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Spin-Off

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The Mario gang takes a break from bickering with each other and putter up.

"Spinoff"! Is there any word more thrilling to the human soul? Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such TV spinoffs as Son of Sanford and Son and AfterMannix.
— Troy McClure, The Simpsons, "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase"

Spin-Offs are when part of a successful work, usually characters, but sometimes a general concept (first you have the Law, then you have the Order), are taken and given a second show of their own.

From a producer's perspective, it's a chance to explore other aspects of a concept. Actors can find opportunities to grow in their craft, as well as rise in importance by moving from just being part of an ensemble to having a show built around them. For the networks, it's a chance to establish a show with a built-in audience, making it that much easier for them to sell advertising.

Lots of spinoffs go on to be successful shows in their own right, sometimes even surpassing the parent series in popularity. Others crash and burn (Joanie Loves Chachi, anyone?), suggesting that there is no such thing as a sure thing. Nevertheless, networks keep trying them.

There are many different kinds of spinoffs, including:

  • Where a character leaves a show and joins or starts another one, and the two run concurrently. Sometimes called a sister show. Characters Crossover from time to time.
  • Where a show comes to an end and a character from it is given his or her own new show. Provides an opportunity to Retool the character as well.
  • Where a character is brought on to an existing show simply in order to be spun off, hopefully making some of the original audience into viewers of the new show. (See Poorly-Disguised Pilot.)
  • The main character is revisited elsewhere in their narrative.
  • Reimaginings — the concept is carried into a new show with the same basic premise but other factors and characters are completely new.
  • Segment spin-offs — a recurring segment from the show becomes the main attraction.
  • A type of Defictionalization — a Show Within a Show gets made into a real show of its own.
  • The storyline on one show comes to an end, only to be continued in a new show with a different name.
  • Official Fanzine Show — a trope usually applying to Reality TV, usually offering Behind The Scenes info or coverage that wouldn't fit into the main programme, often (but not always) broadcast immediately after the main show, on a sister channel.
  • Online Spin-Off — a spin-off that's only shown online, sometimes overlaps with Segment Spin-Off, sometimes a spin-off In Name Only. Generally only an advert for the broadcast programme.
  • Shared Continuity — more common nowadays, this spinoff generally carries no characters over from the show that spawned it, though both are in the same continuity, allowing for Crossovers from the original.
  • Side-Story: Very similar to the Shared Continuity. However, the side story is typically an independent and smaller scaled story with a definite beginning, middle, and end. It also features a completely different cast of characters who have no meaningful connection to the characters or events of the main epic. Thus, crossovers or cameos by recognized characters are less plausible and may even be perceived as distracting. The concept of a side-story (a story that takes place "to the side" of main events) was popularized by the term's first prominent appearance in reference to stories taking place in the Gundam anime/manga universe.

Spinoffs are Older Than They Think. The character of Falstaff, from Henry IV parts 1 and 2, was given their own play, at Royal request, by William Shakespeare.

See also Distaff Counterpart. When a TV series is successful enough to produce a film Spinoff, this is The Movie. Video Game spinoffs often feature the same cast but differing gameplay genres or are Gaiden Games starring one of the secondary or side characters. When the spin-off focuses on the descendant of a character from a previous installment, it's a Spin-Offspring. If the spin-off reimagines the characters as little kids, it's a Spin-Off Babies.

In the television industry, there is a technical difference between the terms "spinoff" and "sequel": a "spinoff" refers specifically to a television show that continues in (more or less) the same era as its predecessor, while a Sequel Series takes place after the parent series' setting. (Some older sources will also freely use "spinoff" for any mass-produced merchandise connected to a piece of media, from video games to underpants; more modern terminology will usually favor "tie-in" for that,)

