Scrubs = good: Scrubs Med School = Shit - What spin-offs/refits/reboots etc. just didn't work?
And conversely which ones did?
I'd say in the second category Frasier is an exemplar of the successful spin-off. I'm somewhat too young to recall much of Cheers in its heyday but Frasier was extremely popular and still much loved.
Anyone else got particularly bad or good examples of the spin-offs etc?
Yeah, Frasier seemed to do quite well for a spin-off.
What I find bizarre is that Happy Days was considered a spin-off of Love, American Style and it's given the credit for spawning Laverne & Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, Mork & Mindy, Out of the Blue, and Joanie Loves Chachi. And two cartoons. And a musical.
I never watched any of those, so I have no idea if any were good or not. The popularity of Happy Days would imply it had something going for it, though.
So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.
Mork and Mindy was brilliant, well my 8 year old self thought so. Was it a Happy Days spin-off?? The only thing I know about Joanie Loves Chachi is Marge saying "What's a Chachi?" in the Simpsons.
Good Spin Offs:
From All in the Family: Maude and Jeffersons. Then Maude spun off Good Times which was actually better than Maude.
Mary Tyler Moore Show: Spun off Rhoda and Lou Grant. Two good shows. It also spun off Phyllis, a terrible show.
Weird one where the Spin off was both Good and then bad for a very long time. Happy Days was a spin-off or launch from Love America Style. It had a few good years, jumped the shark literally and still went on for another 8 years or so. Along the way it had several spin off. Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy but it also had perhaps the worst spin-off in Joanie Loves Chachi and another weird Spin-Off called Bansky Beauties.
Wow, I was beaten to the punch. I forgot about the dismal Out of the Blue, I think it involved an Angel.
Last edited by What Exit?; 18 Oct 2010 at 05:56 PM.
I actually remember another (far less lamented) spin-off of Cheers called Pearl. Pearl goes to night school, Malcolm McDowell and Billy Connolly were in it. I used to watch it late at night and enjoy it. I have no idea how many episodes there were but i doubt it lasted more than a season tops.
Did that one have Carol Kane in it? If it did I recall actually liking it. However, I don't think it was a spin-off as I think Rhea Perlman (Carla) was the main character.
Last edited by What Exit?; 18 Oct 2010 at 06:15 PM.
"She decided to return to the small screen with the ill-suited CBS sitcom, “Pearl” (1996) – her first since “Cheers” – playing the titular character who decides to go back to college well into adulthood, but the series lasted for only one season."
I think the series banked on her Cheers persona but wasn't actually a spin-off, my bad as they say.
Mork was in one episode of Happy Days, I think. Mork and Mindy took place in the the 1970s instead of the 1950s, though. Kind of weird.Originally posted by The Original An Gadaí
Ridiculous nitpick: It was Bart that said that. See: Homie the Clown.
Yes, all of these were excellent.
Other good spin-offs: Daria (Beavis and Butthead) and Xena (Hercules)
Taumpy: Oh noes, you aren't a super powerful wave of destruction.
Panther Squad: It's true! My scythe does not shorn the biomonsters in great swaths like it ought!
Taumpy- it's crazy, i heard marge saying it in my mind but once you corrected me i realise you're right. I "see" it in my head.
Last edited by The Original An Gadaí; 18 Oct 2010 at 07:54 PM.
Man, Daria was do much better than Beavis and Butthead. I forgot about that.
Mork was an interesting case...they inserted him into Happy Days for only one or two episodes, for the specific purpose of introducing the character and setting him up for his own show. They did the same with Laverne & Shirley, if I recall. It's kind of absurd in retrospect, but then again a lot of 70s TV was absurd.
This plan contrasts with the Joanie Loves Chachi style of spinoff, where their show had died off, but the producers thought they could get some mileage from a couple of the characters.
Melrose Place was a "spinoff" of Beverly Hills 90210 in the Mork fashion. It wasn't a great show, but it was very successful.
Did Laverne & Shirley take place in the '70s or the '50s? I remember really liking the reruns I'd watch as a kid, for some weird reason.
50s into the 60s for L&S. Mork was 70s. Happy Days was 50s into 60s too.
Well, AfterMASH wasn't popular, but it wasn't really "hated" either. It featured the post-war lives of Colonel Potter, Father Mulcahy and Klinger... three characters from the original show that no one had hard feelings for. As best I can recall (I was really young when the show was on), people watched it, then shrugged their shoulder and said that it wasn't the same.
I'm not sure that Happy Days, Mork and Melrose Place really count as "spin-offs". Love American Style was an anthology show, with a different story each week featuring different actors, like The Twilight Zone. To me, using one single story (which was actually filmed as a pilot, BTW) doesn't make Happy Days a spin-off. And introducing a character just to start another show doesn't make it a spin-off, either. I don't remember Mork from Happy Days, but Jake from Melrose Placewas just some dude Kelly dated for a couple of episodes of 90210. If, however, you do count that as a spin-off, then you've got to include The Andy Griffith Show, which was spun-off of The Danny Thomas Show.
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