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Poorly-Disguised Pilot: Difference between revisions
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* Heroic Publishing will occasionally use its ''[[Champions]]'' title in this manner.
** Likewise, ''[[Heroic Spotlight]]''.
* [[Marvel Comics]], at the start of the [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]], had what are now called "tryouts". For instance, one [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Human Torch]] story featured a [[Captain America (comics)]] impostor and asked the readers if they wanted to bring back the real Captain America. On the other hand, the [[Fan Dumb|fevered imagination of fans]] (and/or the greed of comic book speculators) has been prone to see tryouts in Marvel's pre-superhero era even when links between the precursor and later characters are tenuous at best (e.g., a '50s monster character who happened to be called "Hulk," but otherwise has no resemblance whatsoever to the later [[Incredible Hulk]]).
* [[DC Comics]] did the same thing earlier, occasionally trying out the ''idea'' of a character before going forward with "the real thing." DC's first [[Distaff Counterpart]] characters to [[Superman]] ([[Lois Lane]] temporarily getting powers and operating as "Superwoman" and [[Superboy]] [[Gender Bender|turning into a girl]] and operating as "Claire Kent, Super-Sister") were probably not tryouts so much as one-shot story ideas. But 1958's "The Girl of Steel" was clearly a dry run for [[Supergirl]]. In that story, [[Jimmy Olsen]] uses a magic totem to wish for a "Super-Girl" who would be a companion and helpmate for Superman. It doesn't work out all that well, and Jimmy ends up wishing the girl out of existence at her own request ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]... sorta.) Reaction was positive enough that DC introduced Kara Zor-El, the "real" Supergirl, shortly after.
* Both Marvel and DC often launched features from titles that had no "regular" star. Those features would then, if popular enough, get their own titles:
** [[Spider-Man]] is perhaps the most famous case. He first appeared in ''Amazing Fantasy'', a series that was being canceled. As we all know, that particular issue [[Sarcasm Mode|was a miserable failure.]]
** DC's ''Showcase'' launched a large number of successful features, including the [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] versions of ''[[The Flash]]'', ''[[Green Lantern]]'' and ''[[The Atom]]'', ''Challengers of the Unknown'', ''[[Metal Men]]'', ''Sea Devils'', and many more.
*** The upcoming ''DC Universe Presents'' will likely do the same, starting with [[Deadman (Comic Book)|Deadman]], and continuing with ''[[Challengers Of The Unknown]]''.
** For various convoluted reasons, Marvel was limited to printing a certain number of titles in the '60s. When no longer under that restriction, Marvel launched several of its own ''Showcase''-style titles, such as ''Marvel Spotlight'', which launched features such as ''Werewolf By Night'', ''[[Ghost Rider]]'', and ''[[Spider-Woman]]''.
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** ''[[Amazing Spider Man]]'' #86 was meant to set up the short-lived ''[[Black Widow]]'' solo series that appeared in ''[[Amazing Adventures]]''.
* Issue 99 of Gerard Jones's ''[[Justice League of America]]'' run was clearly an attempt to drum up support for a series about the altered children who took over the issue, the Strangebrood.
* [[Kurt Busiek]] introduced the Power Company in an issue of ''[[Justice League of America|JLA]]'' before quickly spinning them off in their own series.
* In 2005, the anthology series ''[[Star Wars]] Tales'' featured two stories taking place in the ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' era. One was issue sized while the other lasted only six pages. Two months after the release of the issue featuring the first story, a ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' comic series was announced. It was likely, however, that both ideas were created around the same time, however.
* The notorious 'Punisher Goes Black' storyarc in 1992 that guest-starred [[Luke Cage, Hero for Hire]] served as a pilot for the 1990s Cage series.
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* Another famous case is [[Wolverine]]. He first popped up in an issue of the [[Incredible Hulk]]. The creators wanted to use him in other titles but didn't have a clear idea what they wanted to do with the character. They ended up tossing him onto the "New" [[X-Men]], in large part because he had been identified as Canadian and they wanted "international" characters for the new team.
* The second and third issues of the original ''[[Youngblood]]'' series gave one of the flip-sides to [[Shadow Hawk]] and Supreme, respectively.
** The fourth issue featured a prelude to [[Pitt]], but without the flip-book format.
* An odd example is Top Cow's 'Pilot Season', an annual series of one-shots intended to be pilots for new series!