Super-Trope of From the Ashes, when a fictional work's ending is the starting point of the Spin-Off.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no Ken) has a series of spinoff works known as the Hokuto no Ken Gaiden series, which centers around side-characters from the original manga, depicting what happened to them prior to the events of Hokuto no Ken, although they do deviate from canon a bit. Almost all of them, with the exception of Yuria Gaiden, were published in Weekly Comic Bunch (the manga anthology that serializes Souten no Ken) at the time the Legends of the True Savior movies were released.
  • Various side story episodes of Pokémon: The Series featured former party members after they had left the group. The early ones focusing on Tracey and Misty along with Tournament Arc rival Ritchie were dubbed as the Pokémon Chronicles subseries.
  • A Certain Magical Index spawned a spinoff manga in A Certain Scientific Railgun, featuring Mikoto Misaka and delving into her background, friends, and some of the cases which Judgement handles. It later spawned a second manga spinoff, A Certain Scientific Accelerator, following Accelerator and the events after he receives his drama-preserving handicap
    • Railgun then spawned a third manga spinoff, A Certain Scientific Railgun Gaiden: Astral Buddy, starrring a minor character from said manga. Yup. A spinoff of a spinoff.
  • The Lyrical Nanoha franchises is one long string of these and even started as a spin-off of Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever. Within the current canon there's the original series and its three sequels, an audio play spin-off focusing on characters introduces in the third season, a Spin-Offspring manga focusing on Nanoha's adopted daughter, a spin-off of the Spin-Offspring focusing on brand new characters, and an alternate universe manga where everyone plays card games.
  • Dragon Ball has an anime follow-up named Dragon Ball GT, set some years after the end of Dragon Ball Z, trying to get back the series to his comedic roots with Goku reverting to a child. It is not based on Akira Toriyama's original manga note  ,so the original author only contributed on character designs. Word of God stated GT was a side story to the original series.
    • In 2015, Dragon Ball Super premiered -with a manga running concurrent-, being an interquel between the Buu Saga and Goku and Uub's departure, integrating Movie characters Beerus and Whis and concepts like Alternate Universes to the franchise. This time, Akira Toriyama writes the plot outline and Toyotarō makes some plot additions and even designed some Gods of Destruction.
    • There is also a short manga named Dragon Ball: That Time I Got Reincarnated as Yamcha!, where a teenager going to a Dragon Ball event suddenly dies and awakes into the Dragon Ball world as Yamcha, and tries to change the fate of said character.
  • There was a manga called Ten - The Blessed Way of the Nice Guy, which was about mahjong being serious business, there was a character called Akagi which was an awesome old man who the characters feared and respected, the character was so popular the author made an spinoff prequel series focused on Akagi's early life, at one point he meets his match in an old man called Washizu, who was so popular the author made a spinoff series focused on Washizu's early life (yes, Fukumoto made a spinoff of a spinoff).
  • My Hero Academia has My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, set a few months before the main series. It focuses on a group of vigilante heroes trying to prevent the Psycho Serum Trigger from spreading.
  • Naruto has Rock Lee's Springtime of Youth, a comical spinoff focusing on Rock Lee. It got an anime adaptation as well.
  • One Piece has a few:
    • Chopperman, which stars Chopper as a super hero fighting against the evil Dr. Usodabada. It was initially a gag story in one of the databooks, before it was adapted into its own spin-off manga.
    • One Piece Party, a Lighter and Softer comedic spinoff with self-contained stories and Super-Deformed designs.
  • Genshiken → Kujibiki♡Unbalance was initially a Show Within a Show, meant to represent the typical moe anime, but with the series' success, it ended up being defictionalized.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has a spin-off with the Thus Spoke Rohan Kishibe series, consisting of several irregularly published one-shots starring Rohan Kishibe, a side character from the manga's fourth part Diamond is Unbreakable. These one-shots features beings more esoteric than Stands and vampires, such as original cryptids and other powerful spirits, some considered gods. Although characters from Part 4 regularly appear, it can be inferred that the spin-off is in a different continuity than the current part.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion has the manga series Shinji Ikari Raising Project, based in the video game of the same name. It takes the alternate reality from Episode 26 as inspiration, and as such is more comedic and most of its characters are much more emotional stable, all while keeping their most notable traits, albeit more subdued.
    • Before that, there was Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days, based on the eponymus game as well. As with the above example, its characters are alternate versions of the main continuity. It ended with a much happier ending than the anime.

    Asian Animation 
  • Motu Patlu has two spin-offs.
    • The first is called Inspector Chingum and is about the character Inspector Chingum moving to Shantiwood to fight supervillains sent out by No Baal, the owner of Crime Academy.
    • The second, Guddu the Great, focuses on Guddu the lion from the theatrical film Motu Patlu: King of Kings.
  • Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf has a spinoff called Pleasant Goat Fun Class, where the characters are much younger versions of themselves who learn about the world around them.
  • South Korean TV animation series Titipo Titipo the Little Train is a spin-off of more famous sister series called Tayo the Little Bus. Two series are set in the same universe and several characters from each series frequently make guest or cameo appearances to each other, almost to the level of Required Spinoff Crossover. Pororo the Little Penguin, another smash hit from the same production company, deals with the separate continuity, but Pororo sticker made an appearance in Titipo as a meaningful prop, making it a Show Within a Show.

    Audio Plays 

    Comic Books 
  • Fables → Jack Of Fables, featuring The Trickster of the same name, who was every "Jack" in folk tale or legend, and Fairest, a series of side stories each spotlighting different female secondary characters from the main comic.
  • The second volume of Runaways had a Poorly-Disguised Pilot for The Loners, a miniseries featuring a group of former teen heroes making questionably-sincere attempts to quit the hero business.
  • The Sandman has several spin-offs following supporting characters, including:
    • Lucifer, which follows the adventures of Lucifer after he quits being Ruler of Hell in The Sandman: Season of Mists.
    • The Thessaliad and Thessaly: Witch for Hire, in which Dream's murderous ex-girlfriend Thessaly deals with new problems brought on by a ghost named Fetch.
  • The Mighty Thor: Has a interesting relationship with Journey into Mystery. Thor debuted in Journey into Mystery and headlined it for a while before taking over the title completely and later getting another series. 49 years after his debut, Journey into Mystery is introduced as a spin-off taking over Thor's numbering and Thor gets another series.
  • Fantastic Four: After the death of the Human Torch, the book ended at issue 588 and was revamped as FF (FF in the title standing for Future Foundation). After 11 issues of FF, Marvel revived the Fantastic Four for issue 600 (the previous issues being FF) and it will continue forward with FF also being released concurrently focusing on the non Fantastic Four members of the Future Foundation.
  • Batwoman (Rebirth) is a spinoff from a story arc in Detective Comics (Rebirth) called "Batwoman Begins". That arc involves a new kind of bioweapon, and in the spinoff series, Batwoman tracks down those who traffic in said weapon.
  • The Authority began as a spin-off of Stormwatch. It later spawned two spin-offs of its own - The Monarchy, about the surviving members of Stormwatch, and Kev, about a hapless SAS operative who keeps having to team up with the Midnighter. There was also a very short-lived Midnighter solo series.
    • Speaking of Stormwatch, its original incarnation spawned a spin-off about Backlash.
  • The original Ms. Marvel started out with amnesia, but was obviously the alter ego of Carol Danvers, formerly a recurring character in Captain Marvel; she soon realized that like Mar-Vell, she had gained her powers from the Kree, and spontaneously named herself after him. Meanwhile, Carol began working at the Daily Bugle, so Spider-Man characters showed up as well.
  • Pointedly averted with the DC Comics character Naomi. As creator Brian Michael Bendis noted in this interview, he considers her story too special to have her introduced in a book that isn't hers and spun off from there, necessitating her own self-contained limited series exploring her character and how she became a superhero before she makes her debut within the greater DC Universe in Action Comics #1015.
  • Richie Rich is a spin-off of the Little Dot comics. Interestingly, Dot herself would have various stories in the Richie Rich comics as well.
  • The Marvel Comics war series Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos had three different spin-offs.
  • The DC Comics Crisis Crossover Bloodlines had several series spun off that focused on the heroes who gained powers after surviving their encounters with the alien parasites, the longest-lasting and most well-known being Hitman (1993), with protagonist Tommy Monaghan debuting in the second Annual issue of The Demon and resurfacing in a couple of arcs in the main comic before he got his own comic that ran for 61 issues.
  • Milestone Comics
    • The Deathwish miniseries was a spinoff of Hardware (1993), though the actual protagonist was a transgender cop named Marisa Rahm and Deathwish was a supporting character at best.
    • Blood Syndicate had two spinoff miniseries to its name, My Name is Holocaust (where the unscrupulous criminal Holocaust is the main character) and Wise Son: The White Wolf (a miniseries focusing on Blood Syndicate member Wise Son that started publication shortly after the main series ended).

