Submitted by TruthOf42 t3_yz2pie in television
Either in terms of most consecutive spinoffs, or just in length of time, what show is at the end of longest chain of spinoffs?
Submitted by TruthOf42 t3_yz2pie in television
Either in terms of most consecutive spinoffs, or just in length of time, what show is at the end of longest chain of spinoffs?
Unless you consider The Simpsons a spin-off of The Tracey Ullman Show. 1987-present.
Well Futurama takes place from 1999-3014.
Technically due to "The Late Philip J. Fry", Futurama takes place across all of time, including the destruction and 10 ft higher recreation of the universe.
Not quite. There’s 2 entireties of the age of the universe on top of that.
Biggest timespan covered on the show sure. But we're talking years on the air.
Yeah I’m obviously joking.
Humor? On the Internet?! My friend, I believe you may have just invented a million dollar idea
Yeah, and every time you type a joke I want a dime.
Fair point.
General Hospital. Several spinoffs, 1963 to present.
Sunday morning political show Meet the Press and the daily MTP Daily/Meet the Press Now, 1947-present.
Ok joking on that one.
Length of time is going to be Doctor Who. It's been on for 60 years and has had a couple spin-offs. Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood, Class.
None of which have outlived their parent show, which only began in 2005 anyway.
The parent show started in the 60s. It took a break and brought back.
Two separate shows.
Classic Who was 26 seasons from 1963 to 1989.
The current show finished up season 13 a year or so back, and began in 2005. So maybe technically a spin off itself. But not the same show.
They didn't continue it with season 27 in '05, it was a new show.
It was specifically a continuation. They restarted numbering for foreign sales.
Same show. They have even had several of the doctors and companions from the intial run of the show make appearances.
And also they still do anniversary specials which are specifically referred to as the 50th/60th anniversary etc. and come out on the anniversary of the original show in 1963, not the revival in 2005. :)
For purposes of this discussion, I think it counts as a separate show.
How does that work when it is a single continuity? The fifth Doctor on the classic show is still the fifth Doctor.
Its a continuation they just decided to start the season at 1 again.
Star Trek Picard is a direct spin-off of Star Trek The Next Generation
So is DS9 if you wanna get technical since Sisko in the opening of the DS9 pilot is coming from the battle in Best of Both Worlds (Battle of Wolf-359) and Chief O’Brien leaves the Enterprise for DS9
And Voyager's first episode has a lot of scenes on DS9
true (its really just 1 scene) but its not really spun off of anything from ds9
It's a direct result of a fight with the Maquis, who were a central plot point of DS9. So it's a really indirect spinoff.
Frasiers comming back too
Are we including The Tortellis as a spin-off here, or would that be shared universe like Wings?
You could, but in terms of continuous broadcast the Cheersiverse only lasted 22 years either way.
Ah yes.
Well, 22 years so far. I think we can at least expect 1 more season / year with the Frasier reboot.
Great point, thanks.
JAG, 1995-2005 (225 episodes)
NCIS (2003-20??) (Currently 445 episodes) had a backdoor pilot in season 8 of JAG)
NCIS Los Angeles (2009-20??) (Currently 313 episodes ) had a backdoor pilot in season season 6 of NCIS)
Don't forget about the other NCIS spin-offs...
They all had back door pilots on NCIS so they don't add to what the OP wanted to know.
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Love American Style spun off Happy Days, which spun off Laverne and Shirley, which spun off a cartoon version called Laverne and Shirley in the Army.
Golden Girls spun off Empty Nest, which spun off Nurses.
All in the Family spun off Maude which spun off Good Times.
But longest time, how long has Law and Order and L&O SVU been? Seems like forever.
Wasn’t there a Joanie loves ChaChi?
also mork and mindy, neither of which spun anything off to make a longer chain.
All in the Family had a ton more as well.
Yes. There was also Blansky’s Beauties.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blansky%27s_Beauties
So:
I could’ve sworn they renamed Laverne and Shirley in the final season when Shirley left (to something like “Laverne and Friends). But I can’t find anything online to prove it.
You missed the short lived "Out of the Blue".
And Blansky's Beauties.
Jeffersons spun off of All in the Family too!!!
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Didn’t All In The Family have like 7 different spin offs?
Happy Days has a handful too.
I meant consecutive spinoffs, for instance, Happy Days spun off Mork & Mindy, but I don't think anything spun off of that, so that chain is only 2 long
All in the Family spun off Maude, which spun off Good Times.
All in the Family spun off the Jeffersons, which spun off Checking In.
Longest spread between spin-offs:
...there was a spinoff about Tabitha?
It wasn't very good, sadly.
It had Lisa Hartman Black as Tabitha. I remember she had a VW Beetle convertible.
I was 6 or 7 and really excited for this since I watched Bewitched daily. I honestly remember being aware it wasn’t good.
All in the Family was a remake of Til Death Do Us Part.
Happy days was a spin-off itself from love American style
The pilot for Happy Days was used in Love American Style although it wasnt filmed specifically for that show
Happy Days also spun off Laverne & Shirley though
Star Trek?
I thought about that, but those are more cross overs than anything else: Sisko never appeared in TNG, but Picard appeared in the first episode of DS9
Everything Star Trek (shows, movies, books, comics) are all spin-offs from the original show from the 1960’s.
That's a very loose definition of spin-off. They all exist, mostly, in the same universe, but I don't recall any star Trek show that began as a character or episode from another show.
