Speaker 1: I guess what mango? What's that? Will? All right? So
Speaker 1: the other day you and I were talking about albums
Speaker 1: that we wanted to buy, or like movies we wanted
Speaker 1: to watch as kids. But you know, these are the
Speaker 1: ones that our parents weren't so sure about. They were
Speaker 1: a little nervous about letting us have them. So I
Speaker 1: think my favorite was that you begged to go buy
Speaker 1: the DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince album with Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was it? It was parents just don't understand that
Speaker 1: was on as just don't understand. They really they still
Speaker 1: don't be honest with it. It's such a tame song.
Speaker 1: I love that you had to beg for it, but like,
Speaker 1: I'm totally in the same boat because, like, my mom
Speaker 1: didn't let me watch Silver Spoons for some reason. Apparently
Speaker 1: she didn't like the fact that like you would just
Speaker 1: cause all this trouble and then it was resolved with
Speaker 1: like a sorry in the last two minutes or something.
Speaker 1: That's pretty hilarious. So there was another one that was
Speaker 1: my begging and finally getting to be Bart Simpson for Halloween.
Speaker 1: I think this was fifth grade. It might have been
Speaker 1: sixth grade, but I know it was around there, but
Speaker 1: I was sure I was one of millions of kids
Speaker 1: running around in that same ridiculously heavy and pretty much
Speaker 1: suffocating rubber Bart mass saying things like don't have a
Speaker 1: cow man, and eat my shorts and all the great
Speaker 1: Bart lines. That is so funny. I had no idea
Speaker 1: you were Bart Simpson for holloween was It is funny,
Speaker 1: like how shocking Bart was when in those early years,
Speaker 1: like like I remember some kid wore a shirt in
Speaker 1: and I think it said like, who the hell are you?
Speaker 1: And and a teacher put masking tape over the party.
Speaker 1: Such a badass? Well, I mean, who knew that more
Speaker 1: than twenty five years since then the Simpsons would still
Speaker 1: be going so strong on TV. I mean, it's, of
Speaker 1: course now the longest running scripted primetime series in American history,
Speaker 1: currently in its thirtieth season, recently passing six hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty episodes, So this puts it past gun Smoke, which
Speaker 1: ran for I think six thirty five. But it's just incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw this thing in Entertainment Weekly that
Speaker 1: said something about how like the Simpsons were so off
Speaker 1: putting to America initially and now they're one of the
Speaker 1: longest going like church families. Like really, uh, it is
Speaker 1: funny to think that it's spun off from the Tracy
Speaker 1: Ullman Show. And it wasn't even the original idea that
Speaker 1: the producers of The Allman Show approach mac Grainig about, right,
Speaker 1: you know, they'd originally actually approached him about his life
Speaker 1: and Hell comic strip. But you know, he didn't want
Speaker 1: to have to give up the rights to that, or
Speaker 1: at least to the characters, and so he decided to
Speaker 1: come up with a new concept and a completely different
Speaker 1: cast of characters. And it's funny because most of them
Speaker 1: were based on and even named after the people in
Speaker 1: his own life, like mainly his family members. Oh, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a smart call to go in that direction,
Speaker 1: no kidding. Well, thinking about the spinoff made us want
Speaker 1: to revisit some of the most successful or maybe the
Speaker 1: most bizarre TV spinoffs in TV history. So that's exactly
Speaker 1: what we're doing today. Let's dive in. H Hey, their
Speaker 1: podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson
Speaker 1: and it's always I'm joined by my good friend Manes
Speaker 1: Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass,
Speaker 1: not just wearing a Mark from Orc T shirt, but
Speaker 1: fully dressed in the costume that Mark always were. That's
Speaker 1: our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. You know, I always
Speaker 1: appreciate his commitment to these costumes, but it's pretty clear
