Out of the Blue was never a spinoff of Happy Days or Mork and Mindy. The reason why is this

Out of the Blue premeired a week before the new season of Happy Days for 1979-80. What happened was the character, RANDOM, appeared on Happy Days a week after the show premeired on ABC which made it a crossover episode between Happy Days and Out of the Blue.


During the premeire episode of Out of the Blue, Mork from Mork and Mindy made a guest appearance and that made it a crossover episode between Mork and Mindy and Happy Days not a spinoff


ABC wanted to promote the show Out of the Blue through it's Top two shows at the time, Happy Days, and Mork and Mindy, so that Out Of the Blue could gain a fan base. Sadly it never worked


So there you have it, we now know that Out of the Blue was not a spinoff of Happy Days or Mork and Mindy.

thanks

thats old news - but supposedly the Happy Days crossover episode had been pre-empted and was supposed to have aired before the premiere of out of the Blue, so it is debateable.

That Happy Days episode was awful too. Just wretchedly, horrifically bad.

While I think Sol's *is it or isn't it a spinoff* criteria are often too extreme, I will give him this one. Out Of The Blue was not a spinoff.

thats old news - but supposedly the Happy Days crossover episode had been pre-empted and was supposed to have aired before the premiere of out of the Blue, so it is debateable.


What was it pre-empted for?

This may be old news but your very wrong it was a spin off of Happy Days it was supposed to start after the Chachi sold his soul to the devil episode. They did a stupid mistake of switching the shows.

What was it pre-empted for?
i have no idea, but it was originally scheduled to air before Out of The Blue premiered - the whole point of the crossover was to get people to watch the premiere, so it pretty much defeated the purpose of it when they pre-empted the HD ep.

This may be old news but your very wrong it was a spin off of Happy Days it was supposed to start after the Chachi sold his soul to the devil episode. They did a stupid mistake of switching the shows.


you have anything to provide to support that???????????????

you have anything to provide to support that???????????????
i don't have proof, but look at it logically - it makes no sense to try to promote the premiere of a new show AFTER it airs - what good would that do?

i remember the premiere being pre-empted, but i have no idea why they did it.

What doesn't make sense about the pre-emption theory is that it would mean two episodes of Happy Days would have had to air before the premiere of Out of the Blue. Here's my thinking:

Happy Days had its seventh season premiere on Tuesday, September 11th, two days after Out of the Blue had its series premiere on Sunday, September 9th. "Chachi Sells His Soul" aired on Tuesday, September 18th, two days after the second episode of Out of the Blue on Sunday, September 16th. In order for "Chachi Sells His Soul" to be shown before the premiere of Out of the Blue, it would have had to air on Tuesday, September 4th. That means the season premiere of Happy Days would have had to air even earlier, on Tuesday, August 28th.

Does that make any sense? "Chachi Sells His Soul" couldn't have been switched with the season premiere of Happy Days because that episode was a crossover with Laverne & Shirley. Is it possible ABC originally intended to premiere Out of the Blue two weeks later on Sunday, September 23rd after "Chachi Sells His Soul" aired? Possibly. Otherwise, I don't see any way for the time line to work out unless I'm totally misunderstanding things.

What doesn't make sense about the pre-emption theory is that it would mean two episodes of Happy Days would have had to air before the premiere of Out of the Blue. Here's my thinking:

Happy Days had its seventh season premiere on Tuesday, September 11th, two days after Out of the Blue had its series premiere on Sunday, September 9th. "Chachi Sells His Soul" aired on Tuesday, September 18th, two days after the second episode of Out of the Blue on Sunday, September 16th. In order for "Chachi Sells His Soul" to be shown before the premiere of Out of the Blue, it would have had to air on Tuesday, September 4th. That means the season premiere of Happy Days would have had to air even earlier, on Tuesday, August 28th.

Does that make any sense? "Chachi Sells His Soul" couldn't have been switched with the season premiere of Happy Days because that episode was a crossover with Laverne & Shirley. Is it possible ABC originally intended to premiere Out of the Blue two weeks later on Sunday, September 23rd after "Chachi Sells His Soul" aired? Possibly. Otherwise, I don't see any way for the time line to work out unless I'm totally misunderstanding things.

