Badmovies.org Forum

Spinoffs can be okay upon occassion but a lot of times you just can't figure out why anyone bothered. Such as....

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     I'll see you, and raise you....AfterMASH!

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I actually kind of liked The Ropers...well some of the time at least.

Understand this one was pretty bad...

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Joanie Loves Chachi. A spin off of Happy Days.
Ugh.
For one thing-did anybody wear these kinda clothes or hairstyles in the late 50's-early 60's?
 

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I think Chachi would have been called a sissy and got his ass kicked if he dressed like that in the 50's.

     Did anyone ever  actually see this one? It was the last ALL IN THE FAMILY spinoff, c.1994....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFM8IPfP7Cs

The Tortellis....let's take two of the most unappealing minor characters from the hit series "Cheers" and give them a show. Why?

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This wasn't very good from what I recall but then I never thought Friends was all that good either.

I'm a massive Cheers fan, but never heard of this and now have to try and see it. Is it really that bad?

Me,too....and oh,man! Did this stink!

Kinda obvious, but.....

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Lame Cosby Show spinoff.

(http://www.tvdads.com/images/verducci.jpg)

Top of the Heap was spinoff of sorts of Married with Children.  Kelly dated a guy played by Matt LeBlanc (who was still a nobody at the time) in one episode and, for some reason, this character got his own show.  His dad was played by veteran TV actor Joe Bologna, who seemed extremely angry to realize his career had led to him appearing in a show like Top of the Heap.

The show was built around a single joke: The dad would try to marry the son off to an eligible rich girl in every episode, but it never worked.  Ha ha.  The show was criticized for its portrayal of Matt LeBlanc's character as quite literally mentally handicapped, to the extent that he could barely even understand what was going on around him.  It made his dad seem like a complete monster for using his handsome but dim-witted son the way he did.  Top of the Heap lasted six episodes, with a seventh unaired.

One of the worst TV shows of all time.

... but wait!

The people behind the show tried again, retooling it to remove the despicable father character.  They replaced him with an even more despicable best friend character!  Now, instead of dealing with his sonofab***h father forcing him into all sorts of humiliating situations, Matt LeBlanc's mentally handicapped character had to deal with his best friend being a patronizing a***ole who actively tried to thwart his attempts at bettering himself.  The show was retitled "Vinnie and Bobby".  This time around, LeBlanc's Vinnie is going to night school, and most of the "humor" comes from his so-called best friend, Bobby, putting him down, sabotaging his studies, and trying to make sure Vinnie never succeeds at anything.  Hilarious!

I remember watching exactly one episode "Vinnie and Bobby" and being very upset by it, due to the way the Bobby character treated Vinnie.  The show was apparently not well-received and is so forgotten today I couldn't even find any screenshots of it on Google!

Fortunately, Matt LeBlanc escaped from these two hellholes and moved on to better things, like Friends, where he played a pretty but dim-witted character who is condescended to and routinely humiliated by his so called friends.  Er, uh, well ... at least he got paid well for that show.

I forgot (or at least tried to forget) most of these shows. I always hate those episodes of a TV show, where you saw hardly any of the regular cast because that episode was an unofficial pilot of a spin-off. It's fine if it's a spin-off of a regular character (Benson, for example) or a guest star in a highly rated episode (Mork and Laverne and Shirley on Happy Days). But I hate it when they create a whole bunch of new characters in one episode and try to spin it off! For example, Sanford and Son had the episode that centered around Grady's family. You already mentioned Top of The Heap. There was also another attempted spin-off episode from Married with Children involving 3 radio D.J.'s at Bud's college. One of them was played by a then unknown Kerri Russell. The audience doesn't understand what's going on! Most of us just wonder, "Where's Al Bundy?" and "Who the hell are these people?" It took years of watching TV to realize that this used to be a common formula. The unofficial pilot was also a step closer to that 100th episode you needed for syndication. Luckily it doesn't happen anymore, the stakes are much higher now days. With so much competition, I don't think a show would risk airing an episode that wasn't based around at least one person in the regular cast.