Speaker 1: that the show was like from before his time, and
Speaker 1: he's not seen an episode because like everything he responds
Speaker 1: to is just nanu. Nanu is kind of ridiculous. Do
Speaker 1: you think he thinks that's that's all Mark said or
Speaker 1: what I think? So all right, Well, Tristan is a
Speaker 1: busy guy, so I guess we'll cut him a little
Speaker 1: bit of slack now. And anyway, let's come back to
Speaker 1: the topic of Mark later, because that's actually one of
Speaker 1: my facts for today. And today, of course we're talking
Speaker 1: about TV spinoffs, and it's easy to think that this
Speaker 1: is a much more recent phenomenon, but we can actually
Speaker 1: look way back to like the nineteen fifties when a
Speaker 1: show like The Honeymooners would spin off from a variety
Speaker 1: series called Cavalcade of Stars. And this is really one
Speaker 1: of the first big sitcoms in America, So spinoffs are
Speaker 1: definitely not a new thing. But anywait where do you
Speaker 1: want to start? Well, I mean, why don't we talk
Speaker 1: about one of the most prolific spinoff machines in TV history,
Speaker 1: and that is Happy Days. A good start. You know,
Speaker 1: most people don't remember this, but Happy Days itself was
Speaker 1: weirdly a spinoff. It was from a show in late
Speaker 1: sixties and early seventies called Love American Style. So during
Speaker 1: the run of that show, the TV producer Gary Marshall
Speaker 1: had this idea for a sitcom about teenagers in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, and he made a pilot. He shopped it around,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately no one was biting, so he ended up
Speaker 1: selling the rights to the pilot to be an episode
Speaker 1: on Love American Style. And actually two big things happened here.
Speaker 1: First off, George Lucas saw Ron Howard in this pilot
Speaker 1: and he asked him to be in his film American Graffiti.
Speaker 1: And then ABC executives took notice. And you know, when
Speaker 1: when you fast forward a couple of years with American Graffiti,
Speaker 1: the musical Greece had come out, and like those both
Speaker 1: being such big hits, like it was clear that fifties
Speaker 1: nostalgia was this super sellable thing. So they went back
Speaker 1: to Gary Marshall and they said about that pilot like
Speaker 1: we'd love to do it. Yeah. I mean it's weird
Speaker 1: to think how different TV history would have been of
Speaker 1: Happy Days had never been on the air, because, you know,
Speaker 1: as you had said before, so many shows spun off
Speaker 1: from it. I was actually looking at the list and
Speaker 1: I didn't even remember some of them. But there were
Speaker 1: at least five live action spinoffs and I think three
Speaker 1: cartoons series all that's spun off from Happy Days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy, but I know I was setting you up
Speaker 1: to talk about Morgan Mindy, but I do feel like
Speaker 1: we should mention the first and most successful of the
Speaker 1: Happy Days spinoffs. Oh, that would be Laverne and Shirley, right, exactly,
Speaker 1: Laverne and Shirley. So Laverne who was played by Henny
Speaker 1: Marshall and Shirley, who was played by Cindy Williams. They
Speaker 1: they both showed up in the season three of Happy
Speaker 1: Days as friends of the Fons, and uh, within just
Speaker 1: a year they actually had their own show. It was
Speaker 1: a spin off that was so successful that it hit
Speaker 1: the top of the charts and it often outperformed Happy
Speaker 1: Days during the run when both shows were on. It's
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. The show actually lasted eight years, But there
Speaker 1: was also a weird anime it spin off from that
Speaker 1: that most people don't remember. It's called Laverne and Shirley
Speaker 1: in the Army. Where as you might imagine the duo
Speaker 1: and listen to the military, they serve under the command
Speaker 1: of a talking pig named Sergeant Squeally. And shockingly, that
Speaker 1: show did not get a second season. That is so weird.
Speaker 1: But actually I don't know if it's weirder than Mork
Speaker 1: and Mindy and and thanks for the setup on this one.