* The plot for ''[[Transformers Generation 2]]'' was kicked of in a [[Crossover]] with ''[[G.I. Joe]]''.
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* New ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'' Annual #2 introduced us to The Vigilante, who got his own comic book the following month.
* The second-to-last ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'' storyline by Felicia Henderson was meant to be a backdoor pilot for a new ''[[Static (comics)|Static]]'' comic book series. The DC relaunch delayed the series and by the time it launched a year later, it had been retooled to the point that it literally abandoned every bit of set-up introduced in the ''Teen Titans'' arc.
* The [[Blue Beetle]] and [[Hardware (comics)|Hardware]] team-up in ''[[The Brave and the Bold]]'' included an extremely obvious set-up for a new ''Hardware'' solo series.
* [[US Marshal]] J.D. Hart features prominently in issues 42-44 of the original series of ''[[Jonah Hex]]'', essentially acting as a co-star to Jonah in those issues. Hart was going to spun off into his own book, unofficially titled ''Dakota'', but that book never eventuated and Hart eventually returned as a supporting character in ''Jonah Hex''.
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== Film ==
'''Note''': remember, films that created with the idea of releasing a Series/Cartoon in mind are [[Pilot Movie|Pilot Movies]] and should be listed there.
* Yes, this happens in film. ''[[Blade]]: Trinity'' was partially intended as a [[Poorly-Disguised Pilot]] for Hannibal King and Abigail Whistler's "Nightstalker" characters. It didn't work out.
* Similarly, the ''[[X-Men (film)|Wolverine]]'' film has been stated to be a testing bed for films based on Gambit and Deadpool.
* And Marvel seems to like this a lot, because their upcoming in-house-production films (of which ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'' and ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]'' were the first two) are meant to collectively lead into an ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|Avengers]]'' [[The Avengers (film)|film]], although both films are good in their own right.
** And in these cases, the "pilot" part of them really only comes in through a scene at the end (and a deleted scene in [[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]).
*** Actually in The Incredible Hulk there were actually many subtle references. Banner's research is mentioned to be based off of the old Super Soldier project the one that created Captain America. Also when pulling the serum from a deep freeze canister the labels mark it as products of Stark Industries. At the end of the film General Ross is approached in a bar by Tony Stark who says he warned him about screwing with the super soldier project.
*** It's played straighter in the sequel, ''Iron Man 2'', which has unsubtle hints to both {{spoiler|[[Captain America (film)|Captain America]] and [[Thor (film)|Thor]]}} and a huge point of the movie is basically [[Nick Fury]] testing Tony Stark out for the Avengers.
** For a more extreme example, ''[[Daredevil (film)|Daredevil]]'' was basically [[Executive Meddling|hacked to pieces by Fox executives]] to serve as a pilot for the ''[[Elektra (film)|Elektra]]'' spin-off. When given the opportunity to put out the movie as it was originally conceived, the director cut Elektra's screentime substantially, restored a half dozen missing subplots, and turned it into a movie that was actually worthwhile.
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** ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]]''. The first 15 minutes, featuring River Phoenix as a young Indy in search of a historical [[MacGuffin]], are this for ''[[The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles]]''. Though it's somewhat lessened by River Phoenix's untimely death, which meant that he had to be replaced by Sean Patrick Flannery when the show finally aired.
** Subverted at the end of ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]'', where it looks for a moment like Indy's hat is being passed (both figuratively and literally) to his son... until Indy picks it up and puts it back on.
* The movie [[Fan Nickname|most of us know simply as]] ''[[Fantastic Four (film)|"Fantastic Four 2"]]'' is actually called ''"[[Fantastic Four (film)|Fantastic Four]]: Rise Of The [[Silver Surfer]]"''. It's not hard to guess whose movie they were trying to "rise", is it?
** In some countries they decided not to beat around the bush, and translated the title as ''"[[Fantastic Four]] and [[Silver Surfer]]"''.
** To make things worse, many things in the movie ''don't happen'' (like the appearance of the [[Big Bad]]) in order to allow for the [[Silver Surfer]] spinoff (which never happened).
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== Live Action TV ==
* The "Kelly's Kids" episode of ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'' was meant to be a backdoor pilot. In that episode, Ken Berry played a friend of the Bradys who, with his wife, adopts not only a white orphan but also his black and Asian best friends as well, much to his bigoted neighbor's chagrin. The pilot didn't sell... or at least not until ''twelve years later'', when the concept was revived as ''[[Series/Together We Stand|Together We Stand]]'', a short-lived CBS sitcom starring Elliot Gould.
