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11 spinoffs that definitely didn't live up to their original shows
We'll never forget when Joannie and Chachi moved to Chicago to start a rock band.
Every once in a while, a show comes along that's so great, it produces other great shows. Just look at Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, or Cheers and Frasier.
But for every successful spinoff, there are even more unsuccessful ones. We may have blocked these 11 shows out of our memories in order to preserve the greatness of the original shows, but they still existed at one point in time. Did you watch any of these?
Image: Sitcoms Online
1. The Tortellis
Cheers produced one of the most successful spinoffs of all time, but it also produced one of the worst. It turns out viewers didn't want to see a sitcom centered around Carla Tortelli's ex-husband and his new trophy wife living in Las Vegas.
Image: Wikipedia
2. Joannie Loves Chachi
Joannie Cunningham and Chachi Arcola leave Milwaukee and head to Chicago, where they start a rock band. What's not to love about that premise?
Image: Inside Pulse
3. Joey
Joey Tribbiani was one of the most loveable characters on Friends, but viewers didn't love it when he left the Central Perk to pursue his acting career in Los Angeles.
Image: Friends Wiki
4. The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.
Despite several crossover episodes with The Man from U.N.C.L.E., fans didn't like how the new series made its main character, April Dancer, take a backseat to her male partner when it came to fighting crime.
Image: YouTube
5. AfterMASH
AfterMASH = Aftermath... Get it? Despite the series finale of M*A*S*H being the most watched episode in television history at the time, no one stuck around for the follow up with Colonel Potter, Klinger and Father Mulcahy.
Image: The Whole Earth Blog
6. The Golden Palace
Maybe viewers weren't happy that Dorothy remarried in the series finale of The Golden Girls? Whatever the case, viewers didn't tune in to see the other three "girls" run a hotel in Miami. And, yes, that is Don Cheadle as the hotel manager.
Image: Vintage Toledo TV
7. Three's a Crowd
One thing this show had going for it was that John Ritter stuck around after Three's Company wrapped. But after eight seasons of watching the same character, audiences might have grown tired of Jack Tripper and didn't stick around with the new series.
Image: YouTube
8. The Love Boat: The Next Wave
The cruise ship didn't dock for long before departing on a new journey in the late 1990s. The only problem this time around was that no one came along for the ride.
Image: sell.com
9. The Brady Brides
What was originally supposed to be a TV movie turned into a spinoff series, with newlyweds Jan and Marcia living together with their husbands. You would think after years of sharing a bathroom with five other siblings, the women would be eager to live on their own.
Image: Pinterest
10. Gloria
All in the Family was a juggernaut for spinoffs, but Gloria stumbled after it ripped apart everything we loved about the original show. In the spinoff, Gloria Stevic moves back to New York after her husband (Meathead) leaves her for one of his students. This begs the questions: Why would he put up with Archie for all those years only to leave Gloria for one of his students?
Image: Twitter
11. Phyllis
So Phyllis wasn't the worst spinoff. But when compared to other Mary Tyler Moore spinoffs like Rhoda and Lou Grant, this one is definitely the weakest. But don't feel bad for Cloris Leachman, she's won more Emmys than any other performer in television history.
Image: This Was Television
6 Comments
Three's A Crowd could have worked had they cast Jack's girlfriend with an actress with some chemistry between her and the leading man. Sure, Mary Cadorette was cute, but audiences could sense the lack of chemistry between Vicki and Jack. And the surfer dude EZ was just annoying...