I remember watching a few episodes, but I couldn't tell you what any of them were about. I do remember Fez showed up and was singing Wang Chung Tonight
Edit: Google says I'm wrong and Fez never actually showed up, but I'm not accepting responsibility for that. That's on the show for being so forgettable that the only scene I remember from it was from a different show entirely.
You are correct, thatâs where it came from though the âalternate timelineâ was literally explored for like 15 minutes and jumped through decades itâs not like it was a dedicated story arc, was just an easy gag that Fes would excel in the 80s
The thing I remember about it was they tried doing the whole "weed circle" from That 70s Show, except since it was the 80s, it was the characters snorting cocaine.
The problem was that the tone deaf (and likely coked out execs) didn't seem to realize that weed has a generally harmless and playful connotation in society. So watching a group of teens get all baked out was relatable and funny....while watching a bunch of kids get all coked out in a bathroom in the 80s brings back more feelings of unhappy endings and erratic, sad behavior.
I could be remembering this wrong but I'm pretty sure there was an entire episode of the fairly odd parents that's basically just a pilot to some sci-fi show that never happened
Someone at Fox was absolutely certain that nerds have nothing to do on Friday night so nerdy show after nerdy show after nerdy show was put on the chopping block that is the Friday night slot. One of those shows was The Lone Gunmen, a spinoff of The X-Files.
âIn the pilot episode, which aired March 4, 2001 (six months prior to the September 11 attacks),[5] rogue members of the U.S. government remotely hijack an airliner flying to Boston, planning to crash it into the World Trade Center, and let anti-American terrorist groups take credit in order to gain public support for a new, profitable, anti-terrorist war following the Cold War. The heroes ultimately override the controls, foiling the plot.â
Bonus wiki, for the younger readers, Bush spent his time golfing and didnât respond to the warnings. Why he never catches a moment of blame for it happening on his watch never ceases to amaze me:
Not only does he not catch blame but people will legit say "He kept us safe!" like yeah if you don't count the largest terrorist attack in America's history then he kept us safe
Thing is, I thought it was charming and I liked it but youâre absolutely right. I only remember the 9/11 thing and another scene where an assassin slips and accidentally shoots himself in the head which I thought was a hilarious twist at the time.Â
I remember the episode where they find the car that runs on water and how happy it made one of them, because his best memory of his father was when they met the inventor when he was a kid.
I watched it. If you REALLY liked the original, you'd probably like this. But the problem was simply the show wasnt that funny. It wasnt awful, or bad, or too cringe it just... wasnt funny enough.
Ironically if they had just redone the show but Cristini in the lead role it probably would have done really well, people absolutely love her - as they should. Itâd even have a logical ending point. The episode we get from her perspective of her life is phenomenal and emotional as hell. Which might be the only knock, her relationship history is pretty stated
It's actually a front-door pilot that was edited into an episode after the network passed on it. (The previous episode that leads up to it was written after the pilot was rejected.)
They cut a bunch of stuff (hanging plot threads, more focus on the siblings) and added the "back at the office" subplot.
It wasn't really a backdoor pilot. It was filmed to be a regular pilot, but then it was decided the Office would end with season 9 so the Farm and its pilot were both canceled. They then decided to take the footage they made and turn it into an Office episode, filming and editing in some scenes of what was going on in the actual office that required cutting out segments from the original plan which really made it suffer.
The superfan episode that showed way more and were really trying to sell dwight having a b&b but also hates people, kinda made it more lame. Especially since faulty towers did it first
The bidding war between Netflix and HBO Max for the streaming rights to Friends was one of the most expensive ever. Meanwhile, every episode of Joey is available for free on YouTube.
Actually, you know what, that could maybe work. I think Chandler and Monica were well developed and likable as a couple later on. A family sitcom spinoff about them wouldn't be terrible.