* ''[[Diff'rent Strokes]]'' had a few:
** ''[[Hello Larry]]'' is often referred to as one of these, but actually debuted as a separate show. However, when NBC put it in the time slot directly following ''Diff'rent Strokes'', they wrote in a connection between McLean Stevenson and Conrad Bain's characters that allowed for several crossovers between the shows. It was an (unsuccessful) attempt to boost ratings for ''Larry'', but not a spinoff.
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** "Rumor Has It..." and "Peekskill Law" was a final-season two-parter that would have led into a show featuring Blair and her law-school mentor.
** "Big Apple Blues", also from the final season, showcased Natalie and would have led to a show about her moving to New York and living in a Soho loft with several eccentric tenants.
** Finally, the series' last episodes, "The Beginning of the End/Beginning of the Beginning", ended with Blair buying the Eastland school, turning it co-ed, and presiding over it in a would-be continuation series.
* The ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episode "Assignment: Earth" ends with Kirk and Spock assuring everyone that they are sure Roberta Lincoln (played by then-unknown Teri Garr) and her super-spy boss Gary Seven (played by Robert Lansing) will have many more interesting adventures to come. Sadly, they didn't; the most they got was an occasional appearance in the [[Expanded Universe]].
** The episode was originally written as a straight pilot and then [[Dolled-Up Installment|reworked to include the ''Trek'' characters when a buyer couldn't be found]]. Note how Kirk and Spock are rather awkwardly shoehorned into a storyline to which they contribute very little. As Kirk himself put it in the episode, "I have never felt so helpless."
* ''[[Diagnosis: Murder]]'' had several episodes intended to be spin-offs but none were ever picked up:
** "Retribution," a two-part episode was intended to be a pilot for "The Chief." Fred Dryer starred at the hard-nosed Los Angeles chief of police who played various political games to provide law and order. Neal McDonough would co-star as Ross Canin, a mob boss who was actually an undercover policeman acting as Masters' ultimate inside man.
** "A Mime is a Terrible Thing to Waste" featured Rachel York as Randy Wofle, an eccentric woman with various jobs who gets involved in murder cases.
** "Blood Ties" was to be a pilot for a series called "Whistlers" with rule-bending detective Amy Devlin (Kathy Evison) and her more outragerous partner Taylor Lucas (Zoe McLellan).
* ''[[CSI]]'' did this to launch ''[[CSI: Miami]]'', which in turn launched ''[[CSI: NY]]''.
** And the episode "Hollywood Brass" certainly feels like a PDP. Were they thinking about a Jim Brass spin-off set in LA?
** Similarly with the episode "The Thing About Heroes" of ''[[CSI: NY]]'', which introduced at least one major character from the Chicago police department.
** Rumours circulated for a while about a possible CSI London (Although for accuracy, it should be SOCO London, as the real-life CSI equivalents of the British Police are called Scene Of (the) Crime Officers<ref> The NYPD relies on ''CSU--Crime Scene Unit''</ref>) such that, when Mac Taylor of ''[[CSI: NY]]'' visited London, there was an expectant hush among some viewers... which dissipated almost immediately, since London was just a stock-footage pretty backdrop for a mystery phone call, part of a very definitely American story arc.
* The final season of ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' is an [[Egregious]] example of this. It featured a string of episodes centered around various new female Immortals, an attempt to see which one the audience liked best for a [[Distaff Counterpart|female-centric spin-off]]. The attempt was unsuccessful, and ultimately, recurring Immortal Liz Gracen was spun off to the short-lived ''[[Highlander the Raven]]'' series.
** Even more [[Egregious|egregiously]], one of those female test runs was called The Raven. That ended up being the name of the new series, even though it didn't star that character and Liz Gracen's character Amanda had never been associated with a black bird of portent before. It took an incredibly clumsy credit sequence that tried to make the case that thief Amanda is like a Native American mythological Trickster God Raven to justify the title. Why not just call it [[Rule of Cool]] and be done with it?
*** It is worth noting that the Raven of myth is quite an accomplished thief. His stories have him stealing all manner of things, chief among them the Sun itself.
