Worst TV Spinoffs From Movies & Series That Died Quickly That Deserved Better

[Ken Dryden]

There have been a number of TV series over the years inspired by films, though most of them seem to die pretty quickly. M*A*S*H was an obvious exception.

Two of the worst film reboots on TV:

Super Train: a mediocre movie that was even worse as a TV series.

Delta House: A pathetic reboot of Animal House that had a few actor carryovers from the film and Josh Mostel (Zero's son) as the Bluto-like character.

The one sitcom I loved that died quickly was The Nutt House, about a NYC hotel that had seen better days, starring Harvey Korman as the manager and Cioris Leachman playing the big-butted head housekeeper who has the hots for the manager and also the elderly hotel's owner. I think that there are two or three episodes posted on YouTube. One of the running gags was the elevator stopping just below the main lobby, so guests had to step up to get out of it. I think Mel Brooks was involved as a producer.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 03:29 PM by Ken Dryden

[AndreyHenkin]

Though quite vapid, the TV series that came from Clueless was actually pretty good and kept all the characters apart from leads Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd.

[Rooster_Ties]

5 hours ago, Ken Dryden said:

Super Train: a mediocre movie that was even worse as a TV series.

Was there ever a Super Train movie?

My Googling isn’t turning anything up — unless you count the first episode (which Wikipedia says was a double-length 2-hr episode).

Or did that play in theaters?

[Rooster_Ties]

Addendum. It appears like that first double-episode was released on VHS — probably appearing as though it was a standalone movie at some point…

Per the description of this upload to YouTube…

• The infamous flop from NBC's 1979 lineup returns with a recording from the 1988 Star Classics release of Supertrain, titled under the name of the first episode, "Express to Terror".

• This recording comes from a recent acquisition of a VHS rental copy of the film.

[ejp626]

Not sure it really counts, as it was animated, but from all accounts Spaceballs: The Animated Series was pretty dire.  Mel came back, as well as Joan Rivers and Daphne Zuniga.  Dom DeLuise showed up in one episode, but I think the other actors from the movie avoided this.

[JSngry]

 

[Ken Dryden]

18 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

Was there ever a Super Train movie?

My Googling isn’t turning anything up — unless you count the first episode (which Wikipedia says was a double-length 2-hr episode).

Or did that play in theaters?

The original movie that inspired this clunky TV series was called Silver Streak, it starred Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor and Jill Clayburgh. None of them were in the TV series, which was titled Super Train but utilizing the same plot around a high speed train.