of like the mulitple Beckys on Roseanne).
9. Checking In, spun off of The Jeffersons, which was spun off of All in the Family. Pretty much every sitcom spun off from All in the Family did wonderfully on the small screen – Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons. But not Checking In. In it, the Jeffersons’ maid got a new job as the head housekeeper at a swanky hotel. She checked out after four episodes in 1981 (sorry, couldn’t help the stupid pun).
10. Fish, spun off of Barney Miller. Abe Vigoda in his own sitcom? How could this fail? Phil Fish was a detective on Barney Miller, but his own series focused more on his life with his wife and five adopted kids (one of which was played by Todd Bridges). It lasted two seasons before fizzling out.
Comments (28)
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What? No “Joey?”
posted by David on 8-18-2008 at 3:33 pm
…or “Joanie Loves Chachi?”
posted by Janna on 8-18-2008 at 3:45 pm
i was waiting for joey too
posted by tiffany on 8-18-2008 at 3:45 pm
What, no “Joanie Loves Chachi”?
“Three’s a Crowd”?
“Enos”?
“Flo”?
“After-M*A*S*H”?
Anything “Brady”?
Yes, three seasons is not a disaster.
posted by Jeff on 8-18-2008 at 3:58 pm
Just the Ten of Us survived because the daughters on the show were hot! The oldest one was the same girl from Nightmare on Elm Street.
posted by John on 8-18-2008 at 3:59 pm
OMG, ‘Day By Day!’ I only saw one episode of that show, but it was so damaging to my psyche that I remember it VERY well. It was the Brady episode, which is the episode people remember when you mention this show. Evil, I tell you. Evil.
Spin-offs are like buckshot. Throw a bunch of them out there and eventually one will hit. Most of them suck, though.
posted by Rachel on 8-18-2008 at 4:15 pm
How about “Fact of Life” and “Larry” spinoffs from Diff’rent Strokes….
posted by Rick on 8-18-2008 at 4:42 pm
Another one…’Booker’ from 21 Jump Street
posted by Rick (again) on 8-18-2008 at 4:50 pm
How about “The Three Musketeers”? This was an attempted spin-off from “The Brady Bunch”. It starred Ken Berry, and was about a husband and wife who adopt three boys, each of whom was a different race. I don’t even think this one lasted beyond the Brady Bunch episode that was supposed to launch it.
posted by gmsc on 8-18-2008 at 6:36 pm
You must mean “Kelly’s Kids”, and no, it never made it past that one episode.
posted by Jeff on 8-18-2008 at 6:48 pm
Joey was Matt Le Blans’ second failed spinoff. Anyone remember “Top of the Heap”? It was a very short-lived spinoff of “Married With Children”
And Ken Berry was also in what you might call a “delayed spinoff” – “Mayberry RFD” – as well as “Mama’s Family” which was essentially a spinoff of a skit on the Carol Burnett Show.
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 8-18-2008 at 7:16 pm
what about “That 80’s show”?
posted by Ken on 8-18-2008 at 8:35 pm
i’m pretty certain that “just the 10 of us” lasted 2 seasons.
posted by holly on 8-18-2008 at 8:45 pm
“The Lone Gunmen”, a spin-off “The X-Files”, featured the 3 geeky tech guys that occasionally helped Mulder and Scully. I’m not sure how long it lasted, but I totally have the whole series on dvd.
posted by Kimiko on 8-18-2008 at 11:42 pm
“Beverly Hills Buntz” was a comedy, well, sort of, spun off of “Hill Street Blues.” Dennis Frantz starred as a detective who quit the “HSB” precinct, moved to California, and became a private investigator.
It ran nine weeks.
posted by Mike on 8-19-2008 at 7:42 am
Add to the list The Golden Place, a spin off of The Golden Girls that lasted one season.
How about one of the worst ideas to come from an equally bad idea: The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. One cycle.
And for trivia freaks only, there was the spinoff of The Rockford Files, Richie Brockelman, Private Eye. It was pulled after six episodes.
posted by Tim on 8-19-2008 at 8:13 am
I remember Day by Day, Mr. T & Tina AND Blansky’s Beauties, but I had NO idea that they were spin offs.