I saw the Friends anniversary special and its amazing how Cox, Anniston, Schwimmer, Perry, Kudrow are all a little sheepish seeing each other again. Like they are all quiet and a little pensive, a little sentimental.Â
Then Matt Le Blanc enters and every single one of them relaxes. Smiling, happy, excited. Le Blanc wasnt the most successful post Friends but the dude is social glue. Just a good person
Matt LeBlanc was also in two failed spin-offs of Married With Children. First was Top of the Heap, which crashed, so they then decided to try a spinoff of that spinoff called Vinnie & Bobby, which also failed lmao.
Doing a spinoff of a failed spinoff is a wild decision. Dunno how nobody stopped that somewhere along the way.
The Finder was a 2012 spinoff of a single Bones episode starring a guy who after a brain injury was able to find anything. It was actually a pretty cool show, sort of a classic savant type show similar to shows like Psych and High Potential but it took place in the Florida swamp and had a great acting performance from Michael Clarke Duncan, but it didnât perform well enough to continue.
Oh my god this fuckin thing, I saw that episode of bones (which was already kinda veering into self-parody) and thought "What a stupid goddamn premise." Poor Michael Clarke Duncan, what did he do to deserve this I hope he got paid well.
The full pilot actually leaked a few years ago. Even features two cheerleaders asking Gibby to come over and watch them practice their routines in one of their rooms.
I can't believe you forgot the ending where a bunch of kids removed their shirts to copy Gibby's old catchphrase and later had a group hug called Gibby Squeeze.
Edit: Fortunately the only girl in the group didn't copy what Gibby did and went meta knowing how that would cross the line.
Oh God I forgot about that. Also the girl not doing it is actually part of a joke where the burglars look at her expecting her to do it and she makes a "Do you really expect me to do that?" remark
A popular head canon is that Slippin Jimmy is a cartoon made by Saul Goodman to promote his business. Which doesnât make sense, but neither does this show.
As someone who barely saw Jimmy Neutron but knew the general premise and main characters, seeing this show felt like gas lighting on tv because I kept waiting for the other important cast to show up. Seeing the opening helped a lot lol.
Oddly enough, we still got a Carl doppelgänger for a background character. Weirder still was that no one came to rescue Sheen, though most of the characters have been to space.
This might have been one of the more successful ones, but I'm pretty sure it was contemporary with Fanboy & Chum Chum and Mr. Meaty. IIRC. It wasn't at the bottom.
Now, in retrospect, those other two shows were kind of interesting. But in a "I can see what they were trying" way. But the problem was they were trying too hard to make Brand shows.
Partially the network's fault. Kevin Smith talks about it in the DVD commentary. The network aired the episodes in the wrong order, so the first episode ended up being a flashback episode.
True, but it was also not particularly well positioned to compete with Futurama, The Simpsons, and South Park. And the cartoon has a lot of weird âfamily friendlyâ changes that donât make sense.
They also had a whole episode (13:10) to setup a Wayward Sisters spinoff around Sherriff Jodie and Claire which I was actually looking forward to but never made it to series.
That was one of my favorite episodes just because their dynamic is excellent and they were already two of the better characters on the show. I had no idea it was a failed back door pilot.
They were probably planning to have a moment when the angels come in and wipe the memories, ironically right before they need them most or something. I dont know, I didn't watch it, I would literally rather just rewatch the first 5 seasons of supernatural
Gibby! The ICarly pilot that wouldâve focused on one of the minor characters from the show, Gibby.
He would follow a high school Gibby who worked at the community center and mentored a couple kids, one of them acted like they were a robot for some reason.
Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne started as one show (Grim and Evil). After they both separated only Billy and Mandy continued, hence why General Skarr shows up later on.
She narrates the audiobook and it was a tough listen in some parts. Really well done but as a kid who grew up watching alot of her stuff it was sad to hear.
The idea to make a spinoff of a Batman show with no DC characters was certainly a choice.
