1. After M*A*S*H

The Korean War had ended, but the creators of the hit show M*A*S*H, one of the most successful television shows of all time, just couldn't walk away. Like the Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice — whose second season premieres tonight — AfterMASH took a main character out of a high-pressure medical situation and placed that person into ... a significantly less vital setting. Yanked from the cauldron of war, Colonel Potter, Sergeant Klinger and Father Mulcahy end up at a veterans' hospital. Scintillating. A well-received first season was followed by a disastrous second one when AfterMASH was placed against The A-Team. Then it was canceled.

The listlessness of the first 40 seconds of The Ropers' credit sequence rarely dissipated over the show's ensuing 29 minutes. Turning the concept of Three's Company (the sitcom iceberg from which The Ropers calved) on its head, the show had Jeffrey Tambor's Jeffrey P. Brookes III serve as the straight-man foil to Norman Fell's Mr. Roper. See how they did that, flipping the script? It lasted little more than a year. Then it was canceled

God, you really have to love the '80s (and the early '90s, which was basically still the '80s). An ABC spin-off of Spenser for Hire, the Robert Urich series based on the Robert B. Parker character, A Man Called Hawk, lasted little more than six months. It's hard to imagine why. Look at this show! Hawk (Avery Brooks, later of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fame) is a badass. He has one name. He wears nothing but black. He wears sunglasses at night. Also, his name is Hawk. Incredibly, all those things may also explain why the show didn't last. It was grim and violent, though not without an occasional xylophone interlude (watch the opening sequence again). Then it was canceled.

This is likely what network executives thought:
A) Matt LeBlanc is on Friends.
B) Friends is funny.
C) A+B means Matt LeBlanc is funny.
D) Let's give Matt LeBlanc his own show, for it will be funny.

The problem with this line of reasoning, however, is that the third proposition is false. Hence, the entire thing instantly breaks down. Taking Joey out of New York City and away from his comic foils (especially Chandler), then moving him to Los Angeles and pitting him against his 20-year-old dorky nephew and Adriana from The Sopranos removed all the cute, clueless charm that made his character so lovable in the first place.

Remember Johnny Depp? Hard to forget him, especially if you caught him when he first broke out on Fox's 21 Jump Street. Remember Richard Grieco? He was on 21 Jump Street too. And his character was so apparently popular that the network gave him a spin-off, Booker. Hard to believe now, especially since Grieco has essentially disappeared from the public eye. On Booker, his title character was hired away from the police force to work for a Japanese corporation (wha?). But he's still his own man, don't you see, because he shirks corporate attire, rockin' his leather jackets and torn jeans all while working as the in-house detective for a Japanese corporation. To go from scourge of the mean streets to glorified rent-a-cop is a steep fall indeed. After giving Booker a prime 7-8 p.m. spot on Sundays, the show was later moved to the less prominent 10 p.m. slot. Then it was canceled.

David Hasselhoff simultaneously starred in Baywatch and this two-year-long spin-off in which he moonlighted as a private detective. The most fascinating aspect of the series is the way it turned into a completely different show during Season 2. Nights ditched the whole crime-fighting thing and focused on the supernatural. Vampires, demons and sea creatures suddenly and inexplicably began to appear around the beach in droves, scaring away bathers — and viewers. Then it was canceled.

The bad spin-off by which all subsequent bad spin-offs are measured. In this Happy Days stepchild, Chachi (Scott Baio), the Fonz's younger cousin, moves to Chicago with Joanie (Erin Moran), Richie Cunningham's younger sister, to start a band. They sang a lot, Joanie and Chachi. Not always very well, as is clear in this clip. There were stereotypically named characters — Mario, Rico, Bingo — and stereotypically cheesy songs. The main characters soon returned to Happy Days. After the show was canceled, that is.

This was sort of a dry run for Jerry Orbach. Years before appearing as Law and Order's Lennie Briscoe, Orbach starred as the titular private detective in this Boston-set Murder She Wrote spin-off. He was gruff and hard-edged (but with a soft center), yet a brilliant private eye. Nothing we hadn't seen before.

The title rhymes, though.

So that's cool.

This X-Files spin-off starred the trio of dweeby conspiracy theorists who helped out Mulder and Scully from time to time. Often serving as comic relief on the original series, Byers, Frohike and Langley (first names were almost never used) similarly took on a hapless, Three Stooges–esque pose on their own show, which did not last very long at all. Creepily, the series premiere, in March 2001, involved a government conspiracy to crash a passenger airliner into the World Trade Center. Four months later, the show was canceled. Adding insult to injury, the Lone Gunmen themselves were killed off almost a year later on an episode of The X-Files.

