Attempted spin-offs
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jarrodmcdonald-1 — 10 years ago(July 16, 2015 07:58 PM)
I enjoy many of the episodes after the chief's death. Season 5 is my favorite season of the entire series. But even I have to agree the Purse Snatcher episode is not very good. Nell is hardly in it, and the rest of the main cast is virtually absent. The whole thing was done to spotlight the actor they were trying to set up for a spinoff, and he was not very funny.
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stevenackerman69 — 10 years ago(July 21, 2015 08:19 PM)
Well, some of the episodes after the Chief died were funny, although I missed Dolph being there. It would've been interesting to see him react to some of the stuff that occurred in that season, like the episode where Nell is babysitting a dozen or so kids.
That episode The Purse Snatcher was an attempt to do a spin-off, as I said before. When you do that, you don't use the main cast much. -
stevenackerman69 — 10 years ago(October 28, 2015 05:50 PM)
Funny thing about the man in that episode. That was comedian Harry Basil, who would later do a lot of work for Rodney Dangerfield. He even appeared in Rodney's 1991 special, doing a stand up bit with great impersonations.
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jarrodmcdonald-1 — 10 years ago(November 28, 2015 06:56 AM)
Yeah, I guess some people found him funny. Maybe his stand-up act was a lot better than what they gave him to play in this particular episode built around him. Since the show's setting was about to change to New York, I would have preferred the last episode of season 5 to be one featuring the Kiniski family more and it being a story about something big going on in Glenlawn.
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stevenackerman69 — 10 years ago(December 04, 2015 02:34 AM)
The last episode should've been Sam Goes to College. They should never have moved the show to NY. Although some stuff was funny in the final season, it wasn't the same show anymore and they thought to try to retool it again with Sam in college but the network cancelled the show instead.
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jarrodmcdonald-1 — 2 months ago(January 14, 2026 02:16 AM)
It sort of annoyed me that we never saw the arrival of Julie & Jonathan's baby. That is how I would've ended season 5, with them becoming parents. (Instead, we go from the Purse Snatcher episode at the end of season 5 into the first episode of season 6, where Julie has already had the baby.)
The original show should have ended there, with the birth of the baby, Nell looking up to heaven and telling the Chief he has a grand baby. A subplot could have been Sam getting accepted to college.
Instead of season 6 in New York, the producers could have launched a continuation series, either with Julie & Jonathan moving with their baby into their own apartment with Nell in tow. Or Sam starting college, with the focus on her and her new college mates but we still see Nell as a dorm mother or cook at a sorority house. Nell could have taken classes, so she was working on her degree along with Sam, with those two attending some of the same lectures and study groups together.
Whatever direction the producers went in, Nell could have continued, with Addy still popping up. If they did a college series, I would not have made the setting back east, but somewhere in northern California, like San Francisco would have worked just fine. Then Sam and Nell would still have been close to Glenlawn and the rest of the family for guest visits.