Married With Children: Why the Spin-Offs Failed
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- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- "Married...with Children" made several attempts at spinoffs over its 11 season run. In episode #2 of "Behind the Backdoor Pilot," we take a look at "Top of the Heap," the backdoor pilot episode of "Married...with Children" that scored a short-lived FOX sitcom spinoff starring Matt LeBlanc. Plus, "Married...with Children"'s other failed spinoff attempts, a "Friends" knockoff featuring Alan Thicke and a college radio show comedy centered around Bud's girlfriend April (played by Keri Russell).
Narrated by Kevin Maher
Written by Nick Nadel, Kevin Maher and Mike Schuster
Edited by Mike Schuster
Produced by Nick Nadel and Kevin Maher
Executive Produced by Tim Finn
Thumbnail by Colton Ogburn ( / coltonogburn )
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US: The series latest only 7 episodes.
UK: The series had a surprisingly long run with more than 6 episodes.
😂☠️😆
I always wished psycho dad became a spin off 😞
Who's that riding in the sun?
Well, even though they didn’t spin off psycho dad they did add psycho mom to the Bundy tv lineup. “She’s the gal that needs no man, killed him dead with a fryin pan.”
"Killed his wife 'cause she weighed a ton... Psycho Dad!!"
Damn it, now I have psycho dad tune in my head.
@@matoatlantis Relive it: czcams.com/video/y3EMb59qDSI/video.html
in another dimension the spin-offs got picked up and LeBlanc never got casted on Friends
In Another universe, Living Single- was allowed to bloom and blossom, effectively influencing and empowering MILLIONS of Black People throughout the Country- nah, that's just for white folks
@@mezzb Seinfeld's no different
Sure Dreyfus, The Heiress- has been successful to a degree, but that's about it
Nothing will ever be as good as the original Married with Children.
It's funny how un successful I thought al was growing up. Now I'm in my 30s.
He had a Plymouth duster, 2 story how in a nicer part of Chicago. I don't see the loss
Unhappily ever after was closest
Fluffy the cat is the best part about this spin off. Such a great cat actor that all cats and human actors strive to be.
Joey's friend Eugene from the sopranos should have called it a life at that point
That cat was more talented than all of the spin off characters.
Yup.😄
Matt LeBlank is incredible. Watch the TV series, “Episodes”. He’s amazing in it. He’s not the director or the writer. Bad characters and acting are on them.
And, watching the clips so far, his performance is actually really good. So...
He's so terrible, that you never took the time to learn his name- it's Leblanc @@conservativeguitarsingerjs7937
You subscribe to Dinesh D'Souza of all people, your credibility is non-existent@@conservativeguitarsingerjs7937 tell me who's The President right now?
Married with children. Was a one of a kind show. Also helped fox get off the ground.
Why. Do. You. Type like this. You absolute psycho.
I just realized that Matt LeBlanc has been spinning off his whole career, until he ended up playing himself, and that it was longer and more successful career than I knew.
I've watched the entire run of Married with Children a few times and I always dread the backdoor pilot episodes. It's fun seeing pre-Joey Matt and pre-Felicity Keri, though.
"Backdoor pilot" always makes me giggle.
I wonder if Fox Force Five (from Pulp Fiction) was a backdoor pilot.
@@fromthehaven94 it was kill bill
I vividly remember Top of the Heap! I told everyone about it back when "Friends" first aired. Especially my family said it never happened because "Friends" was his very first TV show.
Matt LeBlanc was on Married With Children earlier as one of Kelly's boyfriends. Al famously smacks him against the doorjamb as he kicks him out.
He was also in the cast of a short-lived CBS show called TV 101.
Top of the Heap straight up looks like something Joey the character would've done at some point
He was also in heavily rotation ads for Cherry 7up, Coke, and Heinz ketchup.
@@lushkitty734 Yes, I remember him in that classic Heinz Ketchup commercial!🤗📺😎📼
I have a total new respect for 'Married with Children' now. 😄
The guy who plays Al Bundy is one of the best actors TV has ever seen.
@@themaharishi8160 he should have a MODERN FAMILY
Instead of backdoor pilots, I would have just given Griff his own show when Married With Children went off the air.