    Comic Strips 

    Fan Works 
  • Earth's Alien History has the sequel/side story Andromeda Dreams. While the main story is set solely within the Milky Way galaxy, Andromeda Dreams is focused on the various Milky Way Colony Ships sent to the Andromeda galaxy as continuity of species just in case the Reapers succeed in wiping out all life.
  • The New Adventures of Invader Zim has the anthology New Adventures: Mature Edition, a collection of Loose Canon stories featuring aged up versions of the human characters involved in more mature situations.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • P. D. James' Adam Dalgleish detective novels spun off a short line of two novels about private investigator Cordelia Gray, including a surprise cameo by the original detective.
  • Plantagenet Palliser, a minor character in The Small House at Allingham, one of The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope, became a main character of Trollope's Palliser series, written in the 1860s and 1870s.
  • Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid is a spin-off of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, told in a Perspective Flip from Greg Heffley's best friend Rowley Jefferson.
  • Doctor Who Expanded Universe:
    • The Doctor Who New Adventures were published by Virgin Publishing under license from the BBC. When the BBC decided to take the license back to start publishing their own Eighth Doctor Adventures, Virgin spun off the Bernice Summerfield novels, which continued to tell similar sci-fi adventure stories using characters and worldbuilding elements that had been created for the New Adventures (and which Virgin consequently retained rights to) or which could be licensed separately from the writers that had created them.
    • One of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels by Lawrence Miles introduced Faction Paradox, an association of anarchic time-traveling villains. After leaving the series, Miles instituted his own series of Faction Paradox novels.
    • Telos published a series of Doctor Who novellas; one of them, Cabinet of Light, introduced a set of characters who were spun off into the Time Hunter series.
    • Candy Jar Books publish a series of Lethbridge-Stuart novels, mostly but not entirely set before he was The Brigadier. They have also introduced a spin-off of this aimed at a younger audience called The Lucy Wilson Mysteries, starring the Brig's teenaged granddaughter in The Present Day.
  • The Dora Wilk Series has Shaman Blues, with the main character being someone who was Put on a Bus for large parts of the parent series.
  • The Iliad and the The Odyssey both cover the same story but through different cultural lenses. The Aeneid also follows the adventures of a minor character from The Iliad, but it was written by a different writer hundreds of years later.
  • The minor character of Auri in The Kingkiller Chronicle received a spin-off novella all about her, The Slow Regard of Silent Things.
  • The main The Lost Fleet series ends with John Geary bringing said fleet back and then proceeding to force an end to the 100-year-war between the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds. The immediate spin-off series The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier features many of the same characters and has Geary being sent to a distant part of space in order to look for aliens. The Lost Stars series features new focus characters and deals with the collapse of the Syndicate Worlds after the war. The author is currently working on a prequel trilogy called The Genesis Fleet, detailing the formation of the Alliance centuries prior. There is also a spin-off comic book series Lost Fleet Corsair, focusing on the adventures of Geary's grandnephew Michael.
  • The Mercy Thompson series has the spin-off series Alpha and Omega which follows a character introduced in the first book and his wife. A few short stories focusing on other side character are also set in the same universe.
  • The Mortal Instruments received the prequel series The Infernal Devices. It is an interesting example; the two series share a couple characters, (namely, Magnus and Camille), but they're not central to either series, and all the other characters are new. Plus, The Infernal Devices takes place 200 years before The Mortal Instruments.
  • Super Powereds has Corpies, focused on the Retired Badass Titan, who decides to return to the Hero life after a 10-year absence following a sex scandal. He makes several appearances in the main series after the spin-off. Two other Corpies characters also make appearances in the main series, and one's full name is mentioned only in the main series. The author is also working on another spin-off called Blades & Barriers.
  • Sweet Valley High gave us... dear lord. There were eight different spin-offs of the original series, all but one of them also being about the twins that served as main characters at various points in their lives. The seven that were about the twins were Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley University, Sweet Valley Kids, Sweet Valley Junior High, Sweet Valley Senior Year, Elizabeth, and The Sweet Life. The last spin-off, The Unicorn Club, takes place when the twins are in middle school but focuses on the club instead.
  • The Arrivals from the Dark series has a spin-off series called Trevelyan's Mission, taking place in the same universe but centuries later and focusing on a single character (while the Arrivals series largely focuses on different characters from the same family across generations). Unlike the main series, which could be considered military science fiction, the spin-off takes place in a time of peace and focuses on cultural exploration. Notably, both six-book series were largely written in parallel (and both are likely over given Died During Production).
  • Woodwalkers And Friends is one to Woodwalkers. The novels of the series are set during or between the events of the original books- for example, Katzige Gefährten is set between the last book of Woodwalkers and the first book of Seawalkers.