Saved By The Bell wasn't exactly great to begin with, but I was a kid, and enjoyed it.  Then, NBC was looking for new programming, and did a spin-off type show, called Saved By The Bell: The New Class.  It brought it new actors to essentially play carbon copy versions of the departing class, just with new names.  They kept Dennis Haskins as Mr. Belding, and eventually brought back Screech to be the Assistant Principal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iUsu7mFA-s

Saved By The Bell: The College Years
Technically, I don't know if this is a 'spin-off' or a 'sequel'.  Either way, at the end of Saved by The Bell, the kids announce where they're going to college.  In College Years they completely ignore this, and not only have Zack, Screech and Slater at the SAME college, but as ROOMATES.  Eventually Zack's ex-girlfriend Kelly shows up and lives in the same dorm and they get married. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C9JC6EBR4s

Masked Rider was a spin-off of the then popular Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series.  In Japan, Masked Rider wasn't a part of the Rangers series at all.  But when production company Saban bought the rights, they wanted it to succeed as much as possible, so they had the character appear in a couple episodes of Power Rangers before having him have his own show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-MoF-nVI4Y

The only character I can think of who got TWO terrible spin-offs was Whitman Mayo's Grady from Sanford and Son. I really like Whitman's performance on Sanford and Son (some of the best and most memorable episodes in fact are during the half season where Foxx left the series and Whitman took the lead - wild parsley anyone?) but the two spinoffs were awful.

First there was Grady in 1975, where the character goes to live with his never before mentioned rich daughter and her family. The show only lasted a few episodes and Grady was back in Watts, rich daughter forgotten again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tugnqemIto&feature=relmfu

And then after Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson both left Sanford and Son they tried to continue the series as The Sanford Arms, with some generic characters I can't even remember, plus Aunt Esther, Bubba. . . and Grady.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJG2DGNl00c&feature=relmfu

Here's a Sanford and Son trivia question: what very famous female 60's sitcom supporting actress was a cast member of Sanford and Son for its last couple of seasons?

     This was a spinoff of BURKE'S LAW, the Gene Barry cop series....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB8_1SZtaJA

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This was a sad spinoff of the much more popular "Three's Company"....sheesh!

I forgot that Grady's grandson was was played by Haywood Nelson who played Dewayne on "What's Happening." Come to think of it that show had a spinoff "What's Happening Now." That was terrible, but I guess you'd have to call it a reboot instead of a spinoff.
Another "Sanford and Son" reboot was 1981's "Sanford." Fred returned to his junk business but without Lamont (I think Demond Wilson was doing "The New Odd Couple" at this point). Instead he had a big fat helper named Cal (who was played by a brilliant character actor who's name escapes me at the moment but he was the deputy in "Laser Blast"). It aired before right before "Buck Rogers" and lasted about half a season.

I conpletely forgot about Sanford. For some reason I remembered the episodes featuring Cal instead of Lamont were part of the original series before The Sanford Arms. But you're right: they came after that spinoff.

Flo was a spinoff from Alice that I think lasted about three episodes. Doing a little checking - the thing actually lasted two full seasons!

In other spinoffs with lead characters named Florence The Jeffersons (an All in the Family spinoff) had a spinoff called Checking In featuring Marla Gibb's Florence as the head maid at a posh New York hotel. When it was cancelled after a couple of episodes George and Weezy let Florence come back to her old job, which was nice of them.

Anyone remember "Hello, Larry" with McLean Stevenson?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAYPNF4aIf0

This was sort of a spin-off from "Diff'rent Strokes," meaning that the "Hello Larry" characters guest starred in a "Strokes" episode before the premiere of their own show. I think "Larry" (Stevenson) was an old Army buddy of Mr. Drummond's.

I was 8 or 9 years old at the time this premiered and I vaguely remember crushing on Kim Richards of "Witch Mountain" fame, who played Larry's daughter. Must've been something about those pig tails.

Of course, the highly successful "Facts of Life" was also a spinoff from "Diff'rent Strokes," as Mr. Drummond's housekeeper, Mrs. Garrett, went off to work as a "dorm mother" at Eastland Academy.

Flo....a spinoff of Alice which took a vaguely amusing character and stretched it out WAY too much.