Yes I actually would have watched that cause his character was so funny on MWC.
Early 90’s fox: “we need to appeal to the younger generation! Make all the set walls dirty. REALLY dirty!”
Well, it worked. :)
I liked Top of the Heap. I instantly remembered LeBlanc because of that show when I saw him in friends.
What's really funny is that Christina Applegate won an Emmy on Friends.
Wtf did you say
@@TEAMGETHELP it's 100% true.
@@TEAMGETHELP what are you confused about? She played Rachel’s sister.
What a travesty that they ignored an actually funny show like this and awarded such an unbearable piece of shit. The hacks who ripped it off from *Living Single* gave her a show and it was awful.
And don’t get me started on how NBC has done Jonathan Silverman dirty.
thats a great Friends episode
There were 3 spinoff attempts on MWC, and they are easily the 3 worst episodes of the series. I literally fell asleep in the episode with Matt LeBlanc.
Because the characters were created with the sole purpose of being spun off and that NEVER works. You need to spin off already well established characters on a popular show.
@@MrParkerman6 right these backdoors pilots really only function as cheap promotion for producers to make other shows that were probably already laughed out of network pitch meetings and for good reason.
Spin-offs only work really when secondary characters get their own show. For instance, Marcie and Jefferson. This will give us, the audience, to get used to the characters and their personalities. You cannot get a character that was in one episode and push it off as a spin-off. It will fail.
That's what Melrose Place was. One character from 90210, and then spun off into Melrose Place.
Or the ropers from three's company
@@lilamontoya5609 A great show indeed but it didn't last long enough to be considered a success.
NCIS from JAG
@@lilamontoya5609 3 a Crowd wit Jack
This would have been bad but psycho dad needed it's own show.
RIP Alan Thicke, hilarious AF Dad until the end
Unhappily Ever after was a good show from the creators of Married with Children.
It was terrible, and a blatant ripoff.
@@bossfan49 Agreed. They just reversed the characters. Now the boy is dumb, and the girl is smart. The only talented actor on that show was Justin Berfield who went on to play Reese in Malcolm In The Middle. He was also in a show with Drew Carey, called The Good Life. It was a funny show, but didn't last long.
@@JoeR203 I liked the actors, just a terrible, obvious show. Stephanie Hodge and Nikki Cox were both hot. I liked Kevin Connoly in the film John Q, then he went on as a regular in Entourage.
@@bossfan49 it's wild how bobcat finally achieved stardom, but it was from a degenerate, talking stuffed bunny
I remember watching that spinoff Too Of The Heap, i cut off after Joey Lauren Adams left her scene.
Great video. Well produced with great content, timing, flow, etc. Keep at it and I'm sure you'll see lots more subscribers soon!
What I learned is Matt LeBlanc can only play one character!!!!! lol
Have you ever seen Episodes? It's brillant, and Matt LeBlanc is really good in it. To be fair, he does play Matt LeBlanc, but still good.
It all worked out for the best because Matt ended up where he belonged
He's terrible.
Then you should watch more than 3 shows where the directors and writers want him to play Joey. So no lol you don’t know what you’re talking about. Go watch Epsidoes. He’s awesome.
@@jkhoover he plays Matt Leblanc, not Joey but I agree with you. People are just stupid about film and writing. I would t be insulting but if they insulting him, they are equally open to insults, especially if they’re objectively wrong
There is russian version of it exist. It's called "Happy together" (Счастливы вместе). And it's legendary here even today
Yeah there was also a german version :) But it only lastes one or two seasons.
With Кери Руссел from "The Americans"? :D
watching this i remember it but if you would have asked me on the street about married to children spinoffs i would have been like "what are you on? it never happened"
"married to children" lol, that's a spin off I dont wanna see XD
I always thought that "Home Improvement" and "Unhappily Ever After", while not spin-offs, were significantly influenced by "Married With Children", in terms of their dialogue, and the personalities of their characters.
I wish unhappily ever after didnt get cancelled. That show was hilarious
HEA was almost a direct copy of MWC. Home Imp was not at all influenced by MWC. It was based on Tim Allens stand up comedy. No similarities to MWC.