    Live-Action TV 

In General:

  • Game show instances:
    • Family Feud is widely believed to be a spinoff of Match Game in that its questions were formatted similar to the original 60s MG and used national surveys to cull answers (MG used previous studio audiences).
    • 1983's Go is thought to be a spinoff of 1980's Chain Reaction since its front game was the Chain Reaction bonus round.

Series:

  • Agent Carter spun off from Captain America: The First Avenger. Peggy Carter was Cap's main love interest in the 40's, and her show is about her moving on with her life and having adventures of her own after he was frozen in the Arctic and presumed dead. Had the show not been cancelled after two seasons, it would have showed her founding SHIELD with Iron Man's father Howard Stark. The show was later given a Fully Absorbed Finale in Avengers: Endgame when (after seeing Edwin Jarvis and Peggy in The '70s), Steve Rogers elects to stay in the past and live out his life with her.
  • Norman Lear's All in the Family spun off multiple shows, some of which had their own spinoffs:
    • Maude focused on the antics of Edith's limousine liberal cousin.
      • Maude had a housekeeper named Florida, who was spun off into the equally successful Good Times.
      • While the character of Florida was the lead in Good Times, it's spin-off status is hazy since much of the backstory we're given would have made it impossible for Florida to have been Maude's maid due to living in Chicago.
    • The Jeffersons was about Archie's neighbors, George and Louse Jefferson (natch), who unexpectedly became wealthy and moved away to their own show.
      • Like Florida, their housekeeper Florence later received her own spin-off, Checking In, which was not equally successful — cancelled after four episodes. Florence returned to her former employers.
    • As its original stars moved on to other projects, All in the Family spun off its sequel, Archie Bunker's Place.
      • The sequel itself had a one season spin-off, Gloria, which featured Archie's daughter Gloria, having divorced Mike, starting a new life in New York.
    • The last gasp of the franchise came in 1994, with yet another (short-lived) spinoff: 704 Hauser, about the people who were then living in what had been Archie's house. The adult Joey Stivic (son of Michael and Gloria) drops by for a visit in the first episode.
  • America's Funniest Home Videos spun off into America's Funniest People. Unlike the former, which specalized in candid and unscripted funny moments getting caught on-camera and sent in by home viewers, the latter relied on intentionally staged comedy sketches. Both shows were hosted by Full House alumni at their inception (Bob Saget on the former; Dave Coulier on the latter) and both even had Ernie Anderson as the announcer.
  • Arrow spun into The Flash (2014). The titular character of the latter show was introduced in - and gained his powers at the end of - a two-parter in the middle of Arrow's second season. Episode 2x20 was originally going to be a Backdoor Pilot before the execs decided to make it a standalone episode. Both shows then spun off Legends of Tomorrow and two animated shows: Vixen and Freedom Fighters: The Ray. Two other shows have since been retroactively added to the so-called Arrowverse: Supergirl and Constantine.
  • You probably wouldn't expect a Ken Burns documentary series, let alone that within his Great American Trilogy, to have one, but Baseball does—specifically, a 2016 two-part miniseries following the life of Brooklyn Dodgers player Jackie Robinson.
  • After Steve Wilkos left The Jerry Springer Show after being the director of security there, he was given his own series, The Steve Wilkos Show, which deals with much more serious topics.
  • Baptiste is a spinoff from The Missing.
  • Battlestar Galactica (2003) → Caprica, a prequel spinoff which follows the creation of Cylons ~50 years before the setting of the parent show.
  • Being Human had an online spinoff called Becoming Human which focused on Adam, a character that had featured in an episode of the parent show, and otherwise entirely new characters.
  • The Beverly Hillbillies, the other rural big sitcom franchise of the 1960s, spun off Petticoat Junction, which in turn spun off Green Acres.
  • The Brittas Empire had a very short one after it's end called Get Fit with Brittas, which was an Edutainment Show where Brittas taught the audience about the importance of healthy living. The other cast members of the show do show up, but not all of them and only in one shot roles.
  • Beverly Hills, 90210 had a spin-off, Melrose Place, within two years of its introduction. Melrose Place itself spun off a not-as-successful spin-off Models Inc., which lasted only a season.
  • Bones → The Finder
  • Breaking Bad has Better Call Saul, which the protagonist is Saul Goodman, Walter White's lawyer and "advisor". The series focus on Saul's life before he was a lawyer under his real name (Jimmy McGill) and also shows what happened to him after the events of Breaking Bad, serving as both a prequel and a sequel to the main series as well.
  • Referenced in the Grand Finale of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Amy tricks Jake into believing he's been in a coma for years, and in the intervening period Boyle became the sheriff of a small town in Arizona, where he is also the principal of the local high school.
Jake: OK, that's weird.
Amy: It's actually very funny, and surprisingly heartwarming.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer spun off Angel, featuring the Buffy main characters of Angel and Cordelia, with the guest character Wesley joining later in the series. Crossovers between the two were frequent until Buffy moved to a new network.
  • Caerdydd spun into Gwaith Cartref. Neither Emyr nor Sara mentions Lea, Peter, or any of the other characters from the earlier show – which is strange, given how it ended.
  • The Carol Burnett Show, later in its run, featured a recurring segment entitled The Family. With Carol Burnett as Eunice, Harvey Norman as her husband Ed, Tim Conway as Ed's employee and sidekick Mickey Hart, and Vicki Lawrence as Eunice's Mama, the sketch-series was an immediate hit and is still fondly remembered by the show's fans. When the series ended, Mama's Family was spun off. Sadly, with only Ms. Lawrence reprising her role, the spinoff never achieved the comic heights of the original.
  • When Cheers ended, Frasier Crane left Boston to move back home to Seattle, becoming the main character of his own show, Frasier. Crossovers with characters from Cheers were frequent, with all of Sam, Diane, Lilith, Carla, Norm, Cliff, and Woody all making appearances at one point or another.
    • Cheers actually had a prior spinoff, Meet the Tortellis, featuring Carla's ex-husband. The show did not last very long.
  • The Chica Show is this to Sprout's "The Sunny Side Up Show."
  • The Daily Show gave birth to The Colbert Report, which started as a fictional show in commercials promoting The Daily Show and became defictionalized.
  • Dallas gave rise to the show Knots Landing. Interestingly enough, Knots Landing was actually shopped first to CBS, but rejected. When Dallas took off, they inserted one of the Ewing brothers and re-shopped KL as a spin-off. What makes this situation unusual is that when an entire season of Dallas was retconned to have been All Just a Dream, this also meant that the entire spin-off had to be either All Just a Dream as well, or else not a spin-off after all.
  • Department S → Jason King, which gave Peter Wyngarde's flamboyant novelist/detective character his own adventures.
  • Doctor Who → K-9 and Company, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, K9, and Class are all part of the Whoniverse which revolves around the Doctor, but do not usually feature him. However, the only thing linking K9 to the Whoniverse is the presence of the eponymous robot dog. K9 was not produced by the BBC, so it cannot directly reference Doctor Who and vice versa.
  • The TLC series Dr. Pimple Popper is an inversion of the Online Spin-Off, and is possibly the Ur-Example of a web video property that moved to linear TV. It's an expansion of the YouTube channel of Southern California dermatologist Sandra Lee, who became a major Internet celebrity as "Dr. Pimple Popper".
  • The Dukes of Hazzard → Enos, which focused on Deputy Enos Strate moving out West and working for the LAPD.
  • EastEnders had a spin-off E20 following a group of teenagers outside of the main cast. Some were later promoted to the main series.
  • Eureka and Warehouse 13 are established as a shared canon during an episode on each show in which each had a character visiting from the other. There was also a brief appearance of a recurring Warehouse 13 character in an episode of Alphas, putting all three series in one universe.
  • Garth Marenghis Darkplace → Man to Man with Dean Learner. A complicated one - the first show was a metafictional horror parody also featuring "interviews" with the fictional actors and creators involved with the fictional "show". The second show was a parody talk show featuring one of the fictional actors as host.
  • The Golden Girls led into Empty Nest, focusing on the life and adventures of the Girls' neighbor and friend Harry, a hospital pediatrician. Occasional crossovers between the two casts took place on both shows. Empty Nest had its own short-lived spinoff, Nurses, which was about the nurses who worked with Harry at the hospital.