My head hurts from just reading that.
And I watched those episodes of Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley when they originally aired.

I did not however watch Out of the Blue. I don't know why, most likely I was not aware it was related to Happy Days. Which actually supports the theory that Out of the Blue was probably originally scheduled to air later.

I'm going with that theory, and going to get some Advil.

OK, my theory is wrong.
Solomon is right.

Instead of taking Advil, I busted out an old TV Guide that I got on ebay.

According to the 1979 TV Guide Fall Preview, it was scheduled to air on Sept 9.
There is no mention here of a spinoff.

Same issue- here is the advertisement for the premiere.
(You'll see that Mork appears in order to "open" the series.

My head hurts from just reading that.
And I watched those episodes of Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley when they originally aired.

I did not however watch Out of the Blue. I don't know why, most likely I was not aware it was related to Happy Days. Which actually supports the theory that Out of the Blue was probably originally scheduled to air later.

I'm going with that theory, and going to get some Advil.


you probably didn't watch it because it aired during the kiddie hour at 7pm

Same issue- here is the advertisement for the premiere.
(You'll see that Mork appears in order to "open" the series.


That's the ep I always wanted to see. The Out of the blue ep I have is not watchable

That's the ep I always wanted to see. The Out of the blue ep I have is not watchable
none of the episodes of Out of the Blue were very watchable - they were certainly worse than Chachi Sells His Soul

...maybe ABC just wanted people to THINK that Out Of The Blue was a spinoff of Happy Days just to make them watch it...

Well, it looks like dlemond solved this mystery.

none of the episodes of Out of the Blue were very watchable - they were certainly worse than Chachi Sells His Soul

...maybe ABC just wanted people to THINK that Out Of The Blue was a spinoff of Happy Days just to make them watch it...


Happy Days had 3 crossovers eps in the first month of that 79-80 season. Out of the Blue and Laverne and Shirley

That's the ep I always wanted to see. The Out of the blue ep I have is not watchablei can tell you 2 things that i remember about the ep from having watched it 1 when mork first appaers onscreen he looks at random and says wow so this is heaven it looks more like jc penny to me 2 hanna dean as the housekeeper is in the kitchen singing no bad news and stops for some reason but i really dont remember why except that the laughtrack indcated that something must have been funny thats all i really remember about the ep

I never liked that episode of Happy Days, Random was such an annoying character- I couldn't picture watching a series featuring him, just the thought of it makes me shudder.

I remember watching 1 episode of "OUT OF THE BLUE" and it was pretty bad.

I have never understood this debate. In order for "Out of the Blue" to have truly been a spin-off, the initial episode with Random would've had to have aired the previous season and gotten big ratings. I don't recall a single instance when a spin-off was spawned from a previous week's episode. True, most of the production team was the same and there were some crossovers, but that does not a spin-off make.

And the show is pretty terrible, but that damned theme song (which is almost as terrible as the show itself) frequently plays on a loop in my head.

Out of the Blue was never a spinoff of Happy Days or Mork and Mindy. The reason why is this

Out of the Blue premeired a week before the new season of Happy Days for 1979-80. What happened was the character, RANDOM, appeared on Happy Days a week after the show premeired on ABC which made it a crossover episode between Happy Days and Out of the Blue.


During the premeire episode of Out of the Blue, Mork from Mork and Mindy made a guest appearance and that made it a crossover episode between Mork and Mindy and Happy Days not a spinoff


ABC wanted to promote the show Out of the Blue through it's Top two shows at the time, Happy Days, and Mork and Mindy, so that Out Of the Blue could gain a fan base. Sadly it never worked


So there you have it, we now know that Out of the Blue was not a spinoff of Happy Days or Mork and Mindy.

Says the same thing here. Not a spinoff, just a failed attempt to use 2 successful series to try to help launch a new one.

322755

Says the same thing here. Not a spinoff, just a failed attempt to use 2 successful series to try to help launch a new one.

322755

And that false statement about HD being pre-empted was a bunch of BS. Especially since he had nothing to post to back it up lol



BTW: 16 years later and the Out of the Blue ep with Mork still has no surfaced:(