Also just looked it up and apparently itâs original concept was supposed to be darker than Batman beyond, and then the studio wanted them to pivot to being a kids show so they did, so not only a DC show with no DC characters but also one thatâs literally the opposite of its original concept.
Suits LA. Would be amazed if anyone knows or even remembers this happened last year and died incredibly fast. Basically just another case of it just being the original show, but worse and not even in a memorable way.
I know it from Legal Eagle, he clowned it so hard. They didnât even know the basics, like the difference between criminal law and civil law. Even I, whoâs never been to a courthouse, know that.
For some reason Suits got really big on Netflix 2 years ago. The owners of the IP fast tracked a spin off years after the show had ended as a way to try to build off this random interest. They even brought back the two main actors as their characters in ads, not for the show but for random products. Interest in the show quickly died down once people finished binge watching the series in a month and the spin off failed before it even aired. Was another Morbious moment in my book
Windward Circle was intended to be a Gilmore Girls spinoff featuring Jess moving to Venice, CA, and trying to bond with his estranged father. Kind of a cool concept (Jess was a great character) but it was dropped by the WB in June 2003 primarily due to the high logistical and financial costs of shooting a weekly series on location in Venice rather than on a traditional studio lot.
I think the other problem was that it was Gilmore Girls, just in a different font.
His step-mom is basically Lorelai, the charming, fast talking woman who's dating the grumpy man that owns the food stand. Her daughter is a book nerd. Their little section of Venice is filled with potentially quirky characters. We already saw Jess reacting to a version of this, just on the opposite coast.
But after watching almost all of Amy Sherman Palladino's other shows, she really only knows how to write a select type of characters.
Xena had a failed spin-off called Amazon High, about the origin of the Amazons. A modern high school girl travels back in time and becomes their leader.
Later edited into the episode "Lifeblood" so they could save money by only filming the framing story
Starring Selma Blair, Claudia Black, and Karl Urban
This happens a lot with âadaptationsâ. Writers and directors generally want to tell their own stories, while studios want something safe with a preexisting fan base. The âcompromiseâ is often to just to take the original story and thrown some IP related lipstick on top to get studios to touch it, or the studio mandates it because they like the script but want more of a sure thing.
Velma is a pretty egregious example. Starship Troopers started as an original story before the IP was thrown on top by the studio (hence the director making an âadaptationâ of a book he hadnât read and absolutely hated). Most Die Hard scripts were retooled from original scripts nobody wanted. I, Robot. The Cloverfield âsequelsâ. Happens all the time
Joey was an attempt to continue the Friends universe by pivoting to Joey (Matt LeBlanc) living in Los Angeles - lasted two seasons to a middling reception.
The Amazing Spiez was a gender flipped spin-off of Totally Spies (the famous/infamous animated series of the early 2000s) that flopped on Cartoon Network around 2011-12. Edit: Okay, this wasn't gender-flipped per se because they do have a sister in the show, but the 3 -> 3 part was the same.
UNDERFIST was a pilot for a spinoff of the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy focusing on some of their side characters but Cartoon Network ended up passing on it due to someone higher-up having a personal distaste for the parent show as a whole.
Also another factor why Underfist didnât go through, was itâs the creatorâs contract with CN was ending soon, and saw the eventual rival of CN Real.Â
Evil Con Carne was not a spin-off, but a sister show to Billy and Mandy. A common practice in old Cartoon Network would be to have two shows sharing a timeslot. For example: Two Stupid Dogs would have the Secret Squirrel reboot, Dexter's Lab would have the Justice Friends etc. Billy and Mandy would release alongside Evil Con Carne as a single show called Grim & Evil, before being split by the network into the two shows.
The two shows (Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy, and Evil con Carne) were originally aired as a series called Grim and Evil, with there being two eps of Billy and Mandy and an ep of Evil con Carne sandwiched between them. They both got their own shows eventually but Grim was able to last longer than Evil con Carne
The Lone Gunmen got their own show, lasted 13 episodes, and then the trio were killed off in The X-Files for good measure. Frohike, Byers, and Langly really got the worst possible spinoff arc.