Speaker 1: But you know, the history of this one is one
Speaker 1: that many people may not remember or even no And
Speaker 1: this can actually be traced back to the Dick Van
Speaker 1: Dyke Show. So in this one episode, Dick van Dyke's
Speaker 1: character is watch seeing a sci fi movie and he
Speaker 1: then dreams that this alien name Kolak I think it
Speaker 1: is is trying to take over the Earth with walnuts
Speaker 1: or something like that. And so here's where the Happy
Speaker 1: Days part comes in. So the director of that episode
Speaker 1: was a guy named Jerry Paris, who ended up directing
Speaker 1: several episodes of Happy Days years later. Well, one day
Speaker 1: he's on the set and Gary Marshall starts talking about
Speaker 1: his son and how he's obsessed with Star Wars and
Speaker 1: how he wishes there were more Aliens on TV. And
Speaker 1: so this makes Paris remember the whole Walnut Aliens thing
Speaker 1: and he decides to pitch a similar idea, and from
Speaker 1: that Mark from Orc was born. That's really crazy. I
Speaker 1: do feel like we could do a whole show on
Speaker 1: Happy Days spinoffs. But since we've only got nine facts here,
Speaker 1: I think we should talk about another one. So since
Speaker 1: I shared to the first off the that like, I
Speaker 1: feel like maybe you should take another stab of a
Speaker 1: fact here. Yeah, I think I'll go with another Powerhouse
Speaker 1: spinoff machine. And that's of course all in the Family. Now,
Speaker 1: this legendary series about the Bunker family actually lead to
Speaker 1: six spinoffs over its nine seasons, and a few of
Speaker 1: them were very successful. There's of course Maud and Good Times,
Speaker 1: and I thought about sharing some facts about that one,
Speaker 1: but you know, the biggest hit was obviously The Jefferson's,
Speaker 1: debuted in nineteen and of course focused on the former
Speaker 1: neighbors of the Bunkers, which were George and Louise Jefferson.
Speaker 1: So you know, I had definitely watched The Jeffersons a
Speaker 1: little bit when I was a kid, but I remember
Speaker 1: seeing Sherman Helmsley on David Letterman, and you know, he's
Speaker 1: the guy who played George Jefferson if if you're listening
Speaker 1: and weren't familiar with the show. But you know, what
Speaker 1: I didn't realize was it was on the air for
Speaker 1: a really long time, right like they were talking about
Speaker 1: it and and it was a stunning amount of time
Speaker 1: that that show continued. Yeah, it was actually on longer
Speaker 1: than the show that inspired it. It It was on for
Speaker 1: eleven seasons, two hundred and fifty three episodes. It's it's
Speaker 1: actually second only to Tyler Perry's House of Pain in
Speaker 1: terms of the longest running American sitcom TV shows that
Speaker 1: have a majority African American cast. So it was a
Speaker 1: pretty incredible run. And actually, interestingly, Sherman Helmsley's last acting
Speaker 1: job was on an episode of House of Pain. He
Speaker 1: appeared as George Jefferson on that episode. That's pretty cool. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I know we've talked a good bit about successful
Speaker 1: spinoffs of legendary shows, but there's actually one that I
Speaker 1: had totally forgotten about, or maybe I blocked it out
Speaker 1: because it was a colossal flop and that is Golden Palace.
Speaker 1: Golden I don't even know what that is. It's the
Speaker 1: follow up to Golden Girls, which you know, was one
Speaker 1: of my friend Adam's favorite shows. He loved all the
Speaker 1: ladies and I feel like he could give you words
Speaker 1: to live by from each of them. But if you remember,
Speaker 1: the show ended after seven seasons with the Arthur's character
Speaker 1: Dorothy getting married and moving to Atlanta. So uh. The
Speaker 1: spinoff apparently followed Rose Blanche and Sophia as they moved
Speaker 1: to Miami and then tried to run a really nice
Speaker 1: motel there. I guess the gimmick was that they invested
Speaker 1: in this place, they ended up having to get involved
Speaker 1: in the day to day work because things go wrong.
