The TV Reunion Career Success Index

@City_Dater: all true, but she still has the butt-ugliest girlfriend on the planet.

@Big Poppa: Mary was on the pill! She was no prude. Just not coming near any Bradys.

picardia

What's up with the Welcome Back, Kotter tag? Brian, you're such a tease!

irishflyesq

@DeadliestSin: The early 2000s were bad for genre shows like Firefly. The audience was being syphoned off by reality shows and other programming and a good chunk of those who did watch were often Tivoing. Networks didn't see the big picture that involved perpetual DVD sales, they just saw low ratings. Even the SciFi Channel wouldn't take Firefly. It is a shame because it deserved more episodes.

@Big Poppa: Puh-lease.

Mary slept with dozens of guys during the run of the show, while dopey Ann Marie had only DONald.

Who can forget the scene in which it was made clear that Mary Richards was on the pill?

Or the episode in which she was dating the hunky ski instructor only because he was so hot?

@Big Poppa: Not even close. The actor was not Robert Reed but John Reilly (later most "famous" for a long-running role on "General Hospital"), and the episode in which he appeared was the 167th .. the last before the classic finale.

Reed, in fact, never appeared on "MTM."

But thank you very much for playing, and do enjoy your parting gift of a frozen Veal Prince Orloff.

@RheaPollstry: no worries. after what perez hilton has put lisa through your comment is nothing

@gabrielsong: thats probably a bad story line since brandi, who plays moesha, killed a woman in her car

@honeybee111: I frequently feel like that when Gawker hates on my favourite things.

DeadliestSin

It took alot of convincing in the first place, but I just finished watching Firefly and Serenity last night, and am quite dissapointed it never went further. I believe if the series had came out now, with the aid of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, it might have had a greater chance as succeeding. And if Fox hadn't carried it.

DeadliestSin

@Big Poppa: To be fair, Friends established that theirs was an illegal sublet of a rent-controlled apartment.

@PantherShade: If it's a reunion movie, I would include it in this category.

I'm much more interested in reunions which are a new story featuring the original characters than reunions of actors (which happen quite often), however, and this article is a mishmash of the two.

@Gilligan's Planet, which fortunately, I can only vaguely recall.

@scroll_lock: Don't judge me.

Most of those weren't reunions; they were movies. Try again with actual reunion specials (Brady Bunch!), and also avoid missclassifying the spin-offs.

@scroll_lock: A little seltzer down your pants.

@scroll_lock:

Didn't Mary Tyler Moore sleep on a fold out couch in her living room? That was a surprising dose of reality in sitcom t.v.

Unlike Friends where a coffee waitress and an unemployed chef shared a massive two room apartment in the best part of Greenwhich Village.

@sparky: Either that or Reed was Haitian. Or maybe he was a Haitian Hemophiliac.

@Belabras ate my dingo!: I do feel like the geek that's trying to hang out at the cool kids table.

@Brian Moylan: Oh GOD, not Tori! I never fully understood the "Tori" episodes... does anyone know what happened to her?

@shortskid: More respectable than anything else on that list, besides Seinfeld and X-Files. By far.

Aidan_

Julia Louis snagging another Emmy more than a little success.

@honeybee111: Yeah, maybe I'm hanging out with too many geeks.

No, I know I'm hanging out with too many geeks because they're all going crazy over Glau guesting on Dollhouse.

WitteeFool

I personally think that Serenity is the second best movie ever made.

The absolute best movie ever made is The Rapture starring Mimi Rogers of course.

@Big Poppa: Hemophiliac! Yes, that must have been it. Hollywood's full of closet hemophiliacs.

sparky

I'd watch Three's Company. Let's see... The Ropers are deceased, leaving the building to the three "kids". Jack died from a tragic accident involving a chicken wing stuck in his throat while stuck in a hospital elevator. Joyce DeWitt starts drinking after marrying Jack's best friend and finding out he's a tranny. Crissie... after stripping for several years, meets and marries a millionaire. They settle into the downstairs apartment, keeping an eye on DeWitt and discovering the Fountain of Youth (TM) cosmetics in their bedroom.

Cynner

@City_Dater: I think she won an Emmy for an episode of Law & Order.

sparky

@Conchie Birdie: It's a travesty Tori wasn't invited....

Brian Moylan

@City_Dater: She also makes for a great guest star on medical shows--her spots on House and ER were two of my faves.

DahlELama

@Big Poppa: Then you may want to ignore my Lisa Welchel comment above. Not that I take it back or anything.