UEA definitely was. They even mention it in a post credits scene on UEA. Still, it did well enough on the WB to last a few seasons.
HI was IMO a much more traditional sitcom that had a heart and was just a really good 90s style sitcom. I never saw much of a similarity. MWC was a non animated Simpsons before The Simpsons, lampooning all the super sappy 80s sitcoms.
Married intoduced it@@acca5512 but unhappily normalized grown "men" hooting and hollering when an underaged girl appeared on screen (Nikki Cox)
Unhappily ever after most definitely.doem.tonthe foxy sister but unhappily was smarter to me cause if the dad's relationship to the bobcat goldthwatt chracter
FYI: CTV has Top of The Heap and Vinnie & Bobby under their Throwback section; VPN (or if you live in Canada) you can watch the show in the best quality it'll probably ever be seen (Unless Sony decides to license it over to some DVD company)
Shout! Factory doesn’t do TV box sets anymore, just slasher pics and Kurt Russell movies. The problem is not always a lack of demand, but often heavy music rights fees and licensors who keep wanting more money each season independently of sales. That’s why so many of the shows they licensed from Fox were left hanging, and now that Disney owns them, you can forget about them getting finished.
The days when you could fart out practically any old thing on DVD and eventually recoup production costs are over. Many people got tired of dirty looks from Best Buy clerks while they look for the most recent release of a show they’re never heard of.
6:08 Interesting if that was their logic. Leblanc and Perry each had sitcoms where Fox reformatted a shaky sitcom premise around unlikable characters. For both, the trick to career survival was to get away from Fox.
Or that fox had found success as both played almost exactly same characters as they did on early friends, wardrobe and manerisns
And they took the premise for *Living Single* with them on the way out.
It seems that any spin off Matt Le Blanc stars in; fails.
"Knock of of Friends"
FRIENDS was actually a brilliant knock off of Living Single....
Yes! Excellent point.
Yes. Tell that to David Zimmerman.
No it wasn't. Living Single was originally featured around 4 women, with Khadijah being the center. Khadijah's apartment, Kadijah's magazine. Overton and Kyle were supporting roles for whatever story line the women had. It wasn't until the show got established that the two male characters developed equal story lines. Friends on the other hand was about 6 friends that all seemed to have pretty equal story lines. There wasn't really a lead actor or actress on Friends.
@@alexh8613 Several months ago, David Zimmerman supposedly said that he wished there would be a black version of Friends. An article was written in response saying that Friends was the white version of Living Single and that the creator got the idea from that show.
Friends apparently was orginally about Ross and his Friends; the producers decided to make them equal characters. Ross did supposedly have more lines than anyone else with Rachel in close second. Phoebe had the fewest. Ross also had more screen appearances than the rest and more than Chandler and Joey combined.
Look up the article.
@@amariah1980 David Zimmerman said that if he could watch any show on TV, it would be Living Single. I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that Living Single was about 4 single women in their 20's, living in New York City. Up until later on, the male aspect of Overton and Kyle were just supporting roles to the 4 women's story lines. While Friends showed both the male and female characters as major story line roles. I mean if we want to go who did the group dynamic first, there were plenty of shows before both Friends and Living Single that did this. Seinfeld was a group of friends that hung out at Jerry's apartment and at a diner. Cheers was a bunch of friends that hung out at a bar.
Underrated Channel. I hope you get more recognition. Keep up the Good work
i remember all this as a i kid. it was like "wtf is happening?" checking every channel with the TV guide on my lap making sure it was the right day/time. damn i hated those episodes.
Yeah me too. I hate does episodes
Agreed. I tuned in to watch my favorite show, and instead had some show that sucked forced on me. I have the complete MWC on DVD, and I always skip those episodes.
that enemies episode was horrible . didn't even know it was tryna be a back door spin off lol
Me too! I was like “am I watching the right show?” I caught MWC during the reruns and had no idea this happened.
Yeah. RIP OFF!!! Rage quit.
Didnt even know there was a SECOND spin-off attempt !!!
Shows how good it was, huh?