Speaker 1: And you know, as I mentioned earlier, the show was
Speaker 1: not a success. It only lasted one season. It's so
Speaker 1: weird because I have no memory of that. But I
Speaker 1: do feel like if you're going to talk about spinoffs
Speaker 1: from the Golden Girls, you do have to talk about
Speaker 1: the one successful spinoff from the show. I know, Empty
Speaker 1: Nest the best. Well, that show actually followed the lives
Speaker 1: of the girls neighbors and also ran seven seasons, and
Speaker 1: all of the Golden Girls appeared multiple times on the show.
Speaker 1: But here's something I had no memory of, and this
Speaker 1: goes back to Golden Palace, But that's that Don Cheatle
Speaker 1: was actually the manager of the hotel on that Golden
Speaker 1: Palace show. It's kind of a shame because he got
Speaker 1: type cast. He was later the hotel manager in uh
Speaker 1: Hotel Rwanda, which is totally different. Maybe was his training
Speaker 1: right to be ready for that one, I think so?
Speaker 1: But what what do you have next? Well, all right, well,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about a show whose creative team
Speaker 1: actually didn't intend for it to be a spinoff. And
Speaker 1: this one sounds weird when you hear about it because
Speaker 1: it's Frasier, which seems like such an obvious one, But
Speaker 1: in fact, this was one of the many things about
Speaker 1: Dr Frasier Crane that were not intended to be long term.
Speaker 1: So his first appearance was on Cheers and its third season,
Speaker 1: and he was really just meant to be this temporary character,
Speaker 1: but fans fell in love with him, and so by
Speaker 1: the fifth season he was pretty much a regular cast member.
Speaker 1: So you fast forward to the creative team working on
Speaker 1: a show concept for Kelsey Grammer to kind of do
Speaker 1: as his next project, and they were worried about the
Speaker 1: show always being compared to Cheers, and so they actually
Speaker 1: didn't want to make the show about Frasier for that reason,
Speaker 1: and instead they had this plan for him to play
Speaker 1: some sort of like magazine media mogul and he'd been
Speaker 1: paralyzed after some sort of accident. Yeah, it's a very
Speaker 1: different concept. But the studio wasn't having any of this idea,
Speaker 1: and they insisted that the show be a spin off.
Speaker 1: And you can actually still tell that this was scaring
Speaker 1: the creative team, so they did as much as I
Speaker 1: could to separate it. I mean, starting with moving the
Speaker 1: character all the way across the country to Seattle from Boston.
Speaker 1: But that said, most of the major cast members did
Speaker 1: appear on the show at some point during its eleven seasons. Well,
Speaker 1: Fraser was definitely one of the most successful spinoffs ever.
Speaker 1: But we've got two more facts to get to. Before
Speaker 1: we get to those, let's take a quick break. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Part Time Genius. We we're talking about TV spinoffs. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: what is your last fact of the day going to be?
Speaker 1: All Right? Well, I started with one animated series that
Speaker 1: made parents uncomfortable, and I think I'll end with another
Speaker 1: one that made them even more uncomfortable. And I've talked,
Speaker 1: of course about Beavis and butt Head, which I spent
Speaker 1: many middle school hours watching and thinking was just hilarious.
Speaker 1: And I actually never forget going to the movie that
Speaker 1: they eventually did, and and and just as the lights
Speaker 1: were getting darker after the previews kind of indicating the
Speaker 1: movie was about to start, it seemed like the entire
Speaker 1: crowd immediately went into their best Beavis and butt Had impressions.
