Short-lived Sitcom Showcase

I'd like to lead off with a disclaimer today that I am in fact productive, and get a decent volume of work done at my job. Today I finalized two book jackets, created six flyers, designed an envelope, and implemented final corrections on a 24 page catalog. That being said, I spent about two hours this morning in an e-mail discussion with coworkers about sitcoms.

Sometimes I get too caught up in personal conversations at work. I used to get annoyed with my neighbor in my old cubicle for constantly talking to family members, but I probably talk just as much if not more when I should be working. E-mail is just a LOT quieter. It doesn't impact on my work too much. I rarely get done at 5, but then I rarely get in at 9. Even if I was done by 5 I'd have to kill some time before going down to the gym. The later I go the less crowded it is, and the less fit people there are to snicker at my attempts to get in shape. As long as I get out of the building by 7-7:30 and get home in time for dinner and prime-time, I'm happy. Sometimes I get burned out with my work too, and things take longer than they should. An e-mail from a friend is a welcome mental diversion, and sometimes clears my head. I've had entirely unproductive days where I've buckled down at 4 PM and gotten more done in an hour or two than I had all day, because my mind was clear. I could go on justifying my erroneous ways, but two paragraphs is more than enough of a tangent for one evening.

Curt posed an interesting question to his co-workers this morning: “Besides All in the Family, which spawned Maude which in turn spun off Good Times, how many other shows have second generation spinoffs?” It was a great question, and one open to debate, especially about whether or not the Star Trek franchise counted by Curt's definition. I also learned a lot. I've seen reruns of All in the Family and of Good Times. I've never seen Maude and only heard of it years later, and definitely didn't know Good Times was a spin-off. In all fairness though, I wasn't even born when any of these shows first premiered. I have to give Rey a lot of credit for remembering a particularly short-lived spin off of The Jeffersons, Checking In. The show only lasted four episodes and Rey may have been thinking of 227, but it fit what Curt was looking for, nonetheless. Ultimately, I found a chart breaking down the various spinoffs, and was able to do all that real work I spoke of earlier. It did have me thinking about some of the more short-lived shows that I remember though:

The Good Life was offbeat, quirky and different, and while the family aspect of the show was somewhat standard, the real humor came from the father and his interactions with his employees at his lock factory, most notably Drew Carey. Monty Hoffman's one-liners which always were structured “Who are you, ____ _____?” with the blanks varying were pretty funny. Drew's character as I recall was popular with the ladies and I remember him explaining the presence of a beautiful girl on his arm to his friends: “She likes me because I look like a professional bowler.” The show only lasted 13 episodes, but a year later the best part of the show had his own series, which would fare much better.

The Golden Palace is an inexplicable Golden Girls spinoff which I didn't even recall until coming across it today. The show was on a different network, lasted for one season, and lacked Bea Arthur. That didn't bother me other than the fact that it made it odd that her character's mother, Estelle Getty's Sophia, would now be running a hotel with her daughter's friends and, for some reason, Cheech Marin. If only I were making this up....

I liked The John Larroquette show. It had a great ensemble, and it was good to see SOMEONE from Night Court still working. It lasted longer than the other sitcoms in this list, but by the fourth season had lost all momentum. It also introduced me to the talent of Chi McBride.

Flying Blind lasted a single season, and the only thing I really remember about it is that Téa Leoni was this really, really hot nymphomaniac who falls in love with a short, neurotic ad exec. Oh what this then college freshman would have given to be that short neurotic ad exec. I'm still short, still neurotic, and sort of work in advertising, and yet somehow she's with Fox Mulder.

I'm having a lot of fun with this topic, but I'm running out of space and time. I think I'll list some more short-lived sitcoms tomorrow. Consider tomorrow's post....a spin-off.