* The third season of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' began with a three-part episode titled "A Friend in Need", which was basically an advertisement for Saban's ''[[Masked Rider]]'' series, an Americanized version of ''[[Kamen Rider Black RX]]'' that premiered a few weeks after the three-parter aired. Aside for a passing mention during the Aquitian Rangers story arc and a brief cameo/team-up in a one-shot ''[[Masked Rider]]'' comic book by Marvel, Dex and the Rangers never encountered each other again. However, an episode of ''[[Power Rangers Time Force]]'' has Nadira [[Recursive Canon|watching an episode of Masked Rider on TV.]]
* The ''[[Crossing Jordan]]'' episode "Sunset Division" is another example; however, the pilot has not been picked up.
* ''Empty Nest'' began on ''[[The Golden Girls]]'' this way with the episode "Empty Nests". However, the actors, characters, and premise were very different from the show that actually made it to air - David Leisure was the only actor to be retained, and even he was playing a different character (in the pilot he was playing a test pilot called Oliver).
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*** The actor who plays [[Green Arrow]] has dismissed ideas of starring in a GA spin-off, feeling that this would be disloyal to the series.
* The ''[[Married... with Children]]'' episodes "Top of the Heap" and "Oldies but Young'uns" were used as test-pilots for the eventual spinoff ''Top of the Heap'', which only lasted six episodes.
** There were two more Poorly Disguided Pilot attempts in the series, "Radio Free Trumaine", revolving around a radio station at Bud's college, and "Enemies", about a group of Kelly's friends and starring Alan Thicke. Neither was picked up by the network.
*** The finale, focusing on Kelly, was to be spun off into a series about her moving out, but disinterest and contract disputes prevented that.
* The ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'' episode in which Jess goes to find his father in California was an obvious pilot for a series that was never picked up. Apparently, it was supposed to be called ''Windward Circle''. Adrian Pasdar tried out for, but didn't get, the role of Jess's dad.
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** And the final episode of ''[[Laverne and Shirley]]'' featured Carmine going to New York to try to become a Broadway Actor/Dancer in an obvious busted spin-off pilot.
** And ''[[Happy Days]]'' was spun off this way from ''[[Love, American Style]]'', which by the nature of the program could try out all kinds of pilots without making them ''too'' poorly disguised.
*** There was also the less successful ''[[Joanie Loves Chachi]]'', where the title characters, regulars on Happy Days, fall in love and live near each other in Chicago.
* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' attempted a spinoff named ''Witchright Hall'' in an episode where Sabrina's cousin Amanda starred as a new student in a school for delinquent witches. The episode where Amanda's mother got together with a plumber was supposed to lead to a spinoff, too. Marigold had two daughters, he had three sons, [[The Brady Bunch|you can do the math]]. Amanda had no spinoff luck.
* The ''[[Quincy]]'' episode "Suffer the Little Children", with Tony Dow as an on-site therapist who lives with troubled families.
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** The ''[[Adam-12]]'' episode, "A Clinic on 18th Street" served as the pilot for a show featuring Fraud Division. The cast of the pilot (including future ''[[Switch]]''/''[[Cagney and Lacey]]'' star Sharon Gless, who gets the [[Welcome Episode]] treatment), are all listed in the opening credits as "Special Guest Stars". Reed and Malloy only appear in the beginning and end of this story of a doctor peddling electronic health belts to diabetics and fake blindness cures to little girls. Jack Webb directed, but not in his trademark ''[[Dragnet]]'' style.
* The entire last season of ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'' was used as one, suddenly introducing three new characters into the mix who quickly became the main focus of the show as Vaughn and Weiss were removed as regular characters and Jennifer Garner's pregnancy was also given to Sydney, preventing her from going into the field much. When it became clear that things weren't going to work out, two of them were killed off with little resolution of their own story arcs.
* ''[[Gossip Girl]]'' featured a backdoor pilot for a prequel spin-off (called ''Valley Girls'') about the teenage life of Lily Bass. While the creation of the spin-off was announced before the backdoor pilot premiered, the network ended up canceling ''Valley Girls'' before it ever aired.
* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' had a PDP story-arc that lasted for several episodes. House and Wilson were feuding, and House hired a private investigator to follow him (and patients). The network admitted the character was introduced purposely to see if audiences would be interested in a spinoff. Reaction was mixed, and eventually the character disappeared. Not one single episode, but still definitely falls in this category.
** Instead of being ultimately forgotten, the scrapped character returned lately on season 6 with a more reasonable tie to the plot and far less air time. He's also basically the same character only un-Flanderized.