    • The Golden Girls had a second spinoff, The Golden Palace, which started after the series finale. With Dorothy off being Happily Married, the remaining three Girls joined forces to purchase and run a hotel called the Golden Palace. It didn't live up to the popularity of the original and only lasted for one season.
  • Growing Pains spun off Just the Ten of Us when recurring character Coach Lubbock loses his job at Dewey High and is subsequently offered a teaching job in Eureka, California.
  • The Gruen Transfer, an advertisement mocking/dissection satirical panel show spun off Gruen Nation an elections advertising, spin, branding and image control satirical panel show. That spawned Gruen Planet a global advertising, spin, branding and image control satirical panel show which finally gave birth to Gruen Sweat an Olympics advertising, spin, branding and image control satirical panel show.
  • Garry Marshall was just as prolific spinning off Happy Days:
    • Laverne & Shirley was, for two seasons, HD's More Popular Spin-Off.
    • Mork & Mindy resulted from what was intended to be a one-shot episode; however, it was not meant to be a Poorly-Disguised Pilot; in fact, Robin Williams was a last-minute substitute for John Byner!
    • In turn, Mork appeared on the first episode of another spinoff, Out Of The Blue, and its main character also appeared on HD.
    • Star Nancy Walker introduced her lead character (Mr. C's cousin) for Blansky's Beauties on HD, which also imported identical cousin (played by same actor) of recurring Laverne and Shirley character Carmine. That didn't help the show's ratings, but the show did introduce the actors who would play future HD regulars Lori Beth Cunningham, nee Allen, and the Fonz's very own cousin, who would eventually get his own spinoff...
    • Joanie Loves Chachi. While remembered as a flop, it actually had decent ratings the first season and might have been a Quietly Performing Sister Show if the network hadn't played with its scheduling.
    • Happy Days itself was a spin-off of the anthology series, Love, American Style.
  • Hercules: The Legendary Journeys → Xena: Warrior Princess. Xena was introduced as villain who considered Hercules a Worthy Opponent, but a short-lived romance between the two convinced her to become a hero herself, and her own series revolves around her redemption from her warlord past.
  • Knight Rider spun off Team Knight Rider which focused on five new talking vehicles and heroes.
  • Laguna Beach → The Hills → The City 2008. At the end of the second season of Laguna Beach, lead character Lauren decides to pursue an internship at Teen Vogue and heads off to Los Angeles, while minor background character Heidi (glimpsed in scenes during the second season) also moves to L.A. to live with Lauren and work at another company. That premise became The Hills, which followed both of their adventures in the city. Several seasons later, Whitney Port (Lauren's co-worker at Teen Vogue) decides to move to New York after meeting Kelly Cutrone, the founder of PR firm The People's Revolution. That premise became The City, which lasted for two seasons and had a similar format to The Hills.
  • Life on Mars → Ashes to Ashes. This was partly a spin-off and partly a sequel, as it featured a new protagonist, but retained most of the other regular characters from the previous show after a Time Skip.
  • Love, Victor is a spin-off of the movie Love, Simon. It takes place a few years after the movie an dit follows a new character named Victor who attends the same school Simon did. When he starts to question his sexuality he decides to write Simon and they become the digital Pen Pals.
  • By definition, Odd Squad has the spin-off Odd Squad Mobile Unit, taking place in the same universe with the same premise but with a different core setting and different characters. It's marketed as a spinoff in countries outside of the United States.
    • Before that, there was OddTube, a Vlog Series spin-off. Its first season focuses on the Season 2 main characters (Otis, Olympia, Oona and Oprah) with Olympia serving as primary host, while its second season shifts focus towards the Season 3 main characters (Opal, Orla, Omar, and Oprah, as the Big O) with Orla serving as primary host. Season 1 is considered canon in the main show, but it's left ambiguous as to whether that is the case with Season 2 as well.
  • Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In spun off the daytime series Letters to Laugh-In, where a celebrity panel read jokes sent in by viewers and were scored by an enclave of judges. It replaced the original Match Game on NBC and ran thirteen weeks.
  • Saturday Night Live's "TV Funhouse" segments eventually became their own series.
  • Soap's sarcastic butler, Benson, was given his own show, Benson, where the character eventually became Lt Governor of the state.
  • Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe both spun-off of the show Stargate SG-1, which itself was based on the film Stargate. Atlantis is set in the lost city of Atlantis and features characters from the first series such as Major Carter who ran the installation in later seasons. Universe was set after both in continuity and the setting meant that old characters showed up far less often.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series gave rise to a whole universe of spin-offs:
    • Star Trek: The Next Generation was set approximately a century after TOS and focused on a new ship named Enterprise which was the successor to the original.
    • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was spun off from The Next Generation while TNG was still airing. Recurring character Chief Miles O'Brien left TNG to become a main character on DS9 (and eventually main character Worf joined him), and there were substantial crossovers between the two shows in the DS9 pilot "Emissary" and the TNG episode "Birthright Part 1". Some plot threads that began on TNG later concluded on DS9, such as the political conflicts within the Klingon Empire.
    • Star Trek: Voyager began almost immediately after TNG concluded, as the franchise's new "flagship show"; although it does not feature any continuing characters, it does continue various stories and themes originating from TNG and DS9. Some recurring characters from TNG continue to recur on VOY, such as Reginald Barclay and the popular Anti-Villain Q.
    • Star Trek: Enterprise was set more than 110 years before The Original Series, and was arguably a spinoff of TOS, TNG or both.
    • Star Trek: Discovery is set a decade before Star Trek: The Original Series in its first season, and prominently features several characters who originated in TOS: Captain Christopher Pike is a main character in the second season, and characters such as Spock, Sarek, and Harry Mudd have recurring roles. The main character Michael Burnham is also Spock's adopted sister.
    • Star Trek: Picard is spun off from TNG, taking place nearly 30 years after the show ended and featuring a much older, more jaded Jean-Luc Picard.
    • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is both a spin-off from Discovery and a direct prequel to The Original Series, taking place on the Enterprise during Captain Pike's last five-year mission before Captain Kirk took over command. Many of the show's main characters originated on TOS either as main characters (Spock, Uhura, Chapel) or guest characters (Pike, M'Benga).
    • Each Star Trek series from TNG to ENT featured a crossover at the beginning of each new spin-off as a symbolic "passing the torch": the first episode of TNG included a cameo appearance by an aged Dr McCoy; the pilot of DS9 prominently featured Captain Picard; the first episode of VOY included a cameo by DS9's Quark; the first episode of ENT showed a video recording of Dr Zefram Cochrane, a major character in the TNG film Star Trek: First Contact.
  • The Suite Life of Zack & Cody → The Suite Life on Deck, where some of the main cast move to a cruise ship to attend a special school.
  • That's So Raven spun into Cory in the House after a small Time Skip. CITH takes place some time after TSR, after Raven goes to college.
  • Three's Company spun off The Ropers (which focuses on Helen and Stanley Roper after they sell the apartment and move away) and Three's a Crowd (which dealt with Jack living with his wife Vicky and her father).
  • The Toys That Made Us: Series creator Brian Volk-Weiss also created a similarly-title spin-off called The Movies That Made Us.
  • The Vampire Diaries → The Originals. The second series centred around a group of characters who had been the main arc villains in the third season of the original show.
  • The Australian game show Hard Quiz was spun off from The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, specifically the regular segment Hard Chat. In one episode, a contestant's special subject was Happy Days, and when Tom Gleeson brought up the Love, American Style example, he then went on to claim that Hard Quiz was, in contrast, completely original.
  • The X-Files featured a trio of recurring characters, conspiracy theorists, known as The Lone Gunmen. They were spun off into their own short-lived eponymous show, The Lone Gunmen.