I think Joane Loves Chachi deserves it’s own column! ;)
posted by Beth on 8-19-2008 at 9:21 am
going even further back, i remember “mayberry r.f.d.” which spun off of “the andy griffith show”. it somehow lasted three seasons though it was quite boring. also, “dirty sally” (which i loved) spun off of “gunsmoke” but it only lasted one season. why do the shows i like only last one season? oh well.
posted by Nathan on 8-19-2008 at 10:01 am
I’m 99% sure that Mr T & Tina was technically a spin-off of Happy Days. Pat Morita originally played the same character for the first 1 or 2 seasons on Happy Days before they used Welcome Back Kotter to introduce the spin-off.
Why I know this and nothing else from middle school years, I have know idea.
posted by Bob on 8-19-2008 at 10:03 am
How about the Get Smart spinoff? I can’t remember what it was called, but the main character was Max and Agent 99’s son. Horrible.
posted by Ann on 8-19-2008 at 10:55 am
OY! Where oh where are The Lone Gunman?
posted by Dime on 8-19-2008 at 11:12 am
Of course WKRP in Cincinnati and Just the Ten of Us aren’t sequels, but in some strange way I’d love it if Herb Tarlek had changed his identity/place of residence to become Father Hargis, headmaster of St. Augustine’s!
BTW, perhaps in regard to the above, my reCAPTCHA reads : squash that!
posted by Amy on 8-19-2008 at 1:35 pm
Anyone else remember ‘Out of the Blue’?
I have the vaguest recollection of this show (I was 10 – eek! – when it aired).
It *is* questionable re spinoff status. Here’s the relevant info from Wikipedia regarding that :
________________________________________
A true spin-off?
Out of the Blue has engendered debate amongst some viewers concerning its precise relationship to Happy Days. The controversy arises from the fact that the first episode of the show was broadcast a little over one week prior to an episode of Happy Days featuring Jimmy Brogan’s “Random” character. Television observer and owner of Sitcoms Online, Todd Fuller, maintains that because “Chachi Sells His Soul” aired on 18 September 1979, Random’s appearance on this Happy Days episode was a crossover. He goes on to postulate: “The Happy Days episode was likely a promotional tool for Out of the Blue to make the character more known.”
Thom Holbrook, veteran crossover and spin-off analyst, sees the arguments against calling it a spin-off, but ultimately concludes: “Making it a crossover would be basing things all on an odd bit of scheduling decades ago. The intent was spin off. The tone of the Happy Days episode is that of a dry run on the character, that of a pilot episode.”
Whatever the actual production intent, contemporary viewers would have seen Random appear on Happy Days in the week between the second and third episodes of Out of the Blue. In the absence of a home video release for Out of the Blue, modern viewers have only “Chachi Sells His Soul” on which to base their opinions.
posted by Amy on 8-19-2008 at 1:43 pm
Want more Spinoffs/Crossovers?
Click my name for the link!
posted by Amy on 8-19-2008 at 1:46 pm
What about anything on VH1 related to Flava Flav, New York, Charm School, . . . the horrible list goes on.
posted by Lauren on 8-19-2008 at 7:11 pm
More info on Out of the Blue on IMDb:
“This show was an ill-fated attempt by ABC to further cash in on spin-offs of “Happy Days” (1974). At the time, both “Laverne & Shirley” (1976) and “Mork & Mindy” (1978) were huge successes, so the idea was to use the Mork motif to create a one-off, other-worldly character (Random) on Happy Days, then spin him off as the center of a new show. Robin Williams even guest-starred as Mork in the pilot, but it still wasn’t enough to get the show jump-started.”
I had no idea that there were so many Happy Days spin-offs. Up until today I had never even heard of Blansky’s Beauties. Why are ill-fated shows so intriguing?
posted by hifidigitalboy on 8-19-2008 at 7:24 pm
Interesting and obscure list, but I have to give a second reference to the Golden Palace…three of the four Golden Girls in a hotel…as a really bad and failed spin off. Kudos to Tim!
posted by Kristen on 8-19-2008 at 7:53 pm
In regard to “Just The Ten Of Us,” you can ignore Graham Lubbock, the coach whom Bill Kirchenbauer acted out, and concentrate instead on Brooke Theiss, who acted out one of his daughters. She was in a series of commercials for Maxie, a doll created and designed to compete against Barbie–because she bore an uncanny resemblance to Maxie herself.
Or remark the presence of Frank Bonner, most infamous as Herbert Tarlek Jr. of “WKRP In Cincinnati,” as the priest. We were reminded of the fact that he could easily have been a television leading man if he had so chosen!
posted by Parker Gabriel on 8-25-2008 at 3:37 pm