12 Primetime TV Shows That Were Spun Off into Animated Lunacy
It can’t be overstated how much of a cash cow the Fonz was.
Happy Days
The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang featured a wayward time traveler and a dog named Mr. Cool joining all the series regulars. The show took place canonically in 1957, but aired in 1980. Then in 1982, they gathered up all the successful Happy Days spin-offs into The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour.
Gilligan’s Island
An island isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A planet. Gilligan’s Planet was a 1982 animated spin-off of the 1974 spin-off The New Adventures of Gilligan, both of which were based on the Professor overshooting his mission to get home, and building a rocketship to outer space.
Bewitched
Aside from popping into the Flintstones universe for an episode in 1965, they also made a TV special called Tabitha and Adam and the Clown Family that saw animated, teenaged versions of Tabitha and Adam visiting family who travel with a circus.
Highlander
The success of 1986’s Highlander film was translated into a six-season live-action TV show, Highlander: The Series, that ran from 1992 to 1998. Smack-dab in the middle of that run, they tried their hand at an animated series, calling it, inventively, Highlander: The Animated Series.
The Munsters
Seven years after The Munsters went off the air in 1966, producers got exactly one performer to reprise their role for a made-for-TV animated movie called The Mini Munsters.
The Odd Couple
In the last year that The Odd Couple aired, in 1965, they squeezed in a spin-off called The Oddball Couple, about a dog named Fleabag and cat named Spiffy. One was loud and dirty, the other reserved and clean, and — get this — they lived together!
Rhoda
The Mary Tyler Moore Show begat Rhoda, and Rhoda begat Carlton Your Doorman, a proposed animated series based on a character that had never been on screen before. The pilot episode was about Carlton trying to replace his boss’ wife’s dead dog.
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Alan Brady Show was the show-within-the-show that the whole show was about. In 2003, TV Land brought it to life with an animated special called The Alan Brady Show, which featured voice acting from Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke and Rose Marie.
World Wrestling Federation
The WWE, née WWF, tried its hand at the animation game on three separate occasions: 1985’s Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling (classic schlocky ‘80s good versus evil battles); 2014’s WWE Slam City (a stop-motion series where pro wrestlers were fired by their evil boss and had to work real jobs); and 2016’s Camp WWE (an adult cartoon show about the child versions of pro wrestlers at summer camp).
Laverne & Shirley
Aside from The Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour, the duo also got a series called Laverne & Shirley in the Army, where they and their commander Sgt. Squealy (he’s a pig) got into all manner of caper.
Doctor Who
They’ve spun off three different animated series over the years — 2003’s Flash-animated Scream of the Shalka that aired on the Doctor Who website, and two more projects in 2007 (The Infinite Quest) and 2009 (Dreamland) that featured the 10th Doctor, David Tennant.
The Partridge Family
In 1974, while Hanna-Barbera was working on a reboot of the Jetsons, some suit at CBS insisted on changing it to be a reboot of The Partridge Family, and Partridge Family 2200 A.D. was born. A year prior, they’d shoehorned in the entire cast of The Partridge Family to be series regulars on a completely unrelated show, Goober and the Ghost Chasers.