    Podcasts 
  • Canceled Too Soon:
    • The podcast was inspired from a segment on the hosts' other (and since ended) podcast The B Movies Podcast, where Bibbs and Witney reviewed the first season of Shadowhunters weekly.
    • The podcast has a spin-off of its own: All the Best, a monthly Patreon-exclusive podcast where Bibbs and Witney review every movie nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture by year.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • The Heartland Wrestling Association was one to WCW, "Adrenaline" being one to "Nitro". Focusing mainly on developmental wrestlers who may or may not "graduate" to WCW's main roster or elsewhere, Heartland ended up running shows and training successful wrestlers well after WCW went out of business.
  • Oz Academy was originally based around Mayumi Ozaki's attempts to train new wrestlers for the Power Stable of the same name to aid her in her campaign against the GAEA promotion. After GAEA closed down, Oz Academy became increasingly self contained, though a rivalry with GAEA's would be successor Sendai Girls Pro Wrestling periodically rises to the surface. As of 2018, wrestlers associated with Oz Academy also started smashing their ways onto shows of GAEA's other would be successor, Marvelous.
  • Pro Wrestling Sem straddles the line between spinoff and B Show in regards to Pro Wrestling NOAH, focusing mainly on the misadventures of Naomichi Marufuji and KENTA as they coach rookies from the NOAH dojo in much smaller buildings than NOAH usually runs in. Mitsuharu Misawa said he got the idea from working in westside Xtreme wrestling. The show stopped happening when KENTA left NOAH.
  • Strangely, Pro Wrestling RESPECT started out as a spin off to both Ring of Honor and SHIMMER, focused mainly around the students of their academy. However, it eventually drifted into "Wrestling Is Respect", one of many "Wrestling Is" promotions that serve as spin offs to Chikara(and ended up being the longest lasting of them).
  • Inheriting its name from ECW's training facility, House Of Hardcore started doing their own shows as a spin off of Family Wrestling Entertainment, with school head Tommy Dreamer was their champion.
  • The Scotland based Insane Championship Wrestling opened a sister promotion called Fierce Females in 2012, in order to give more focus to said group. However, FF and ICW parted ways in 2014 and ICW started a women's division that ran on the same shows as all its other talent instead.
  • Ring Ka King was to be a spin off of TNA based in India, though it only lasted a single televised season.
  • New Borinquen Pro Wrestling was a developmental territory of The World Wrestling League that was based around independent circuit and former IWA Puerto Rico wrestler tryouts, in addition to a stronger focus on "strong style" (if the name didn't make that clear). It is another "farm league" that has chugged along after its larger partner closed down. And it didn't return to being its farm league when WWL started back up.
  • CZW started "Dojo Wars" in 2014, based around the students of its dojo and those (hopefully) destined for WSU's locker room. Sometimes they get into scuffles with students from other wrestling schools.
  • RISE initially started as a feeder program for SHIMMER's Sparkle Showcase but quickly became a much more ambitious project, running shows across the United States, linking up with Impact Wrestling and STARDOM, reviving Bull Nakano's feud with STARDOM executive Madusa, which in turn revived Gokumon-to and filming a weekly show.
  • All Elite Wrestling was an unintentional one to Ring Of Honor. Cody took Dave Meltzer's claim ROH couldn't draw 10,000 fans into an arena, as a challenge. But when ROH instead gave Cody and The Young Bucks the okay to try to draw a crowd that large on their own, All In did just that and then some. The show's success led to the trio meeting billionare Tony Khan, and with his finances, and a roster of departing ex-ROH talent, All Elite Wrestling was formed.