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* ''[[That's So Raven]]'' had an episode entitled "Goin' Hollywood" featuring a young girl (Alyson Stoner) who acted on a fictional show about the 1950s called "Better Days". The series would have followed the girl's attempts to balance her acting career with her normal life as a middle schooler. The series was not picked up, but the idea was later re-tooled into the TV series ''[[Hannah Montana]]''.
* The producers of ''[[Starsky and Hutch (TV series)|Starsky and Hutch]]'' considered giving informant Huggy Bear a spin-off. The second season episode "Huggy Bear and the Turkey" (which would have been the name of the proposed series) saw Huggy paired with former Sheriff "Turkey" Turquet (Dale Robinette) as Private Investigators who have been hired to find a woman's missing husband. The series was never made.
* ''[[Magnum, P.I.]]'' had at least three:
** The first season episode titled "J. Digger Doyle" presented the character of security expert Joy "Digger" Doyle of the episode title, in hope of launching her own series, but the idea didn't follow through.
** The third season episode "Two Birds of a Feather" again served as a potential pilot for a new show, which didn't sell, but was heavily reworked to become ''[[Airwolf]]''.
** The fourth season episode "The Return of Luther Gillis" (a sequel to the same season's "Luther Gillis: File #521"), featuring old-fashioned hard-boiled St. Louis private eye Luther Gillis, was planned as a pilot for a spinoff - it didn't sell, but unlike J. Digger Doyle this character did appear in later episodes.
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* ''[[Being Human (UK)]]'' had an episode centering on a young(looking) vampire named Adam, who ate up most of the screen time. He became a central character in the [[Webisode|online]] young-adult spinoff ''[[Becoming Human]]''.
* ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'' examples:
** The final episode of its second season (this was before the concept of the [[Season Finale]] took off) was used for an attempted backdoor pilot starring Bill Daily as an incompetent city councilman.
** The show had three actual [[Spin-Off]] series that averted this trope: ''[[Rhoda]]'', ''[[Phyllis]]'', and ''[[Lou Grant]]''. Each of these shows had separately produced pilots.
** One episode's plot involved Rhoda ''almost'' moving back to New York, a few seasons before ''[[Rhoda]]'' was launched. It doesn't appear to have been intended as a backdoor pilot per se, but may have been a trial balloon for the concept.
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*** "Walkabout" , "Bushido", "Kingdom" and "The Journey" all have elements that feature in the "Bad Guys" series.
* Fan speculation ran rampant that the ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "Far From Home" was designed as a Poorly Disguised Pilot for a ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (TV series)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' series that would have starred Supergirl and taken place in [[DCAU]] continuity; however, [http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/28735/nycc2009-wonder-woman-roundtable-interview-with-producer-bruce-timm Bruce Timm and James Tucker have denied this]. The fact that a ''Legion'' cartoon started up the next year, starring [[Superman]], is apparently just a coincidence.
* Two episodes of ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'''s sixth series pushed the engines into the background, to focus on a group of construction vehicles called Jack and the Pack. The proposed series was not picked up, but 13 episodes were filmed and a few years later went straight-to-video (albeit with the titles altered to make it seem Thomas and Percy were the stars of most episodes).
* The last episode of ''[[Hong Kong Phooey]]'', "Comedy Cowboys", used its full half-hour length to introduce a bevy of new characters (Honcho, The Mysterious Maverick and Posse Impossible) all evidently itching to get their own cartoon. (Only one, ''Posse Impossible'', succeeded when it appeared on ''[[CB Bears]]''.)
** Lampshaded in that Phooey does hardly anything in the episode, as they point out at the end.
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* One of the higher-ups at Warner Bros. Animation in [[The Nineties]] must have liked Elmyra waaaay too much. The ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' episode "Take Elmyra Please" gave her a new, quirky family, consisting of her inventor father Mac, her spaced-out mother Emily, her super-strong baby brother, her superhero wannabe brother Duncan and her teenage sister Amanda, and eliminated much of her Acme Acres-style cartoonishness. Given that they had also pulled out all the stops on animation quality, it may have been more of an effort to make a failed pilot into a usable episode than vice versa. (The studio later managed to ruin ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' by forcing Elmyra into the mix.)
