Poll: What's the best TV spinoff?

The Jeffersons was at best the third best decendent of All in the Family. The best was Maude. I think it was too topical to fair well in syndication. It was a hilarious and groundbreaking show. Maude was the first primetime TV character to have an abortion.

Good Times was a spinnoff of Maude and was also superior to the Jeffersons. The first few seasons were great. Are there any other spinoffs of a spinoff?

I don't know about spinoffs, but Frasier is about the second or third best show I've ever seen.

Word.

Benson!

It was only years later that I got to see SOAP. OMG funny!

I LOVE SOAP!

john just got through the second season dvds. he couldnt stop watching! i've been watching since i was a kid - my mom recorded all of them :D

Ugh.

The failure of Soap and the success of Benson was a sad reflection on Western Civilization. Soap was innovated, intelligent, and very very funny. Benson was another cookie cutter sitcom.

And its ad nauseum spin offs?

Out of those, I'd say Deep Space Nine was the best, followed by TNG, then Voyager, and the verdict is still out on Enterprise.

darnit, you're right. i never really watched any of the choices given, but i know more about tng & ds9 than an anti-tv person should.

I'd have flip-flopped TNG and DS9, myself, at least among which was my favorite... I'm waiting patiently for more Enterprise episodes in the fall.

-- Pauley

Yah, it was close for me. Both featured a good cast. My deciding factor is it took TNG longer to establish a good even series of episodes. The first season was cheesy, and the second season sucked until the last part. DS9 really only had one slow season of the first season. And once they got on the Dominion storyline it really became "must-see" for me at least.

Joanie loves Chachi!!!! (from happy days)

omg.

and yah, the Star Trek spinoffs are in there too.

Dude, what about Just the Ten of Us?? (Growing Pains).� (sarcasm)

Speaking of Just the Ten of Us, how about Family Matters (Perfect Strangers). Go TGIF Lineup!

family matters was a spinoff? i didn't know that. for that matter...how is mork and mindy a spinoff of happy days?

I don't remember if it was portrayed as real or as some sort of dream sequence but Mork was on happy days as his alien self, meeting Ritchie, etc. He had some sort of battle with Fonzie where he froze him like a statue. I haven't seen it in aaaages.

from tvtome.com:

Richie comes into Arnold's and tells everyone that he saw a flying saucer. Everyone runs outside to see it. Ralph tells the guys that Richie is cracking up. Nobody believes him, including Fonzie, but Richie stands by his story. Fonzie says that people with humdrum lives like his have these visions becuase they've got nothing else to occupy their time. Richie says his life is not humdrum. Back at the house, Richie is watching TV when a person in a red space suit walks in the door. The visitor blows up the TV with his finger. Richie is nervous talking to the alien, and the visitor tells him to calm down. The man identifies himself as Mork from Ork and has a unique handshake. Richie wants to do a story on him. Mork sits on his head and knows everything about Richie. Richie asks him some questions. Mork is collecting some specimens for their sampling on their planet and is looking for someone average and humdrum. Richie says he can't leave, and Mork says he will be back in an instant. Marion, Howard, and Joanie come home and meet Mork. Richie returns from upstairs after getting his supplies for the trip, and then Mork "freezes" all but Richie with his finger. Mork tells Richie that they will be gone for a bleem - 2,000 years in Earth time. Richie runs out the door. Richie talks to the Fonz in his office. Mork comes in and freezes everyone at Arnold's. Mork offers a holly tacker (a challenge): if Fonzie wins, Richie doesn't have to go with Mork. Mork is undefeated on 200 planets. Mork freezes Fonzie. Fonzie's thumb slowly moves, and he is back awake. Fonzie's thumb is a worthy challenger, and they move on to the jukebox. Then, they knock down the restrooms' doors and later control people with their magical fingers. Mork says he can collapse the building by holding his two index fingers together, and Fonzie says Mork wins. Mork says Richie doesn't have to go because Fonzie was a worthy competitor. Mork will, instead, take Fonzie. Richie awakens from a dream as Howard, Marion, and Joanie return home. Howard says he heard on the radio that the flying saucer was really a weather balloon. A man that looks like Mork in regular clothes knocks on the door looking for directions to Highway 41 and then leaves.

AND:

This is Mork's first appearance. This appearence earned him his own spin-off series, called Mork & Mindy, which would become a big hit. In the original ABC broadcast of this episode, the last scene where we saw Robin Williams was when he appeared as a normal guy on Richie's porch after he woke up from his dream. The episode ended with some gag at Arnold's about UFOs. When ABC ran that episode for the second time the following August, after Mork & Mindy was announced for the fall schedule, they added a scene at the end. Mork talks to Orson and tells him that he made everyone forget about him, let Fonzie go, and was heading off for a mission in the year 1978. Nick at Nite and TV Land broadcast the added scene where he talks to Orson while some other stations may not.

Heh.� I read that, and I said to myself, "His office?� When did Fonzie have an office? . . . . oh.� The bathroom."

yup, harriette winslow was the elevator operator in the building where larry and balki lived.

dude. why do i *know* this?

Yes, Family Matters featured Harriet, who was the elevator operator at the newspaper building where Larry and Balki worked and was wife to Carl, who worked for the Chicago Police, and they had 3 kids.

