In last week’s Tuesday Trivia quiz, one of the questions hinged on recognizing “second-generation” TV spin-offs–that is, shows that spun off of series that were themselves originally spin-offs. My list included:

All in the Family -> The Jeffersons -> Checking In
CSI -> CSI: Miami -> CSI: New York
The Danny Thomas Show -> The Andy Griffith Show -> Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
All in the Family -> Maude -> Good Times
Beverly Hills, 90210 -> Melrose Place -> Models, Inc.
Love, American Style -> Happy Days -> Mork and Mindy

At the time, I believed this was a complete list, except for Mork and Mindy siblings like Joanie Loves Chachi, Laverne & Shirley, and Out of the Blue. (And maybe Mayberry R.F.D., if you count that as a new show and not just a re-tooling of Andy Griffith.)

But many readers suggested shows I’d missed. What about all the Law & Orders? What about the Star Treks? What, by all that is holy, about Saved the Bell: The College Years?!?

So I’ve spent an introspective, soul-searching week boning up on the nature of TV spin-off-hood. And I think I’m ready to defend my answer.

1. Not all franchises are created equal. To qualify as a spin-off, by the usual definition, one or more members of a show’s cast has to have originated on an earlier series. Sometimes they were beloved regulars on that series (George Jefferson, Frasier Crane) and sometimes they were retroactively plopped in for one episode as a tryout or teaser for their own show (Mork, Sheriff Andy Taylor). But they have to have originated on another show. CSI: NY meets those criteria, because the New York squad first show up in a crossover that aired as a CSI:Miami, and David Caruso’s guys have first appeared in a crossover that aired on a CSI. But I don’t think any of the Star Treks or L&Os meet that criterion. Dann Florek, a founding SVU cast member, was on the first L&O years before, but I don’t think SVU links ahead to CI or Trial by Jury in the same way. And, sure, Colm Meaney was on ST:TNG before he was on DS9, but I don’t think there are any other such links to Voyager or Enterprise. Remember: Spock et. al. showing up on ST:TNG doesn’t make that series a Star Trek spin-off, because there’s no arrow going the other way: no Next Generation regular characters had appeared on the 1960s Star Trek. Which brings us to our next point:
2. No retroactive spin-offs. Just because Urkel shows up in episode 13 of Step by Step doesn’t make Step by Step a Family Matters spin-off! In fact, even if Urkel had been in the Step by Step pilot, and he wasn’t, it wouldn’t make it a second-generation spin-off. Because, as above, the relationship goes the wrong way–those lovable Step by Step characters had never appeared in Family Matters! They just shared a production company and the same undiscriminating pre-teen viewers, nothing more. Ditto for the cast of Nurses not originating on Empty Nest (that I can find), the Petticoat Junctioners not originating on Beverly Hillbillies, and so on. Not every shared TV universe means “spin-off.”
3. Shows must actually air. You’d think this would be obvious, but someone complained that Gary Burghoff’s Radar solo show W*A*L*T*E*R should count as an AfterM*A*S*H spin-off. Well, maybe it would, except that it never actually went to series.
4. It’s got to be exactly the same characters. I thought I’d been nailed on Diagnosis Murder, which was a Jake and the Fatman spin-off, which was a Matlock spin-off. Wait…or was it? Turns out that William Conrad’s fat D.A. character from a Matlock two-parter was James L. McShane, not Jake and the Fatman’s James L McCabe. And there was no “Jake”–Joe Penny played a totally unrelated part on that Matlock. I assume Conrad was meant to play the same character–there was just some late-breaking show tweaking. But that gives me some weasel room on this one too. I’m also not convinced that Nick’s Drake & Josh spun off from sketch comedy show The Amanda Show which spun off from sketch show All That. Sure, the shows had cast members in common, but did the characters from each really originate in sketches on the previous show? I haven’t been able to confirm that any characters were reused.
5. A retooling is not a spin-off. The Danny Thomas Show isn’t a “spin-off” of Make Room for Daddy, as someone claimed. Saved by the Bell isn’t a spin-off of the Hayley Mills vehicle Good Morning Miss Bliss (though that one’s a little more arguable, since the title character got dumped). These are just, essentially, retitlings of the same show. They may have cast/premise tweaking, but they weren’t conceived as a chance to launch a new series around supporting characters. (Good Morning, Miss Bliss episodes, featuring four core Saved by the Bell characters, are even included in the Bell syndie package.)
6. A transplant is not a spin-off. Someone said that The Honeymooners was a double spin-off because The Jackie Gleason Show was a spin-off of Cavalcade of Stars. Gleason was lured away to CBS to do a competing, similar variety show, but that doesn’t make Gleason a “spin-off” of Cavalcade. More like a “rip-off,” or “transplant.” You wouldn’t say Letterman’s Late Show was a Late Night “spin-off,” right? (Also, “The Honeymooners” sketches aired on both shows, so it’s hard to argue that Honeymooners wasn’t a Cavalcade spin-off if it’s a Gleason one.)
7. Non prime time series. Some of the suggested spin-offs of spin-offs were Saturday morning cartoons: The Archie Show spawns Sabrina and the Groovy Ghoulies spawns Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Okay, this one is a fair cop. Popular cartoon characters do this all the time. How many different ways has Warner Brothers repackaged Looney Tunes characters for TV over the years? My mistake here was not specifying “prime time only” in the question.

So did I miss any prime time spin-offs of spin-offs? Yeah, probably. You could make a pretty good case for Daria, actually, since Beavis and Butt-head started out as a Liquid TV sketch, and, by the Love, American Style variety-show precedent above, that should count. Conviction had a Law & Order: SVU character on it, so if you buy the Dann Florek connection above, that one counts. I’d probably grudgingly let Diagnosis Murder in, even if “the fat man” changed his name. And Vinnie & Bobby might be considered a spin-off of Married…with Children spin-off Top of the Heap, though I’d probably call it a Miss Bliss-style “re-tooling” if you had a gun to my head.

I hope a thousand words on TV spin-offs answers any questions you may have had. So am I still missing any double spin-offs? Post ‘em to the message boards. I vow not to rest until I have a complete list of second-generation TV spin-offs.