@Magister: Au contraire- 1978's Rescue From Gilligan's Island.

Um, Star Trek anyone? Man From U.N.C.L.E.? Leave It To Beaver?Lots of shows had reunions in the 80's to please baby boomers. And how could you miss Happy Days or The Cosby Show's reunion, where once again Lisa Bonet showed she could give a shit.

@blix: A little song, a little dance...

@Big Poppa: I loved their apartments. Also, Marlo had cute Donald.

@Ken Green: I think on one of the specials it was a faux Jan but I do know Eve Plumb sang a solo rendition of "Your Song" (Elton John) on one of them.

C'mon, Cynthia Nixon has been back onstage nearly every season since The Show That Shall Remain Nameless went gentle into the premium cable night. I know that most of America doesn't give a shit about NYC or theater, but she's working. A lot. And it isn't in ads for spray-on salad dressing.

City_Dater

@TruPhan: I was completely in love with Kel on that show... which, after looking back and realizing I was in love with an idiot who had a disturbing obsession/attraction to orange soda, tells a lot about the kinda things I look for in a man. ::sigh::

I heard the "Homeboys In Outer Space" are pulling the old cast together again for one last show. God, it'll be great to see... um...that one guy...and ...um...whatshisface... yeah

[www.google.com]

Ken Green

@scroll_lock: Wasn't the Jan on that special a Fake Jan?

Ken Green

No mention of the Baywatch reunion? (Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding or something like that.) I think that was only 2 or 3 years after the show ended.

sparky

@blix: I much preferred Marlo Thomas on That Girl over Mary Tyler Moore. Mary was such a prude.

@Big Poppa: She gets her license back in 10 years, I think.

@Big Poppa: Robert Reed's second apperance on the Mary Tyler Moore show was as Chuckles the Clown. It ended badly.

@DahlELama: John Stamos has done a couple of TV shows since Full House. Plus he made that TV movie a few years back about gay wedding planners on strike. And he shows up on Broadway every once in a while. He's got a pretty active career still.

sparky

@nozer: Thats awful! I had no idea Robert Reed had AIDS. He must've been a hemophiliac. I don't think he could've been gay.

What I do remember is reading about Maureen McCormick's own battle with syphilis in her autobiography.

I had no idea 1164 Morning Glory Circle was such a little hell hole. Anissa James and Dana Plato would've felt right at home.

@Aaron Altman: That would be preferable to the Litigated horror of, say, Nancy Grace.

All these reunions and not a Gilligan's Island in sight.

@scroll_lock: You know what would be good? Mitigated horror. Like, say, CBS Newsperson Julie Chen on Big Brother.

@Conchie Birdie: The final few episodes are still available on Hulu. I know this because I had been watching the last season, then I had to quit about halfway through and the non-Carter episodes have been timing-out from my queue.

PS) I believe Stamos is in the next Kevin Spacey film.

Au contraire, Mr. Larry David had a number of cameo appearances on Seinfeld. He was the owner of the newsstand who did not want to accept the $20 bill with lipstick; he was Frank Costanza's lawyer (in a cape!) and most famously, the voice of "George Steinbrenner." I will agree that he has had the most success since the show ended...oh, maybe Julia Louis-D...a little.

alboy2

@Big Poppa: I'm guessing it was the home-permed Dadfro.

@Big Poppa: If you consider 17 years ago recent, then yes. He died of cancer, but was also suffering from AIDS.

@TubOfTaft: Unfortunately, Henrietta Pussycat died of meow meow feline AIDS meow.

@Astigmatism: Yeah, Serenity doesn't really fit here. The movie wasn't so much a desperate reunion as a "Fox fucked us over and didn't even show our full season before cancelling us, so here's a last hurrah for the people who *did* watch the show." Not to mention, almost everyone who was on Firefly is doing pretty well now, career-wise.

jerusalemcricket

@Conchie Birdie: Yeah, and it had a decent amount of fanfare considering I don't know a single other person who watched it. I didn't particularly like his character, but I thought he was great, along with Linda Cardellini and Parminder Nagra. Don't know what any of them are doing now though.

DahlELama

Am I such a genre geek that I'm surprised to find Firefly referenced as obscure? I best click on over to io9.

@DahlELama: Ah, that's right, Uncle Jessie turned into a doctor! I knew I had seen him flicking thru the channels within the past few years.
Didn't ER go off the air only a few months ago?

@Jim Topoleski: Mr. Belding is an asshole too? Jesus, I guess I'm going to have to do a little growing up today.

