Spinoffs, Which Show Had The Most? (1 Viewer)

[Peter Kline]

From USA Today:

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Q. Which TV show had the most spinoffs?

A. Thanks to all of the couch potatoes who kindly wrote in to debate which TV show really had the most spinoffs.

All in the Family spawned Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times, Checking In, Gloria and 704 Hauser. Bea Arthur's Maude ran from 1972-1978. Good Times (1974-1979) spun off from Maude. The Jeffersons ran from 1975 to 1985 and spun off Checkin In in 1981. Then, there was Gloria (1982-1983). The show starred Sally Struthers as single mom Gloria Bunker Stivic. In the 1994 series 704 Hauser a multi-ethnic family moves into Archie's old house. The show moved out six episodes later. Finally, in 1979, All in the Family became Archie Bunker's Place. Some consider this a spinoff, while others believe it's simply a renaming. For the sake of our discussion we'll call it a spinoff, bringing All in the Family to a grand total of seven.

But, your Celebrity Inbox missed Love, American Style. The 1969 series begat Wait Till Your Father Gets Home (1972-1974), New Love, American Style (1985) and the prolific Happy Days (1974). The Cunningham family's series spun off Laverne and Shirley (1976), Blansky's Beauties (1977), Mork & Mindy (1978), Out of the Blue (1979), Fonz and the Happy Days Gang (1980) and Joanie Loves Chachi (1982). So I declare Love, American Style with ten spinoffs the winner. Let the barrage of e-mails begin.

 

[Stacy Huff]

When I saw the thread title my guess was going to be Happy Days, but I didn't know about the Love American Style-connection. I also didn't know about some of those other shows. I only knew Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, and Joannie Loves Chachi. I didn't know that there was ever a Fonz & the Happy Days Gang. I never heard of Blansky's Beauties or Out of the Blue. I wonder who was in them?

 

[Jason Seaver]

I'm pretty sure "Fonz & The Happy Days Gang" was a Saturday morning cartoon with them time-travelling along with some girl from the future named "Cupcake" (no, I'm not making this up); ABC also had a "Laverne & Shirley" cartoon around the same time.

 

[Scooter]

Mary Tyler Moore had a buncha spin offs as well.

I think there should be a difference drawn between a spinoff---same characters different show (i.e Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda) versus a show that has it's "pilot" as an episode on an existing show (i.e. All in The Family and Maude..Happy Days and Mork and Mindy) and shows that simply have actors from a show on some other altogether different show.

 

[Stacy Huff]

I remember that Happy Days cartoon now! It had a dog named Mr. Cool or something like that, right? And yeah, I remember Cupcake. Was there ever a Mork cartoon?

 

[Steve Enemark]

What about Star Trek? It inspired four subsequent television series (five if you count Star Trek II, which never made it past development and turned into Star Trek: The Motion Picture), an animated show, and ten movies (eleven if you count Galaxy Quest ).

 

[Jack Briggs]

"Star Trek rules!" said Jack, intelligently.

 

[John Berggren]

I was thinking Star Trek was amongst the most prolific too, but I didn't consider spinoffs-from-spinoffs as a possibility.

I agree about the "pilot within current series". Melrose Place was not a spinoff of 90210, it was a series that was planned with a character inserted into 90210 to generate interest before the debut. Same with Empty Nest and Golden Girls. I just recently saw the horrible Empty Nest episode of GG ... surprisingly it only bears one striking similarity to the eventual series - Joe Isuzu. (I'm sorry, Mr. Leisure, that's going to be your name until you die)

 

[Craig_T]

Friends has the most spin-offs if you count the endless parade of crummy "blink and you'll miss 'em" rip-offs it has spawned over the years.

 

[DonWinzen]

Peter, "Out of the Blue" was a crossover show not a spinoff. The angel, Random, appeared in Happy Days after the premier of "Out of the Blue" not before. Robin Williams did guest star in the first episode as Mork. For it to be a true spinoff the central theme characters would have needed to be introduced in Happy Days first.

Even today, many shows will have guest stars from other shows, in fact, other networks to bring in an audience.

Love, American Style still wins though with more actual spinoffs (I actually remember the episode when it introduced the Cunninghams; thanks for the reminder).

 

[Ryan L B]

how about all of the teen show rip offs that we are seeing premeared every other week on the WB or UPN when FOX was the creater of those types of shows. Also, what about Reality shows

 

[Robert Ringwald]

so far Buffy has one, but assuming, "Ripper" and "Buffy: The Animated Series" happen, that'll be 3.

 

[Steve Enemark]

"Star Trek rules!" said Jack, intelligently.

 

[Guy Martin]

Interesting. I must hazard a guess though that Law and Order must get some kind of special recognition for having two spinoffs on the air while new episodes of the original are still getting made.

- Guy

 

[Jeff Kleist]

MASH had Trapper John MD and After MASH
Though if we want to count SUCCESSFUL spinoffs, Star Trek has got them all beat hands down

 

[Scott Littlefield]

But do the Star Treks really qualify as spinoffs? With the exception of Deep Space Nine, none of the series had characters from a previous series that were "spun off".

Holding to that rule, only DSN could be counted as a true spinoff, limiting Trek's count to 1.

True, all but Enterprise (and TOS, natch) had characters from previous series in the first episode, but those only counted as guest appearances.

 

[DonWinzen]

I guess you would call the Star Trek shows "sequels", "prequels" or continuations depending upon the timeframe.