** There was also an episode of TTA whose entire backstory was that [[Production Foreshadowing|Tiny Toons was going to be replaced with a new show]], putting Buster's and Babs' jobs into jeopardy; Buster even frets about ending up on [[Hollywood Squares|"Toonywood Squares"]]. It featured three [[The Golden Age of Animation|1930s]] Warners characters (Foxy, Roxy and Goopy Gear, all from the [[Harman and Ising|Harman-Ising]] days of the studio) as part of the plot. Naturally, this was toward the end of TTA's run, and it was already known that the first season of ''[[Animaniacs]]'' (whose lead characters just happened to be [[Inspired By]] the Harman-Ising characters) was well into production, so there was [[Epileptic Trees|some debate]] about whether this was a backdoor pilot in the same vein as the "Elmyra's Family" episodes.
* Animaniacs seems to have tried the same thing with the Slappy Squirrel episode "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock", the pilot for a series featuring Slappy, Skippy and their friends and neighbors. The series (if that's what it was supposed to be) was not picked up, although Animaniacs had more luck with ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]''.
* Likewise, the Pinky and the Brain episode "Plan Brain From Outer Space" involves Brain meeting his penpal, who turns out to be brain-eating alien Zalgar the Brain Eater, who proceeds to try to hunt him down and...well, take a guess. The episode seems to be a pilot for a series featuring the titular character.
* The ''[[Rugrats]]'' episode "All Growed Up" features an odd "vision into the future" where all the characters are about twelve years older and have their adventures grounded in something resembling reality, as opposed to the usually surreal and fantastic nature of the exploits of their toddler incarnations. Sure enough, the episode was quickly transformed into a series, ''Rugrats: [[All Grown Up]]'', which recycles the Rugrats characters into a junior high school.
** ''All Growed Up'' was set 10 years in the future as it was a special feature for the 10 year anniversary. YMMV on whether it was a [[Poorly-Disguised Pilot]] or simply an incredibly popular episode the network decided to run with.
** The episode where Suzie celebrates Kwanza with her family was meant to be this, as it was planned to have a spin-off featuring Suzie and her family. It never materialised.
* Parodied in the [[DVD Commentary]] of the ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' episode "The Western Air Temple", where they joked that Haru, Teo, and the Duke messing around in the temple was one of these for a spin-off called ''The Last Street Luger'' with a lost pilot episode that consisted of [[Leave the Camera Running|22 minutes of Teo riding around in his wheel-chair while passing various kinds of plants]].
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode "22 Short Films About Springfield" was a backdoor pilot for a Simpsons spinoff called "Tales from Springfield" or something similar [[A Day in the Limelight|that would showcase the lives of the show's supporting cast.]] Unfortunately, the crew decided it would be too much work and the idea was abandoned.
** ''The Simpsons'' also parodied this in "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase". Three short stories were presented as ''supposed'' spinoffs of the show.
* ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' had an episode in their fifth season that was an episode of the [[Show Within a Show]] ''Crash Nebula''. It was actually a pilot for a proposed spin-off, but plans never got off the ground.
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* ''[[Groove Squad]]'', an animated movie featuring three cheerleaders who gain super powers by drinking fruit smoothies (one with x-ray and telescopic vision, one with super strength and one with flight) and are given gadgets by a former secret agent to battle a world domination obsessed [[Mad Scientist]] (who happens to be the father of their [[Alpha Bitch]] school rival), was made as a pilot. The series was not picked up.
* The [[Pixar Shorts|Pixar Short]] ''Air Mater'' actually [[Incredibly Lame Pun|appears to be this]] to the spinoff film ''[[Planes]]''.
* [[Cartoon Network]] once had the "What A Cartoon!" show where three shorts would be presented, and viewers would vote for their favorite. The winner of the vote would usually receive its own show ([[Dexter's Laboratory]], [[The Powerpuff Girls]], [[Cow and Chicken]], [[Johnny Bravo]]), but a lot of the shorts got their own show despite "losing" the competition (''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]]'', ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'', ''[[Sheep in The Big City]]'', ''[[Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?]]'', etc.)
* ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]]'''s [[Grand Finale]] [[Big Damn Movie]] "Underfist" was very obviously trying to phase out the titular trio to cast focus on the otherwise minor characters that composed Underfist, but it never got off the ground.
* ''[[DuckTales]]'' had two: The first was an episode called "Double-O-Duck" which featured Launchpad playing a role as a spy fighting against an organization called FOWL, used to test the grounds for a spinoff starring the pilot. The second was called "The Masked Mallard" featured Scrooge fighting crime as a vigilante superhero. Elements of these two episodes were later retooled into ''[[Darkwing Duck (animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'', with Launchpad working alongside the titular protagonist.
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