Speaker 1: It was just a weird experience that sounds like incredible
Speaker 1: for the time and like a nightmare. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: exactly both of those. But what a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't remember is that Beavis and butt Head was actually
Speaker 1: a spin off in itself. So it came out of
Speaker 1: this anthology show called Liquid Television, which featured all these
Speaker 1: different animated segments, and he was also on MTV, and
Speaker 1: you know, it was by far the most successful creation
Speaker 1: to come from that series. So it was eventually spun
Speaker 1: off as its own thing, and it was such a
Speaker 1: stupid but you know, I have to say, wonderful show,
Speaker 1: running for eight seasons, But of course it spun off
Speaker 1: another show, Daria. Yeah, that's right. And you know, Daria
Speaker 1: actually wasn't part of the original Liquid television series. I
Speaker 1: mean she was actually added to Beavis and butt Head
Speaker 1: at the request of MTV, and this is because they
Speaker 1: wanted kind of more of a female presence on the show. So,
Speaker 1: as Mike Judge explained, he created a character that was
Speaker 1: kind of this mix of Darlene from Rosanne, which you
Speaker 1: can definitely see, but also a high school girlfriend of his.
Speaker 1: And and the name Daria came from someone he knew
Speaker 1: in high school, apparently somebody that he used to call diarrhea,
Speaker 1: which sounds about right when you think about and also
Speaker 1: a reminder of how horrible high school students can be.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's a mega what what's your last fact
Speaker 1: of the day. Well, I think I'm going to end
Speaker 1: the show with a show that wasn't really a spinoff,
Speaker 1: but could have been considered a spin off maybe for
Speaker 1: for like a weird and funny reason. And this is
Speaker 1: the relationship of The Office to Parks and Wreck. So
Speaker 1: if you go back to the peak of the Office
Speaker 1: is popularity. NBC asked the showrunner Greg Daniels and and
Speaker 1: the writer Michael Shure first some spinoff ideas, and they'd
Speaker 1: actually already been kind of hatching on this, Like at
Speaker 1: first there was the possibility of a show with Jim
Speaker 1: and Pam, but then of course they didn't want to
Speaker 1: take their two most popular characters off the show. And
Speaker 1: they also thought about Dwight and his family beat Farm,
Speaker 1: which I would have loved that show. They actually did
Speaker 1: make an episode about exactly about a few years later,
Speaker 1: but it never turned into a spinoff, but ultimately Daniels
Speaker 1: and Sure decided they would go and do just a
Speaker 1: totally different mockumentary. One thing I loved is that there
Speaker 1: was actually this idea of how to connect the two shows,
Speaker 1: and it was the idea of the writer Paul Leverston,
Speaker 1: who plays Um Toby on The Office. But here's how
Speaker 1: a TV Guide described it. Quote On the Office, a
Speaker 1: copy machine breaks and throughout the episode, wh repairman tries
Speaker 1: to fix it. At the end of the episode, the
Speaker 1: machine is loaded on a truck and refurbished in a warehouse.
Speaker 1: Then the copier is loaded onto another truck and taken
Speaker 1: to Pawnee, Indiana, where it's dropped off in the parks
Speaker 1: and Wreck office. So in a twist on spinoff traditions,
Speaker 1: the character spun off would have been the Coffee Machine,
Speaker 1: but producers briefly considered the idea of ultimately Parks and
Speaker 1: w rec was its own creation. That is hilarious. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why they wouldn't just go with this idea,
Speaker 1: but but I love that anyway. It takes a lot
Speaker 1: of guts to talk about a spinoff that's not really
Speaker 1: a spinoff and even close the show with a manga.
Speaker 1: So for just that bravery, I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: the trophy today. And I mean I know that we
Speaker 1: have a thing for coffee machines. Back in Mental floss
Speaker 1: or Machine was called Shyde because she was such a
Speaker 1: smooth operator. I'll happily grab the trophy this week. Anyway.
Speaker 1: There's so many great and weird spinoffs out there, from
Speaker 1: you know, the Perfect Strangers family Matters connection to the
Speaker 1: Mash follow up which was called Aftermash. But if you've
Speaker 1: got a terrible favorite spinoff, tell us all about a
Speaker 1: part time genius at how stuff works dot com. We'd
Speaker 1: love to talk about it. And from Kristan gave Will
Speaker 1: and me thank you so much for listening. Tre