Imagine taking that many chances on less-than-mediocre "talent" to play dumb, look cute, and say howYOUdoin🥴 that Man made a Life for himself though
At least you can’t blame Rita Moreno for it failing. The TV version of *9 to 5* was shaping up to be a success when she was in it until ABC meddled with it and got it canceled. Then in syndication, they replaced her with Sally Struthers, who went from that to pitching TV/VCR repair degrees in commercials.
Meanwhile, David Faustino actually is Italian, and when was the last time you saw him in anything?
Did you know he was very briefly the voice of Cavin on *The Gummi Bears?*
holy crap - nicole eggert. wow. what a pull.
Charles in charge is in charge of me. Wasn’t that Nichole’s line? Pretty sure Scott Baio in real life was hooked up with her
@@kma5699 Yea he actually took her virginity. She's mentioned that in articles.
I just came across your channel today and I sure am glad I did!
3:44
Comedian John Pinette....funny guy.
RIP
(Ha- Alan Thicke, too.
RIP, too)
There were at least two attempted back door spin-offs of The Dukes If Hazard. One had two girls in a Trams Am with a guy in an RV. The other one was about a Texas Ranger that carried a broken gun.
What are those called
@@chrischar9428 Enos and it lasted18 episodes on CBS. Plus the animated version called The Dukes which had Coy and Vance in season 1 and then in season two had Bo and Luke LOL!🤗🙏👏📺
@@SuperMarioBrosIII yes those are spinoff. Back door pilots are not
Being a big fan of Married with Children, I actually liked the retooled Top of the Heap show, Vinnie & Bobby. I thought the banter between Vinnie and Bobby was better than the chemistry between Vinnie and his dad Charlie. Matt LeBlanc was definitely in his proto-stage to become Joey Tribbiani from Friends. I also knew about there attempt to make another spin off featuring Bud’s College Radio Friends but I don’t remember the last and final spin off featuring the Bundy’s mailman. It’s crazy to think that Fox was desperate to expand the Bundy-verse and not one of the spin offs managed to take hold. This was a very entertaining and informative video. I’m definitely going to check your other content. Cheers!
There was also an attempted spin off called "enemys". The episode with Nicole Eggart.
Who else were they going to give a spin-off to? Gary, the owner of the shoe store? Griff, Al’s coworker and fellow NO MA’AM charter member? David Garrison wanted to go back to the theatre, so a show about Steve without Marcy was out of the question. All of Kelly’s gentlemen callers run together in my mind. They went from heavy metal-types to grunge-types over time.
Fox had a 'Friends' knock-off called Partners starring John Cryer.
Damn
Wow I had totally forgot about that show. So many short lived shows.
Hope you do more like this.
Did they actually expect those fake friends to work ? Desperate.
I think it was a good attempt to try and spin off Married with Children. If FOX really wanted to take Married with Children why not try the idea of having characters from other TV shows make a very rare appearance. I would love to see what would happen if Al Bundy met Martin Payne!!!!
I lived in North Hollywood in the late 80's and early 90's and I remember how FOX was THE channel to watch. I watched every episode of Married with Children, but I also watched The Simpsons, Cops, America's Most Wanted, 21 Jump Street, Melrose Place, Beverly HIlls 90210 and In Living Color. All of those shows were on FOX, and they were simply the best entertainment out there.
So, I'm guessing that's what I saw. I saw one episode that looked like MWC, being that Kelly Bundy was there, but she was barely there.
This video was made so well I thought it have millions of subs
Thanks for watching!
Great video. Would love to see more.
Thank you. Our next episode comes out tomorrow. Subscribe and you won't miss the next videos.
@@atomicabe there was another version of married with children in England. It was called ‘til death do us part I believe you can look that one up.
I remember rooting for Radio Free Trumaine to get picked up. I guess you can't have it all. This was an awesome trip down memory lane... Thanks!
A show about a college radio station could have worked. I guess Columbia Pictures television didn’t want to commit to both it and *NewsRadio.* I never cared for that show, and if Phil Hartman had never made it, his wife never would’ve met Andy Dick and never would’ve gotten hooked on drugs, and killed him and herself.
I’d rather have had this.
That was well put together, thanks for that 😊
That's a fact, it's dope how he's digging-in-the-crates for lost "treasures"
I’m learning about all these failed spin offs from this channel
They had the right idea with LeBlanc. He just needed five more friends.