The clear mistake here was the assumption that the young people who appreciated the warm, corny humor of the original Saved by the Bell would continue to appreciate the exact same humor the older the characters got. Instead of tailoring even slightly their comedic approach, the people behind SBTB: TCY stayed creatively inert.

All that philosophizing aside, it was just a dumb show. Former L.A. Raider Bob Golic as a dorm RA? Dumb. Ditching Lisa and Jesse, but keeping Kelly because Kelly was supposedly the most attractive of the three? Dumb. Because guess what? The girl who played Jesse went on to star in Showgirls. Who's hot now?

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1845866,00.html

Wait, Saved By The Bell College Years was good in my mind. That shouldn't be up there, when I saw the thread, I was thinking Joanie Loves Chachi is one of them.

Wait, Saved By The Bell College Years was good in my mind. That shouldn't be up there, when I saw the thread, I was thinking Joanie Loves Chachi is one of them.

I agree. Also, Tiffani was by far the hottest of the girls.

Yeah, I mean, not having Lisa or Jessie was bad but the show was still pretty good. Now SBTB, the new series should be there. That was horrible.

That list was Bullsh*T, Jonaie Loves chachi was much more watchable than

Flo
Phyllis
Mork and Mindy
Gloria


LOL

I thought for sure Phyllis was going to be up there, considering how bad it was after its first season.

This is likely what network executives thought:
A) Matt LeBlanc is on Friends.
B) Friends is funny.
C) A+B means Matt LeBlanc is funny.
D) Let's give Matt LeBlanc his own show, for it will be funny.

The problem with this line of reasoning, however, is that the third proposition is false. Hence, the entire thing instantly breaks down. Taking Joey out of New York City and away from his comic foils (especially Chandler), then moving him to Los Angeles and pitting him against his 20-year-old dorky nephew and Adriana from The Sopranos removed all the cute, clueless charm that made his character so lovable in the first place.

I'm sorry, I don't think Joey was a total disaster. Friends had a billion viewers for crying out loud, how can any show live up to that?

The idea of a spinoff is to take one or two characters and move them away from the other characters.

So no **** that the show isn't going to be as strong!

By this logic, The Golden Palace should have been a bigger hit, since 75% of the cast of the Golden Girls were in the spinoff!

These lists are always so utterly predictable. And pointless. Because they list not the worst spinoffs but the least successful ones.

AfterMASH was a gem. I don't know how accurate it was in portraying small-town USA and middle Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Korean War, but it felt really authentic somehow. Harry Morgan, William Christopher and Jamie Farr were far better in it than they were in the original. I LOVED Alan Alda in M*A*S*H, and the overt politics especially, but Potter, Mulcahy, and Klinger without Hawkeye were so fantastically human.

And The Ropers is doomed to be on the list in any case, not just because it was a spinoff of something stuffed shirts have never understood, but especially because it was a black comedy -- almost inconceivable on American TV. There was real art in the way Helen and Stanley couldn't stand and yet loved each other. But we're going off the deep end here...

In any case, whenever I see a list like this, I know ahead of time what is going to be on it, and the tired, facile, superficial and essentially worthless reasons given.

i rteally didnt think after mash was too bad during season 1 but of course the network got involved and took away whatever charm and meerit the show had and made an awful mess of season 2

These lists are always so utterly predictable. And pointless. Because they list not the worst spinoffs but the least successful ones.

AfterMASH was a gem. I don't know how accurate it was in portraying small-town USA and middle Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Korean War, but it felt really authentic somehow. Harry Morgan, William Christopher and Jamie Farr were far better in it than they were in the original. I LOVED Alan Alda in M*A*S*H, and the overt politics especially, but Potter, Mulcahy, and Klinger without Hawkeye were so fantastically human.

And The Ropers is doomed to be on the list in any case, not just because it was a spinoff of something stuffed shirts have never understood, but especially because it was a black comedy -- almost inconceivable on American TV. There was real art in the way Helen and Stanley couldn't stand and yet loved each other. But we're going off the deep end here...

In any case, whenever I see a list like this, I know ahead of time what is going to be on it, and the tired, facile, superficial and essentially worthless reasons given.