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The late great Geoffry Lewis was in the cast of "Flo." He was fresh off "Every Which Way But Loose." Love that movie. I forgot about "Hello Larry." The only episode I remember was when this blind boy almost tricked Larry's daughter into having sex with him. Speaking of M.A.S.H. alumni, wasn't "Trapper John M.D." supposed to be a spinoff of "M.A.S.H?" Wasn't it reworked as a drama or something because Mclane Stephenson bowed out? I know "Lou Grant" failed because people were expecting a comedy from that character, instead of a drama.

Lou Grant actually was pretty successful. It lasted for five seasons with respectible ratings. The show also won many Emmys, Golden Globes, and even won a Peabody Award.

Supposedly CBS cancelled the show because Asner's political opinions annoyed CBS sponsors.

How about the oft forgotten spin-off of "21 Jump Street?"

"Booker"

Might be a candidate for the shows with only one season thread, too.

Blansky's Beauties (1977, one season, ABC)
Spin off of HAPPY DAYS, which I didn't really like that much to begin with.  Painful!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3RVnLWNYUY
Oh, and LOBO and ENOS were dumb spinoffs of the already-dumb BJ AND THE BEAR and DUKES OF HAZZARD.

I forgot about "Sheriff Lobo. Even though I loved "Dukes of Hazzard," I have to admit "Enos" really jumped the shark. Car stunts are one thing, but a bumpkin deputy taking out Los Angeles toughest criminals was just hard to swallow.

Another miserable spinoff/continuation was The Golden Palace, an attempt to continue The Golden Girls after Bea Arthur left the show.

It seems Rose, Blanche, and Sophia buy a formerly ritzy South Beach hotel and try to run it with the usual gang of sitcom idiots, including Cheech Marin (!) and Don Cheadle (!!!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvhV0uDx_44

Empty Nest was another Golden Girls spinoff starring Richard Mulligan (Soap), Dinah Manoff (also Soap), and Kristy McNichol (not from Soap) as the girls' wacky neighbors. That why that big dog Dreyfus sometimes wanders through later Golden Girls episodes. Surprise! It lasted five seasons. Who'd a thought?

According to my exhaustive research Estelle Getty joined the Empty Nest gang as 'Sophia' after The Golden Palace was cancelled. McNichol left after a couple of seasons because she was on dope or something.

Another one!

There was a sitcom/variety show spinoff from Hee Haw for a couple of seasons called The Hee Haw Honeys. Lulu Roman and the Hee Haw Honeys (including Misty Rowe and Kathie Lee Gilford!) ran a truck stop where a variety of country music guests would pop in and sing their lastest hits. Gaylord Sartain (the poor man's Jonathan Winters) was the bumbling busboy.

(http://www.heehaw.com/images/cast/lulu-roman-lrg.jpg)

I remember my grandmother despised Lulu with a hot passion and refused to watch her in any forum. I think it was because Lulu was "on dope".

That's correct...CBS hated Ed's politics. Me? I liked the show and never missed it. :smile:

Ally, the half hour spinoff to Ally McBeal.
An extra 30 minutes of the exact same thing that was on the night before.
I can't think of a spinoff more pointless than that.

Fish....a spinoff of one of my favorite all time comedies,Barney Miller. Pretty sad,folks.

(http://www.crazyabouttv.com/Images/fish.jpg)

Nancy Kulp of the BEVERLY HILLBILLIES?

Yup! She played the Hoppy the Cop's mother. She lived next door to the Sanfords and gave Foxx the opportunity to use all of his 'ugly old white woman' gags.

There was a 1977 spinoff from Bewitched called Tabitha. Lisa Hartman was Tabitha! It didn't line up too well with the original series: Adam was now older than Tabitha and a mortal, and both were about ten years too old from when the original series ended.

It occasionally featured supporting characters from Bewitched (Dr. Bombay, the Kravitzs), a new wacky aunt for the kids named Minerva, and some of the original 'magical' sound effects.

Over all it was pretty lousy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI2es0zMKh8&feature=related

Bewitched fans with a sharp ear will recognize the opening lullaby-like music in the Tabitha opening credits is the 'Cute Little Tabitha' music they'd play in the original series whenever Tabitha was being adorable.