You absolutely need to do a deep dive into all of the Friends knockoffs in the mid 90s. Partners, The Single Guy, It's Like You Know, 2 guys a girl and a Pizza Place, etc.
Ripoffs of a ripoff. That era was rock bottom for TV as far as I’m concerned. If you didn’t get cable or have a VCR and/or laserdisc player, you were basically screwed in terms of palatable entertainment.
I still say the funniest show of the 90s with the word “friends” in its name also has the words “Garfield and” before it.
this unlocked some memories I forgot all about
Good, interesting facts! Thanks for posting!
Whats so funny about them making jokes about the "friends" knock offs, while doing a backdoor pilot for a "friends" knock off, is the fact that even "friends" itself is a knock off "Living Single." XD
Phill Lewis was the best part of the Enemies episode by a mile.
Rita Morena also did a backdoor pilot for The Golden Girls, and that stunk too
But that backdoor pilot was retooled and became Empty Nest.
That's right! Check out our episode on the Empty Nest backdoor pilot with Rita Moreno. Thanks for watching! czcams.com/video/uqB5_tBfUnE/video.html
Rita Moreno's career is a testament to this Country's Patriarchy, with racist and sexist systems in place to keep Otherworldly Talent like hers, relegated to gimmicky roles.
@@good03boy if I find out anyone's talk negatively about Empty Nest🤬 I used to watch that on an old blackandwhite tv lol
You should do a show about spin offs that ended up being better than the show from which they were spun. #justIdeas
How much spin could a spinoff spin, if a spinoff could spin spinoffs? Spincityception starring Mike Fox, *coming next year*
That like just a video about Fraiser
@@youknowwhoyouare2269 Wait until you find out there's a spinoff of a spinoff of All in the Family which is apparently a US remake of a Britcom.
This is a good series. Have you done the weird Stranger Things backdoor spinoff from season 2?
I feel like there was no way to spin off married with children
psycho dad, it'd been hilarious!
@@Breedo for sure
sounds like they should have just made a Marcy and Jefferson/steve spinoff since those are the only side characters people cared about
I cared about Bob Rooney
that would have been incredible
Season 5 of Married with Children was an interesting period they knew they were bringing Jefferson in as well as developing Top of the Heap. So it would have been better to have Vinnie be a recurring character throughout that season before setting him off on his own.
As for Radio Free Trumaine this needed some tweaking as they had some good ideas there but some bad ones as well. At this point Season 9 was wrapping up and the creators didn't know how much gas was left in the tank for the Bundy family.
So here's my pitch for a spin-off the show call it "Life with Bud", Bud is now the lead, Marcy's niece Amber is his on again off again girlfriend (Bud had reached a point where the dateless thing was wearing thin so why not mix up his character a bit and show him as someone who can get the girl) and two new characters Bud's roommate and Amber's roommate in the dorms. Then add in Steve as the Dean / Bud's mentor and you have the foundations of a real spin-off going with 2 major MWC characters and recurring one.
Unfortunately this would remove Bud from the final 2 seasons of MWC as a main character during that time. But, the two shows could have had a lot of crossover anyway with him popping in every now and with The Bundys and The D'Arcys popping in on his show.
This was the only real spin-off idea that could work as you need a real supporting character to spin-off not someone who was a one time appearance.
On a final note yes, MWC ended in a really stupid way when they should have got a 12th and final season (which was the plan with Leavitt and Moye coming back). But if they went with this spin-off route it may have granted The Bundy's and The D'Arcy's to have real closure when their show was unceremoniously cancelled for stupid reasons.
It felt like Teri Russell was everywhere in the late 90’s up to and including Felicity (when she finally lands a series).
Ed O'Neil was in "Wayne's World" and this show(at least, I haven't looked into it that much)
This spin off actually sounds awesome. Unfortunate it didn’t happen... great concept and casting......
I like that they introduced Charlie and Vinnie in the previous episode "Oldies But Young'uns" (where Al is definitely trying to remember the song "Anna.") They actually work far better as supporting characters than as leads. I think the "Top of the Heap" scenes at the swanky party could have been rewritten for Al and Bud and been 100x better. "Enemies" is perhaps the worst episode of the series though...
