10 Hit Shows You Probably Didn’t Realize Were Spinoffs

Believe it or not, the titular character of Xena: Warrior Princess — played by Lucy Lawless — was supposed to appear in just three episodes of fellow syndicated series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and then die at the end of the arc. Xena was such a hit that she got her own six-season show instead.

Daria Morgendorffer, the disillusioned teen at the heart of MTV’s animated series Daria, made her debut in episodes of MTV’s Beavis and Butt-Head. She even has a cameo in this year’s Paramount+ move Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe.

The genre-spanning CBS show Diagnosis Murder — a medical crime drama with action, comedy, and mystery — started as an episode of the earlier CBS crime drama Jake and the Fatman, in which Dick Van Dyke originated the role of Mr. Mark Sloan in the fourth-season episode “It Never Entered My Mind.”

It’s not a true spinoff, perhaps, but Rod Serling’s iconic sci-fi anthology only made it to CBS because of “The Time Element,” a Twilight Zone-like story written by Serling and aired on Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s CBS series Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. “The Time Element” was a hit with audiences when it aired in 1958, and CBS gave The Twilight Zone the green light as a result.

Before Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), Lisa (Lark Voorhies), Screech (Dustin Diamond), and Mr. Belding (Denis Haskins) roamed the hallways of Los Angeles’ Bayside High in NBC’s Saved by the Bell, they were all together at an Indianapolis junior high in the Disney Channel series Good Morning, Miss Bliss.

Before Family Matters became the Urkel show — thanks to the popularity of Jaleel White’s suspender-wearing super-nerd — the ABC comedy focused on Harriette Winslow (Jo Marie Payton), an elevator operator from the earlier ABC sitcom Perfect Strangers, and her husband, Carl (Reginald VelJohnson).

An unsold pilot featuring future Happy Days stars Ron Howard, Anson Williams, and Marion Ross aired as a 1972 segment of the ABC anthology series Love, American Style. And once Howard starred in the hit movie American Graffiti the following year, ABC finally bought the pilot and Happy Days made it to air in 1974.

A seventh-season episode of the ABC-turned-CBS sitcom The Danny Thomas Show — aptly titled “Danny Meets Andy Griffith” — served as the backdoor pilot for CBS’ The Andy Griffith Show. In that installment, Sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) arrests Danny (Danny Thomas) for blowing through a stop sign in Mayberry.

NCIS has its own universe now that the CBS procedural has spawned four spinoffs, including the upcoming NCIS: Sydney. But what viewers sometimes forget is that NCIS was born from a two-part backdoor pilot on the earlier CBS legal drama JAG, with future NCIS stars Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, Pauley Perrette, and David McCallum guest-starring.

Fox’s The Simpsons, the longest-running scripted primetime series on American TV, owes its entire existence to the variety series The Tracey Ullman Show. The Simpson family first got their animated start by appearing in a series of cartoon shorts for the Emmy-winner on Fox.