Strange New Worlds started with Pike, Spock, and Number One being in season 2 of Discovery before getting their own show.
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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine includes Miles O'Brien on the main cast from the beginning, who was a recurring from TNG, Worf who was also from TNG becomes a main on DS9 from Season 4 onwards.
Star Trek Picard stars Patrick Stewart as Picard from TNG.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds stars Pike, Spock and Una/ Number One who were in TOS from 1966 and then Pike was a main cast member in Discovery Season 2 which Strange New Worlds is an indisputable spin-off of.
My guess is you haven't watched much Star Trek.
Strange new worlds definitely counts. Though I think it would be called more of a crossover.
But DS9 is totally not a spin-off even if it contains some of the same characters. It's in the same universe, but it wasn't like TNG existed and then they took those characters and spun them off into their own show. TNG ended and DS9 was always going to happen, without or without those characters. Otherwise every star Trek is just a spin-off of some other one
I feel like you're really changing the definitions of these things to fit what you want them to fit. Strange New Worlds absolutely would not be called more of a crossover than a spin-off. Strange New Worlds only happened after how much people loved how the three characters were used on Discovery.
DS9 wouldn't have happened without TNG, Miles and Worf wouldn't have been on another show without TNG. The beginning of DS9 is literally dealing with storylines and character arcs established from TNG. A crossover is when you combine two things that already exist, when one show is created directly because of a prior show it's a spin-off.
TNG's pilot episode features DeForest Kelley reprising his role as Leonard McCoy.
Miles O'Brien was a recurring TNG character that became a main DS9 character, then Worf moved from TNG to DS9.
Ro Laren was also planned to be a main character of DS9 but the actress didn't want a permanent TV role. They also tried again with Voyager, but she refused again.
On top of that Strange New Worlds is definitely a spin off of the original pilot for The Original Series.
> Sisko never appeared in TNG,
Dr Bashir did though
All in the Family & its 7 spinoffs have a combined total of 30 years
All in the Family (1971-79)
ETA : forgot 704 Hauser
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Munch#Continuity
The character of Munch has appeared in a total of ten series on five networks since the character's debut in 1993. Apart from Homicide and SVU, however, Belzer's performances as Munch were guest appearances or crossovers rather than regular or recurring appearances. With Munch's retirement in the character's 22nd season on television, he was a regular character on U.S. television longer than Marshal Matt Dillon (Gunsmoke) and Frasier Crane (Cheers and Frasier), both of whom were on television for 20 seasons; he is only behind Mariska Hargitay's character Olivia Benson. Munch's return to help his friends in the SVU seventeenth-season episode "Fashionable Crimes" marks the 23rd season that the character has appeared on television in any capacity.
It's a stretch (and I mean a real stretch), but Batman the Animated Series to Justice League to Justice League Unlimited?
Don’t forget Batman Beyond, Superman: TAS, and Static Shock.
Eh, those aren't a chain of spin-offs though, like the OP was asking about.
BTAS led to Superman: The Animated Series which led to Justice League.
Problem is that BTAS has a really loose continuity especially early on. For example Robin was originally an adult but was later a child (I believe these were both supposed to be Dick Grayson).
>(I believe these were both supposed to be Dick Grayson).
You believe wrong. Dick Grayson/Robin in BTAS was a university student, and remained that way through the whole series. In the new animated adventures, Dick Grayson had moved to Bludhaven as Nightwing and Tim Drake took over as Robin.
Technically speaking, Batman Beyond led to Justice League, as the appearance of the JLU in Beyond is what started to drum up interest in doing a proper JL series.
Also led to Zeta Project.
Cheers-Fraiser '82- '04?
Everything is a spinoff of St Elsewhere
Law and Order would be a pretty king continuous chain.
All in the a family for spin-offs imo
Happy Days may be close
I think the answer might be The Surreal Life. It had three direct spin-offs, and one of the spin-offs (Strange Love) got spun into Flavor of Love which had three spin-offs of its own. Two of those spin-offs (I Love New York and Charm School) have like six combined spin-offs and I’m pretty sure some of those spin-offs have spin-offs as well. You would need a huge diagram to show everything that came from the Surreal Life. I’m not even entirely sure how deep the rabbit hole goes.
There’s even a new reboot of The Surreal Life airing on VH1 right now.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show -> Rhoda -> Phyllis -> Lou Grant
A solid chain of 4, 5 if you count the reboot of the main show at the end.
CSI
Law & Order
Criminal Minds
The Walking Dead
NCIS
Star Trek
StarGate
Poobala.com's Crossovers & Spinoffs Master Page website might help figure this out.
JAG began in the 90s, and we still have NCIS es.
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Star wars? Prequels, sequels, spin offs, spin offs of spin offs.
Doctor Who
All That > The Amanda show > Drake & Josh > ICarly > Sam and Kat/Victorious
Idk how everyone forgets about this one. Went strong for 20 years
Most of those aren't spin-offs, but just shows starring a breakout actor/actors from the previous show. The exception there is Sam & Cat is a spin-off of both iCarly and Victorious. The didn't make it past a pilot Gibby show would also have been a spin-off.
ElectricPeterTork t1_iwxsvz0 wrote
Length of time?
From the beginning of Cheers to the end of Frasier was 22 years.
If you're not counting the Treks and Law and Orders since none of them are true spin-offs as you identify them, just shared universes based on a single show, Cheers and Frasier probably wins that stat.