Spin-off's are a dime a dozen in TV. Whether it be taking an established character and putting them in their own show, or creating a character in an episode to sort of backdoor pilot a new show. Sometimes however a sitcom will be created that clearly shares a universe with another hit show, even created by the same talents, but IS NOT officially a spin-off. This goes all the way back to the Beverly Hillbillies/Green Acres/Petticoat Junction shared universe.
In order to be a spin-off at least one character has to be introduced in the first series. But once in awhile creators skip that with the new show and establish later on that the two series do in fact share a universe.
One I mentioned the other day was Wings, the show about an airport in Nantucket.
The NBC show was created by many of the same people who made Cheers, and there were several appearances by characters from that show. But it was not a spin-off in the literal sense even though it easily could have been. Heck they did it with the Tortelli's! Here are five more examples of what I mean:
King of Queens
This comes so close to being a spin-off but is not. Kevin James did appear on Raymond first, but his character was not Doug Heffernan. Heffernan first appeared on King of Queens which is clearly a spiritual spin-off in many ways. And the entire cast of Raymond appeared on Queens. The oddest part is when Kevin James appeared as Doug Heffernan on Raymond after Queens had been on awhile. What ever happened to that character James played beforehand?
Mad About You
This series was clearly being "Seinfeld for married people" when it first premiered. With its stories tightly focused on the little things that married people go thru that most TV shows never show. But no, it's not a spin-off even though Kramer did appear on one memorable episode.
Hello, Larry
This horrible McLean Stevenson sitcom aired for a couple years before it vanished. However while NBC was trying to keep it alive, they tried to force a connection between it and Diff'rent Strokes since they aired back to back. So in yet another wonderful retcon in the middle of both shows runs, suddenly the two main characters were old friends and the characters from both shows did crossovers with each other. It would have been easy to assume this was an official spin-off of that show, but nope they just shared a universe.
Nurses
Another not so great sitcom. This one about nurse's working in a hospital. However, while the series was clearly set in the same universe as Empty Nest and Golden Girls it was not a spin-off of either. There were a ton of crossovers however especially between Empty Nest. And no Empty Nest is an official spin-off because Harry Weston was first introduced in an episode of Golden Girls.
Out of the Blue
I notice that most of these shows were awful series, maybe that's why they were afraid to closely tie them to a hit one? This example is still being debated. Was this a crossover, or a straight up spin-off? The show is about an angel in training who is assigned to live with a suburban family. Yeah, that doesn't sound stupid at all. The main character of the series appeared on an episode of Happy Days where Chachi sells his soul or some nonsense. And the question is, was this a crossover to promote the new show or did they use Happy Days to backdoor pilot the new series? The confusion comes because the Happy Days episode aired after the new series premiered, but that doesn't mean it was intended to be that way. I think it was a crossover stunt because even in 1979 if ABC had wanted to have Happy Days introduce the character it would have. There was also a crossover with Mork & Mindy which makes me even more convinced it was NOT a spin-off it just shared a universe. The episode of Happy Days that aired before was a crossover with Laverne and Shirley oddly enough. And the plot of the series had nothing to do with the Happy Days episode. Also the Happy Days episode ends with it being a dream, so it's easy to say the network was just trying to give the actor and/or character some exposure without tying it to closely to Happy Days.
There are others like the Murphy Brown non spin-off "Love and War" which starred Jay Thomas. They clearly shared a universe (this was confirmed with an OJ related stunt) but I decided it didn't count since no characters ever interacted between the two shows. Also it would be easy to think that Friends spun off from Mad About You with Lisa Kurdrow's characters but no Ursula was not revealed to be Phoebe's sister until a few episodes in. Did I miss any others? Let me know.
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