Never heard of these shows, except of course Married with Children.
Ooooof I remember this. That back door pilot (with Matt Leblanc) was ATROCIOUS.
I didn't remember the last one... thank God! I liked the radio one when it aired but as a episode of MwC. I can't see that working as a sitcom.
The crazy thing is that Joey Lauren Adams is only one year younger than Matt LeBlanc.
A spinoff based on a loose side character failed? I'm totally surprised.
Remember the spinoff of Perfect Strangers based off the elevator operator chick? What a failure that was....... (sarcasm to acknowledge that taking a risk like this can easily become a hit bigger than the original).
Empty Nest paid off for The Golden Girls too, well once they revamped it and took out Rita Morena and that husband.
Don't forget the show that was a carbon copy of Married with Children.....Unhappily Ever After
Is that one with the puppet bunny thing?
@@greysky1252 yup that's the one
@@coreykindle5892 Ron Leavitt was so in love with the idea he essentially did it twice
Been so many back door pilot's in the last few years
Matt Le Blanc isn't really lucky with spin-offs😣
Yeah.
still its cool they exist
made millions with Friends
Episodes.
@@tom-dr1ym Ofc he did and still making from royalties! But surely they wanted to be known for some of their other works too.
This show was also described by my family as a Second Coming of the Addams family.
Down the rabbit hole I go!!!
Lol I do remember all of those episodes that you mentioned.
You can play that game for ever. Going all the way back to plays in Greek times.
I always wondered what was up with the Trumaine College episode. Now Never knew it was supposed to be a spinoff.
"Enemies" was just part of Fox's not at all subtle reminder that NBC usually puts all their eggs in one basket (show) to flagship their highest ratings night. "Friends" was a detestable series that could only have been a hit in the 1990s. Ironically, people see it as more "problematic" than MWC.. with is delicious irony...
Joey Lorne Addams.... chasing Amy!
I remember a two part episode of Married With Children's 2nd season that was a backdoor pilot about a vacation motel in a creepy small town known for unsolved murders by a serial killer.
When I heard that "retasted my last meal" line, I was hooked.
The legit spin-off of Married With Children was "Unhappily Ever After" which wasnt a bad show. They had the talent and the looks. I watched several episodes of UEA
@M N
The vibes, the camera angles, the attitude, the setting- family of four in a house.
It was easier to spot back then, after watching years of MWC and UEA popping up around 1996 you could totally tell. It was almost like WCW vs WWF. In fact I think there were jabs thrown from UEA to MWC
Was that the one with the bunny in the basement?
@@Lost_n_Found_1
You score a point, that's the same show "UEA"
@@delljr2769 Yeah, I remember binge watching that show back during syndication, that classic bobcat voice.
@@Lost_n_Found_1
When you discovered that "UEA" show did you see flashes of "MWC"
2:45 lol even poorer man's al bundy. Hilarious
Immediate sub. More content like this dude
Thanks for watching!
you can't reproduce MWC. It was a such a hit because it was ground breaking.
Holy nostalgia nugget unlocked! For some reason i remember that Top of Heap show and i was instantly transported to the late 80s
I watched Top/Heap AND Vinni/Bobby and loved every minute of both 😂…of course I wasn’t 14 yet
it will be cool to see how the bundys live during the covid 19 quarantine
Vinnie 'n Bobby both hunks sooo ITALIANO DEVILISHLY HANDSOME
There is a local channel that plays Married with Children episodes. I saw the Enemies episode and was so confused lol.
This is basically joey gotta acting job before days of our lives as dr ramon
Dr drake ramorey
I loved all the back door pilot episodes and watched and enjoyed all the short lived series. I guess im a unicorn.
The evil Dad from Euphoria looked such a kid in Tremaine University!
Griff was the only logical spinoff...
I like these episodes.
Fox had standards? 🤣
Ha! Very true.
McSteamy (Eric Dane) at 3.53!😁
Good brought me back lol
Lions,and tigers,and Joey lauren Adams, oh my.robp
Dear Mr Abe
I just found your channel, and i think it is truely value and unique. Your content is interesting and your performance too.
Keep up the good work. You earnd yourself another subscriber.
Greetings from europe