@TubOfTaft: oh no. now I have the freaking soundrack to that movie stuck in my head. Miss Cackle's school would have been way cooler.

@DahlELama: Ohhhh, well that makes sense, too. I just remember watching him on one of those VH1 Surreal Life shows and hearing him talk about the show was just so, ugh, off-putting. It was like he had no concept of the fact that he would be a NOBODY without it. It also took away some of the magical feeling I get when TBS airs sbtb.

@GORDONGARTRELLE: Robert Reed appeared in an early episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show as a swinging single that Mary invites back to her apartment after their date. Robert immediately strips down to his underwear and Mary throws him out of the apartment. I was horrified because I thought it meant Mr. Brady was cheating on Mrs. Brady with Mary.

@DahlELama: yep him and Mr Belding (or rather the guy who played him)

The cast said neither of those two could be in it for them to all agree to do it.

Jim Topoleski

@Conchie Birdie: I don't think he opted out; word was that the rest of the cast refused to do it with him, after he turned into a disgusting perv who wrote a nasty tell-all about them.

DahlELama

@Big Poppa: if you are a male, that might have worked.

GORDONGARTRELLE

I am so freaking happy to see Saved by the Bell on the cover of People and, while I'm usually a stickler on requiring all former cast members to be present for something to be called a reunion, I don't mind that Dustin Diamond opted out. He really could've gone places but instead just turned into a huge asshole and blamed the show and his childhood for being such a jerkoff.

@Belabras ate my dingo!: Fellow IO9ers Unite!

@DahlELama: Are you all blind? Charlotte Rae is the only star of that show. The Worst Witch is the Best Movie EVER.

TubOfTaft

@RheaPollstry: Are you serious? Did that happen recently? I'll have to look it up on Wiki. I always dreamed that when I grew up I'd marry a man just like Mr. Brady.

Anyone know when the whole gang from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood is getting back together?

TubOfTaft

@TruPhan: How about a combined Moesha and Kennan and Kel special where Moesha marries Kennan and cheats on him with Kel. When Kennan finds out he steals a car from Moesha's dad's Saturn dealership and plows it through Kel's front door.

The perfect time to say, if you're not all following Coulier on Facebook, y'all are missing out.

Hey, what's with the Firefly hate?

The core audience (all of us over on Io9) ate it up with a spoon.

@TruPhan: Well Keenan's pretty easy to track down these days, but I think it's gonna be a challenge to pull Kel out of his mom's basement, where he undoubtedly spends his days drinking bottle after bottle of generic orange soda and pissing himself.

DahlELama

To be completely fair to Serenity, it turned into a very respectable, if low-budget, movie (MetaCritic 74, RottenTomatoes Top Critics 81). I can't stand most science fiction, but was actually glad that my wife made me watch the series and the reunion movie.

Astigmatism

@Big Poppa: He's dead, in case you didn't know.

@TruPhan: Mmmm, Good Burger.

@DahlELama:

Are you kidding me? Lisa Whelchel is the ONLY break out star from Facts of Life.

Lisa made a Grammy-nominated Christian album, appeared in the 2001 'FoL' reunion movie, and now works tirelessly as a advocate for Christian childraising principles and homeschooling on her official site www.lisawhelchel.com.

I raised my own three daughters guided by Lisa's principles and they turned into outstanding young citizens. If you are reading this thank you Lisa!

What about the Night Court reunion on 30 Rock?!?

"You haven't seen the last of Sparky Monroe!"

Housebroken(mostly)

@DahlELama: Oops, you beat me to it on Tootie.

Tootie went on to star on "Living Single" with Queen Latifa. I think it ran about five years. Lisa Welchel is a Christianist breeder housewife, so big props to her.

@Big Poppa: I'll sign your petition if you sign mine for Keenan & Kel.

Oh, and the Full House stars are around if you know where to find 'em. The trick is to subject yourself to shows like Make it or Break It and 90210 and to watch ER for five years after the rest of the country thinks it's gone off the air.

DahlELama

@scroll_lock: I always wondered what happened to Robert Reed. He seemed like the perfect dad to me. I always wished he was my daddy.

Nothing beats the sheer unmitigated horror of the "variety" specials the Brady Bunch staged where they all sang and danced- except bitter/drunk/ geigh Robert Reed. He was so disgusted by what he'd stoop to for a buck he barely moved during the dance numbers and they tried to keep him out of most shots.

I'm still holding out for a Moesha Reunion Special.

I call foul--Kim Field was totally the breakout star of Facts of Life--Living Single, anyone?

(Not counting George Clooney, of course.)

DahlELama