The show was your typical "conflict arises and is resolved in 30 minutes" cookie cutter family sitcom until Urkel appeared, who was at first a recurring character before becoming the main focus of the show. The rest was history...whether it was a good history is questionable.

Melrose Place!� (90210)

Models, Inc! (Melrose Place)

Highlander: Raven! (Highlander)

Saved By the Bell: The College Years! (Does that count?)

AfterMash! (M*A*S*H)

America's Funniest People! (America's Funniest Home Videos)

Baywatch Nights! (Baywatch)

The Tortellis! (Cheers)

A Different World! (Cosby Show)

Daria! (Beavis and Butt-Head)

Empty Nest! (Golden Girls)

Xena: Warrier Princess (Hercules)

Lone Gunmen (X-Files)

Most of these are pretty much in jest but Daria kicks ass. And I liked A Different World.� And AfterMash.

haha, the what abouts can go on and on - point is, the poll software only accepts so many options :D

My dad was on America's Funniest People. ....</random>

what did he do?

Daria! (Beavis and Butt-Head)

King of the Hill too, although I think Hank Hill had a different name.

dude. daria. i always forget that was a spinoff.

Eh.� King of the Hill isn't a Beavis and Butthead spinoff.� They're just made by the same guy, so the voice of Hank Hill sounds like someone from B&B.� Heh.� "B&B."� "Beavis and Butthead . . . now you're paid in fuulllll, that show was always so predictable .. . ."

Mike Judge, the creator of B&B and KotH, did a guest spot on Space Ghost Coast to Coast where he did the voices of Hank Hill and the old guy from B&B and when he did them you could tell the subtle differences between the two voices. He said they were not the same characters.

totally! the guy from bevis & butthead was all about the butane & butane accesories :)

Dude. I didn't even know Daria was a spinoff. But...*hearts*.

Here's a Bunch more.

And yes, Daria is awesome! And don't discount the draw of Xena.

dwd. daria is the hoshiznizizzle. *loves* <3

AfterMash! (M*A*S*H)

and Trapper John, MD too.

Yeah I was gonna put that but I've never seen it so I figured it wasn't fair. :)

i LOVED rhoda. used to watch the reruns (obviously!) when it was on tv, and i declared it one of my favourite shows, i liked it even better than the mary tyler moore show. i miss it lots and hope it will come back to tv someday.

bah, rhoda. i *heart* mtm, and i *heart* old-skool rhoda, but once she got thin and married, she got boring. and the supporting cast was even more boring.

speaking of which, what about phyllis or lou grant? i don't think i've ever seen an episode of either of those in reruns.

Mork and Mindy came from Happy Days??

yeah...Mork visited Richie. And he froze the Fonz at some point. It was all very incongruous. :) Then it spun off.

What amuses me is seeing Laverne and Shirley on Happy Days...SO unlike who they ended up being on their own show. Like...Shirley was a gum-chewing ho and was very similar to Laverne. And then she ended up being all innocent and sweet and prudey. :)

OMG, people, I can't believe this hasn't come up: Technically speaking, The SIMPSONS is a spinoff of The Tracy Ullman Show! Being as the Simpsons is possibly my pick for the greatest show of all time, it must be the greatest spin-off, right?

I don't know why but I just never consider it a spin-off for some reason. Like...yeah it was introfuced there, but it wasn't like a sitcom or something where these characters interact with the original characters. So I tend to see it as more of an expansion than a spinoff. :)

Well, yeah, but . . . . but . . . you're wrong.� So there.� : )

You know, now that I think about it, it's really unprecedented.� I mean, characters from a variety/sketch comedy show getting their own show . . . I can't�think of any other instances.

Well Happy Days came from a segment on Love American Style or whatever it was called...

Yeah, good call.� Forgot about that.� I still think it counts, though.

I believe the segment was called "Love and the Television Set."

I'm not really sure if that counts. Love American Style wasn't a show with continuing characters but a series of vignettes. They decided to show the Happy Days pilot in that setting.

That didnt' sell the show though. It was only after Ron Howard starred in the similarly themed American Graffiti that ABC picked up Happy Days. It was considerably revamped from the pilot with the most notable addition being Fonzie who existance owes a great deal to the John Milner Character in American Grafitti.

I remember way to much of this. I actually watched that episode of Love American Style when it was first broadcast.

"love, american style! livin' in the land of the free-hee-HEE-hee! love, american style! that's youuuuuuuuu and meeeeeeeee!"

and no, the segment was called "love and the happy day."

Well, The Blues Brothers got a couple of movies... That probably doesn't count.

Ah, but the muppets were recurring characters on a variety show... can't for the life of me remember which one... and they, like, went and got their own variety show.

so many saturday night live characters got movies. it doesn't count.

Mama's Family was based on characters from The Carol Burnett Show.� It might've sucked, but it still counts.

i dunno abut u guyz but i cant wiat 2 c htat sho w/ joey from freinds!!!! liek, omg, its gonna b so funny dont u think so?? lol.

I think Jon Stewart put it best about Friends.

"Do the people who watch Friends know they can go out and make, you know, friends of their very own?"

wow im learning so much about tv and shows and origins. this is fun. *cough*imaloser*cough*
but it is very�interesting!
i voted frasier.

Frasier, of course. =) This is one of the 2 shows that I have been able to sit though an entire series and not become tired of.
The other is Red Dwarf if you were wondering.