For every Mary Tyler Moore, there’s a Rhoda.
For every Cheers, there’s a Frasier.
For every Beverly Hills, 90210, there’s a Melrose Place.
It’s called a “spin-off,” in which a popular supporting character on one TV show gets a show of their own – essentially “spinning off” into their own TV legacy.
Spin-offs can become very successful in their own right. The Bionic Woman was a spin-off, and so was Laverne and Shirley.
Um… that doesn’t mean, however, that every sitcom or drama can produce a classic TV show in their own right.
Allow me to demonstrate.
| DYNASTY II: THE COLBYS For some unknown reason, ABC decided to expand on their wildly popular soap opera Dynasty by creating an entirely new family – including Charlton Heston, Barbara Stanwyck, and a bunch of other people that I barely remember. Somehow this show lasted for two seasons, after which the show was mercifully canceled and never mentioned again. |
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| THE TORTELLIS Dan Hedaya appeared on Cheers in a couple of episodes as Carla’s ex-husband. This just proves that a peripheral one-note character should NEVER get their own series. NEVER!!! |
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| JUST THE TEN OF US This Growing Pains spinoff was just painful to watch. Just typical Friday night TGIF garbage, and about as funny as passing gas in church. |
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| AFTERM*A*S*H I guess CBS couldn’t let the gang from the 4077th fly off into the sunset; for two seasons several of the characters, including Father Mulcahy, Col. Potter and Sgt. Klinger, worked at a stateside VA hospital. You know how M*A*S*H lost a lot of its humor in its final years? This show lost ALL the humor. |
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| 704 HAUSER Not content with spinning off Maude, The Jeffersons, Archie Bunker’s Place and Gloria, the producers of All in the Family tried one last attempt to milk the series – they spun off the show’s address to a brand new family. And look who moved in! It’s James Evans from Good Times! Er… maybe… |
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| THE APPRENTICE: MARTHA STEWART I guess NBC wanted to add another ego-driven megalomaniac television personality, and since they already had Donald Trump under contract, why not get Martha Stewart on the boat? This show was notable for two things – one of the contestants was former WRGB reporter Shawn Killinger; and one of the other contestants became reality TV star Bethenny Frankel. |
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| THE LONE GUNMEN Take the comic relief characters from The X-Files and give them their own TV show. Okay, so it didn’t work, but the pilot episode did have a plotline about the government commandeering a plane and flying it into the World Trade Center – and aired six months before the 9/11 tragedy. Predicted? The truth is out there… |
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| ENOS Of all the people from The Dukes of Hazzard to give their own TV series, how in the world did the assistant to Roscoe P. Coltrane get his own hour-long program? This show was painful to watch. Painful like spears in the eyes. And while we’re at it… |
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| THE MISADVENTURES OF SHERIFF LOBO Okay, the show BJ and the Bear was mildly successful in its time – I guess – so giving BJ’s Buford T. Justice-like antagonist his own program was most likely an act of desperation. This show lasted two seasons on NBC, which at that time had test-pattern ratings – thanks to decisions to broadcast shows like this. |
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| HELLO LARRY Remember that NBC spinoff show about a radio talk show host on the West Coast? No, not Fraiser. This OTHER one. Ah, the legendary spinoff from Diff’rent Strokes. The show with McLean Stevenson, a show whose laughs were not generated because it was a sitcom; they were generated because it was a TERRIBLE SHOW!!! |
Chuck The Writer 
I saw two of those spinoffs…absolutely painful.
I’m surprised AITF/Archie Bunker hung on so long after the family fell apart…and I’m not sure why Mike and Gloria couldn’t show up every so often to keep it going. I think that was an awful decision.
Golden Girls – same thing – wish Bea Arthur could have visited now and then. Neat lady.
704 Hauser – don’t know what that is, would like to see it–just for the heck of it, though.
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I’ve always appreciated it when producers and networks realize a spinoff ultimately might not be such a good thing. “Charlie’s Angels” managed to stop one in its tracks: An episode that clearly doubled as a backdoor pilot flipped the show’s equation by having three hunky male detectives working for a female boss.
Never got past that one episode, but it did no lasting damage to the original show, given the two feature-film updates that followed … plus the new series version that appears all but certain to make ABC’s fall schedule.
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“The Lone Gunmen” was a pretty good show. It gathered a lot of positive reviews, but it couldn’t grab enough of an audience to sustain itself. Then again, “The X-Files” itself was in decline by then, so perhaps viewers were simply tired of the franchise. The ultimate insult was that after the series ended, their first appearance back on “The X-Files” resulted in the characters’ deaths.
Unfortunately, this show will be most remembered for the 9/11 connection.
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I forgot about The Lone Gunmen. That’s the problem with comic relief characters – they’re supporting characters at best.
Another bad one: Joey, a spinoff from Friends.
But a successful spinoff…King of Queens from Everybody Loves Raymond
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Chuck, I actually saw that episode of the Lone Gunmen where a plane was being flown into one of the WTC buildings during it’s first run before 9/11. The plane was taken over by remote control in the story. I guess they thought it unbelievable that a hijacker would use less technical methods of getting the job done.
Looking over the list, I also saw Enos, Sheriff Lobo, Hello Larry, and After MASH in the first run as well. I had no idea my taste in TV was so bad!
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Mary Tyler Moore: Don’t forget “Phyllis,” which (unlike “Rhoda”) was horrendous from the start.
And I thought it was interesting that you mentioned “Good Times”‘s John Amos (James Evans), but not that “Good Times” itself *was* a once-removed spinoff off “All in the Family.” Florida Evans was the original maid on “Maude.” When Florida moved to the Chicago Projects and got her own show, she was replaced on Maude by Mrs. Naugatuck.
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How could you have missed Joanie Loves Chachi? That was the poster child of bad spin-offs.
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