    Radio 
  • The rare example of the nonfiction spinoff: This American Life → Serial. Serial takes the essential format of a This American Life investigative story (which typically lasts 15-20 minutes, although sometimes it can take a whole hour) and stretches it out over a twelve-episode season's worth of 45-minute(ish) episodes. It was explicitly called a spinoff by the TAL crew, features TAL producer Sarah Koenig as its presenter/investigator/producer, and inherits a lot of both personnel and style from the mothership. It was also launched by a completely undisguised pilot, in which the first episode of Serial was aired as an episode of This American Life (Episode #537, "The Alibi").
  • I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue was spun off from I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, featuring (at first) most of the same performers (plus Humphrey Lyttelton as chairman) but in a ridiculous Panel Game rather than a Sketch Show. It has been running since 1972, far surpassing the original (which had a very respectable run itself).
    • I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue eventually got a Spin-Off of its own. In one of the games, which involves improvising a comedic dialogue that suggests the title of a book, film etc. (usually by way of an elaborate pun), one pair of contestants would usually adopt the characters of a pair of eccentric Scotsmen, exchanging numerous puns and double-entendres along the way. These characters were spun off into their own scripted comedy series, You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal.

    Theatre 
  • As mentioned in the description text, one of the earliest known spinoffs comes from the work of William Shakespeare: the character of Falstaff, an amalgam of several 14th- and 15th-century figures, who appeared as a secondary character in Henry IV (both Part 1 and Part 2), who was given his own play in the form of The Merry Wives of Windsor.

    Toys 
  • In 1986, My Little Pony introduced the Pony Friends, which was the Little Pony concept applied to animals that aren't ponies. The Pony Friends are part of the regular My Little Pony line, but that same year a separate line was launched called Fairy Tails, which stars birds. It was a short-lived line. Another Spin-Off followed in 1991 with My Pretty Mermaids, which takes the Little Pony concept and applies it to mermaids. Of course, its launch year coincided with a development in the My Little Pony lineup, namely the introduction of the Fancy Mermaid Ponies. As with Fairy Tails, My Pretty Mermaids was short-lived. And although the three lines and their stories are separate, they do have a Recurring Element in the rainbow, which is always used as a point of reference where the characters live.

    Video Games 

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 
  • Basic Instructions once played with the concept in the strip "How to Create a Spin-Off", with the idea of Butt-Monkey Rick getting his own comic. It was never meant to seriously take off, but the man who inspired Rick did use the character's popularity to briefly run his own spin-off blog called "Asking the Wrong Guy", playing Rick answering reader's questions.
  • The action-oriented Jet Dream title spawned two spin-offs: It's Cookie, a teen humor comic starring T-Girl Cookie Jarr, and My Jet Dream Romance, a romance comic that focuses on the love lives of the T-Girls.
  • Maddie series → ''Outsiders, which follows the lives of same-sex lovers Siobhan Pattinson and Ebony Larsson, previously secondary characters.
  • Precocious has a spinoff Copper Road, about the character Kaitlyn Hu and the "other side of the class" that lives on Copper Road.