GREAT POST, best TV post I ever saw and you are exactly right. It is so conveinet to select the spinoffs that was ONE YEAR wonders and I'm still surprised the spinoff FLO wasn't on the list. Maybe because it on the air 18 months, instead of 12-lol

GREAT POST, best TV post I ever saw and you are exactly right. It is so conveinet to select the spinoffs that was ONE YEAR wonders and I'm still surprised the spinoff FLO wasn't on the list. Maybe because it on the air 18 months, instead of 12-lol

:blush: :blush: THANK YOU, Solomon!

:blush: :blush: THANK YOU, Solomon!



No problem. My selection for the worst spinoff of all time is FLO. That show was just a disaster.

That show was like taking Mike the Bartender off Three's Company and giving him his Own show

The Time people probably never saw Flo. I vaguely remember watching it; pretty forgettable stuff.

The Ropers had some genuinely funny stuff going on. I would watch it over 95% of the crap the networks are producing right now.

Joanie Loves Chachi was OK, and certainly no worse than some of the run-of-the-mill Happy Days episodes. This is a show that tends to get picked on unfairly, like Bridget Loves Bernie, probably because its title is catchy and the sophisticates remember it when looking for something to dump on.

The Time people probably never saw Flo. I vaguely remember watching it; pretty forgettable stuff.

The Ropers had some genuinely funny stuff going on. I would watch it over 95% of the crap the networks are producing right now.

Joanie Loves Chachi was OK, and certainly no worse than some of the run-of-the-mill Happy Days episodes. This is a show that tends to get picked on unfairly, like Bridget Loves Bernie, probably because its title is catchy and the sophisticates remember it when looking for something to dump on.


I will take Joanie Loves Chachi over the other HD spinoff-"Mork and Mindy" any day of the week-lol

What about Checking In?

What about Checking In?


Well I can't judge because I never saw the show-lol

Well I can't judge because I never saw the show-lol


The Art of Being Nick and Jackee sucked too. lol

The Parkers and Open House too.

The Art of Being Nick and Jackee sucked too. lol

The Parkers and Open House too.



I don't think Jackee was that bad, I needed to see more but it was no more-lol

No problem. My selection for the worst spinoff of all time is FLO. That show was just a disaster.

That show was like taking Mike the Bartender off Three's Company and giving him his Own showyour right solomon flo was awful

I don't think Jackee was that bad, I needed to see more but it was no more-lol

Jackee was terrible :lol: She was outstanding on 227, but she got too cocky, and she messed up a good thing.

Never saw Checking In either, but I was thinking about it. It obviously wasn't that bad not to make the list. There were only 4 episodes, though, so its hard to judge on that.

And The Ropers really was not a good show. The first season was okay, but things got old too fast. The Ropers were funny in small doses, as on Three's Company, but they got boring after they got their own show.

Jackee was terrible :lol: She was outstanding on 227, but she got too cocky, and she messed up a good thing.

Never saw Checking In either, but I was thinking about it. It obviously wasn't that bad not to make the list. There were only 4 episodes, though, so its hard to judge on that.

And The Ropers really was not a good show. The first season was okay, but things got old too fast. The Ropers were funny in small doses, as on Three's Company, but they got boring after they got their own show.


Yeah the Ropers was not good but better than the spinoffs below

Phyllis
Joanie Loves Chachi

I never even heard of AfterMASH. But it sounded like a horrible idea.

The Ropers, I think viewers left after watching the intro..

I don't think they gave A Man Called Hawk enough of a chance. It could have worked. I like those type of shows.

JOEY was a disaster; plain and simple.

Booker was a dumb premise.

Baywatch Nights when they went with vampires and demons I guess i was too dumb even for Baywatch watchers.

Joanie Loves Chaci already has a well-deserved bad reputation.

The Law and Harry McGraw I have no comment; just looks like one of those plain "detective shows".

I loved The Lone Gunmen. I think they worked within the X-Files universe but having their own show they couldn't carry it.

Saved by the Bell: The College Years, I'm not a fan of Saved by the Bell anyway so I don't watch any of that.

Wait, Saved By The Bell College Years was good in my mind.

It was no more or less corny than the HS years were. It wasn't completely terrible.

Wait, Saved By The Bell College Years was good in my mind. That shouldn't be up there, when I saw the thread, I was thinking Joanie Loves Chachi is one of them.

I agree I thought the College Years was pretty good.

Booker and A Man Called Hawk never got a fair chance.

Booker was more than deserving of a second season.

A Man Called Hawk should have been allowed to finish more than 13 episodes.