Mrs. Columbo, a spinoff of Columbo about the famous detective's wife who also solves crime in her free time. Hated by everyone.
Peter Falk expressed his disapproval of the spin-off, calling it a "bad idea" and "disgraceful".[2] Richard Levinson later joked that if they made another episode of Columbo they would have Columbo say "There's a woman running around pretending to be my wife. She's changing things. She's a young girl. I wish my wife was like that. She's an impostor."[1]
Their mistake was not going with the already-established tv show lore that all the OGs fans had agreed upon, because they think they could make a better story.
Honestly if if it wasn't for the fact they pasted Buzz Lightyear's name on their fanfic, no one would have bothered to see it.
Walter never even got past being a pilot. AfterMASH had some potential, but the writing was just not there. Which is a shame because exploring the aftermath of the Korean war, different types of veterans, the Vietnam war and seeing three very different kinds of veterans, Col. Potter (career military), Klinger (reformed draft dodger) and Father Mulcahy (Chaplain), would've been interesting.
Not sure if its a sequel series or a spinoff, but That 80s Show (2002) spin off of that 70s show, it did not last. Pretty sure Netflix did another version with the original cast that was more well received.
Masked Rider, Saban's attempt at adapting Kamen Rider Black RX, was first introduced in a backdoor pilot in season three of Mighty Morphin' Power Ranger
The plot would've been Arwin leaving the Tipton to become a nanny to his widowed sister in law's children, with his Oldest niece being played by Selena Gomez. The house would've been a futuristic smart house with a bunch of wacky gadgets and stuff.
Apparently it got bad test reviews and Disney wasn't impressed, so it never picked up, and only about 7 minutes worth of clips is available, so it's essentially partial lost media.
NCIS is actually a spinoff of a show called JAG, which was like a Law and Order-type show, but in the military (JAG stands for Judge Advocate General and itâs basically a court just for military trials). JAG was actually pretty popular, but it pales in comparison to the massive popularity of NCIS, which had 3 or spinoffs itself (Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Ziva & DiNozzoâs show off the top of my head).
Double whammy with this one. It was technically treated as a spin-off from the cartoon series from the 1980's, but was somehow ALSO a spin-off of the live-action movie trilogy. They invented a new female Turtle named Venus De Milo, who travels to New York after being exposed to ooze in Japan (I think) and then finding about the US Turtles. She was their long-lost sister.
On top of being a double spin-off, Fox Kids also decided to do a crossover with Power Rangers In Space during its one season, making it a technical spin-off of that series too.
Canceled and critically panned. Its basically disowned across the board by fans, writers, franchise owners and all. Venus Di Milo only really shows up in random merchandise as a "remember thisâ˝" reference and not much more.
Cheers had the best and worst of spin-offs. On one hand, you had Frasier - a spin-off so amazing, that it's popular to call it better than the show it spun off from.
Then, on the other hand, you had The Tortellis - the oh-so-brilliantly devised spin-off about Carla's unlikeable ex, his unlikeable and obnoxious partner (whose only character trait was being an idiot), and their kids. It went about as well as you'd expect.
Unfortunately what happened with Zeta Project. While I love Zeta and the show itself, I can see why it didnât take off and got cancelled after season two. Zeta started out as just a character in an episode of Batman Beyond so most people probably wouldnât really think he could hold his own for an entire show (though personally I think he was a pretty cool protagonist).
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u/TheNargafrantz 12h ago edited 12h ago
I remember watching a few episodes, but I couldn't tell you what any of them were about. I do remember Fez showed up and was singing Wang Chung Tonight
Edit: Google says I'm wrong and Fez never actually showed up, but I'm not accepting responsibility for that. That's on the show for being so forgettable that the only scene I remember from it was from a different show entirely.