Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader (21 page)

Many successful TV series were “spin-offs” of other shows—
Cheers
begat
Frasier
,
Dallas
gave us
Knot’s Landing
, and
Grey’s Anatomy
spawned
Private Practice
, for just three examples. Some spin-offs,
however, never even make it to air, even when an entire episode
of the parent series is used to introduce the new show.

 

SPIN-OFF:
Mr. Quiet
(1985)

STORY:
The Cosby Show
was a surprise hit for NBC in 1984 and is even credited with lifting the network from third to first place. Show star/creator Bill Cosby had free rein at the network, and in 1985 he produced an episode of his show to serve as a pilot to star his friend, singer Tony Orlando, for whom he’d opened concerts in the 1970s. On that episode, the Huxtable family volunteered at an inner-city community center run by Orlando’s character. Despite Cosby’s pull, the pilot was never made into a series because, according to Orlando, his own performance “stunk.”

 

SPIN-OFF:
“Untitled
Office
Spin-Off” (2009)

STORY:
In 2008 NBC executives asked producers of the hit comedy
The Office
to create a spin-off. They didn’t want to split up the original show’s ensemble, so the producers planned to introduce a new character to
The Office
, to be played by
Saturday Night Live
’s Amy Poehler, and then base a new, office-based show around her. NBC announced that the untitled show would debut in the plum, post-Super Bowl time slot in February 2009, but the show’s writers were having a hard time creating a show that was different enough from
The Office.
So they scrapped the idea of the spin-off and made a show called
Parks and Recreation
“inspired by”
The Office
instead—shot in the same dry documentary style but this time set in the world of local politics. The show was a modest hit when it finally debuted in April 2009, and it was renewed for a second season.

 

SPIN-OFF:
905-Wild
(1975)

STORY:
Writer/actor Jack Webb created the cop show
Dragnet
in the 1950s and revived it in the late 1960s. The new show then spun off another police drama called
Adam-12,
which in turn begat
Emergency!
(1972–79), about a pair of paramedics /firefighters. And a 1975 episode of
Emergency!
served as a pilot for yet another rung on the ladder of
Dragnet
-derived shows.
905-Wild
, as the show was to be titled (based on police code for “wild animal, loose and threatening”), followed a Los Angeles animal control worker (portrayed by Mark Harmon in one of his first roles). The
Emergency!
cast showed up briefly, but the rest of the episode showed Harmon fighting off a tiger in a grocery store and saving dogs caught in a brush fire. Apparently the
Dragnet
magic didn’t transfer to the animal kingdom—NBC passed on
905-Wild.

 

SPIN-OFF:
Buffy the Animated Series
(2002)

STORY:
Buffy
has a rich backstory and mythology, but with the exception of the spin-off
Angel
, none of the many other proposed offshoots of the teenaged monster-hunter show ever made it to air. One of these was a Saturday morning cartoon version for kids, commissioned by the Fox Network in 2001. A four-minute, fully animated teaser video (with most of the original cast providing their voices) was produced, and Fox gave
Buffy
creator Joss Whedon the go-ahead to make 13 full episodes. But just a few weeks later, in early 2002, Fox shut down its Saturday morning cartoon division. Whedon shopped the animated
Buffy
to other networks, but nobody was interested—it was too dark for kids and too kiddie for adults.

 

SPIN-OFF:
The Horshacks
(1977)

STORY:
Next to John Travolta’s Vinnie Barbarino, the most popular of the teenage delinquent Sweathogs on
Welcome Back, Kotter
was the scrawny, nerdy, and weird Arnold Horshack (Ron Pallilo). A two-part episode made during
Kotter
’s second season, “There Goes Number 5,” was intended as a spin-off, focusing on Horshack and his equally weird family. When Horshack’s fourth stepfather
dies, he has to take a job with his uncle to feed his brothers and sisters. The episode was among the lowest-rated
Kotter
s of the year, proving that a little Horshack goes a long way.

 

SPIN-OFF:
Kelly’s Kids
(1974)

STORY:
By the end of the show’s fifth season in 1974, the Brady kids were getting older and not quite so cute, and chances that the show would be renewed for a sixth season by ABC were slim. So
Brady
creator Sherwood Schwartz devised another show about a nontraditional family with a bunch of adorable youngsters. The pilot was aired as an episode of
The Brady Bunch—
the Bradys are visited briefly by their good friend (although he’d never been mentioned before) Ken Kelly (portrayed by Ken Berry of
F Troop
), who has just adopted three orphans: one white, one Asian, and one African-American. ABC passed on the pilot, and
The Brady Bunch
was canceled a few weeks later. The “Kelly’s Kids” episode ties in so little with
The Brady Bunch
, in fact, that it’s almost never seen in the perpetual reruns of the show.

 

SPIN-OFF:
Heroes: Origins
(2008)

STORY:
It was devised to run in spring 2008, between the second and third seasons of the cult science-fiction show about modern-day superheroes. Each episode of
Heroes: Origins
was supposed to explain how one of the parent show’s many characters obtained or discovered their special powers. Major filmmakers like Kevin Smith (
Clerks)
and Eli Roth (
Hostel)
were signed to direct episodes. So why did it die?
Heroes: Origins
was a casualty of the Writer’s Guild of America strike in 2007–08, which halted production on all scripted TV shows for three months. By the time Hollywood got back to work, the TV season was nearly over, and there was no time to make
Origins.

“The phrase ‘sort of’ doesn’t really mean anything. But after certain things, it means everything. Like after ‘I love you,’ or ‘You’re going to live,’ or ‘It’s a boy!’”

—
Demetri Martin

 

LUXURY ITEM:
“I Am Rich” iPhone App

DESCRIPTION:
Apple iPhone users have access to thousands of applications, or “Apps.” Most cost around $2 and serve a purpose—weather forecasts, movie times, GPS locators, etc. The “I Am Rich” App went on sale in 2008. What does it do? Not much. It fills the iPhone screen with a picture of a ruby, supposedly to indicate to passersby that the iPhone user is rich.
COST:
$999.99. Who would buy one? Eight people did—including a man who thought it was a joke…until he got his credit card statement. When he complained to Apple, they refunded his money and pulled “I Am Rich” from their online store.

 

LUXURY ITEM:
Chanel Segway

EXPLANATION:
If a no-frills Segway isn’t expensive enough (around $5,000), now you can get a super-deluxe Chanel Edition Segway. It’s the same as a regular Segway, but with quilted leather mudflaps and a Chanel handbag mounted on the front.