    Web Original 
  • The Avocado is an unofficial spinoff of The AV Club, created by commenters on that site looking to create their own venue for pop culture reviews and discussion. Was originally called "The AV Club After Dark", but the initials AVCAD over time morphed into the word AVOCADO.
  • The Freakin Awesome Network, as well as its forum, was spun off from the original WrestleCrap forums in October 2010; its placeholder name was "The 'Crap" during the transistion.

    Web Videos 

    Western Animation 
  • The World of David the Gnome was spun off into The Wisdom of the Gnomes with no room for crossovers since David and his wife die in the last episode of their series. Although they did make an appearance in flashback in the last episode.
  • The Simpsons began life as a series of short skits on The Tracey Ullman Show.
  • World of Winx is this to Winx Club.
  • The PBS Kids series Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is a spin off to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood complete with a similar opening.
  • Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race is a spinoff of Total Drama that parodies The Amazing Race instead of Survivor with a different host, four of the contestants from the parent show (Noah, Owen, Geoff and Leonard) appearing as competitors, and a few cameos from or mentions of the old cast here and there.
    • Total DramaRama, which was revealed on December 19, 2017 as Total Drama Daycare, serves as the second spinoff to Total Drama, adapting 11 of the original 22 contestantsnote  (and Jude from 6teen) as toddlers at a daycare run by Chef Hatchet. Like with the prior spin-off, other characters from the previous shows cameo here and there.
  • The Amazing Spiez!, is a spinoff of Totally Spies! centered around 3 separate, younger WHOOP agents. Jerry is still featured prominently like in the core show, and Sam, Alex, and Clover occasionally have cameos in this series, but otherwise it could be argued that this is just a carbon copy of Totally Spies but with different leads and villains. The show only lasted 2 seasons before getting canceled.
  • Unikitty! is another LEGO Movie spin-off, featuring secondary character Unikitty.
  • Though can be surprising for some people, Daria is a spin-off of Beavis And Butthead. She was originally a recurring classmate of theirs and would make cynical remarks about their stupidity. Her own show kicked off when her family moved from Texas to the East Coast. While Beavis And Butthead may have had a larger pop culture impact, Daria was a much more intelligent dramedy, examining the pains and insecurities of adolescence. To this day it retains a cult following and a very vocal fanbase.
  • Shaun the Sheep is a spin-off from Wallace & Gromit using the Shaun character of one of their shorts. Shaun the Sheep at the same time has an spin-off with Timmy Time with Timmy the lamb as the protagonist of a show for toddlers.
  • If you don't know that the Tiny Toons had a spin-off series named The Plucky Show with the character of Plucky as the protagonist, don't feel bad. A lot of people don't like it as the show was not very popular and ran for only one season. Although the term "spin-off" might be an overstatement considering that most of the show's epsiodes consisted in clips from the original cartoon.
  • Due to the Pinky and the Brain sketches' popularity in Animaniacs, a spin-off series with them was made: Pinky and the Brain. Then a crossover/spin-off was made, called Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain, with the Tiny Toons' character Elmyra in probably one of the most questioned moves ever done in animated television.
  • The common consensus among fans is to consider Darkwing Duck as a spin-off of DuckTales (1987) as the character of Launchpad Mc Quack appears in both but is one of the protagonists in the former. Nevertheless according to Word of God; show creator Tad Stone, Darkwing Duck happens in a different universe than DuckTales (1987) with Launchpad as just an alternate version. If this is canonical inside the Disney Animated Universe, of course, is up to debate.
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls is a spin-off of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, taking place in a parallel universe and starring the teenage human equivalents of the main characters. Word of God states that while both works are canon to each other (Sunset Shimmer was indeed Celestia's previous student, Starswirl did banish the sirens to the human world, etc.), the team deliberately avoids writing Equestria Girls plots that could affect the main universe for simplicity's sake.
  • Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto were each the stars of their own animated shorts, spinning off from the Mickey Mouse shorts.
  • Humphrey The Bear also was a spinoff character originating from a Goofy short to recurring in Donald Duck into his very own.
  • Popeye made his first (animated) appearance in a Betty Boop cartoon, before getting his own (arguably more popular) series. It should be noted that his appearance in the Betty Boop cartoon was an intentional Poorly-Disguised Pilot, and that the short itself barely features her.
  • Space Ghost Coast to Coast, a prime-time parody talk show featuring repurposed animation from the sixties cartoon Space Ghost, got a spin-off called Cartoon Planet starring Space Ghost, Zorak, and Brak hosting old cartoons and bantering with each other in silly skits. An ad for Cartoon Planet even had the characters discussing the phenomenon of spin-offs.
    Zorak: You mean how Cheers spun off into Frasier?
    Space Ghost: Right, and Barney Miller spat out Fish.
    Brak: Happy Days had a baby, and they named it Joanie Loves Chachi!
  • Once again, Star Trek provides multiple entries:
  • Rintindumb: The show is a spin-off of the Lucky Luke comics starring Luke's dog, Rantanplan, known as "Rintindumb" here. It mainly shows little snippets where Rintindumb does something to live up to his given name.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants has had two spin-offs. Kamp Koral is about a younger SpongeBob and his friends at a summer camp. The Patrick Star Show has Patrick and a cast of new characters as his family — it's much Denser and Wackier than the original show. While the focus is mainly on Patrick, SpongeBob is a recurring character.
  • Like Happy Days listed above in the live-action series folder, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home was a spin-off of Love, American Style.

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