When Urkel met Tanner: 16 unexpected TV crossover episodes
While TV crossovers are plentiful (of course Buffy was going to visit Angel, and vice versa), here are 16 that brought very different shows together
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Around the release of 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, social media was inundated with challengers to the Marvel film’s throne as the “most ambitious crossover event in history.” These suggestions were, as tweets and Instagram memes tend to be, largely facetious, but credit where it’s due: It does take a certain creative ingenuity and gumption to, say, tie together the Disney Channel’s assorted mid-’00s multi-camera sitcoms in a single TV movie—one that harkens back to the time when, 30 years ago this week, TGIF worlds collided as Steve Urkel took a cross-country trek and popped up in the Tanner family’s living room. TV has a long history of connecting its fictional universes in various ways that could be described as ambitious (or, if you’re feeling less charitable, desperate for cross-promotion). Whether it’s the sheer number of shows involved in Crisis On Infinite Earths, a plot device (like a hurricane, say) introduced to unite a seemingly random lineup, or the bridging of disparate styles (Cops and The X-Files), genres (St. Elsewhere and Cheers), time periods (The Fresh Prince and The Jeffersons), geographic locations (Roseanne and AbFab), or media (Supernatural and Scooby-Doo), sometimes bringing disparate shows together results in effective episodic alchemy. Here are 16 TV episodes that stretched the limits of what the crossover could accomplish.
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X-Cops is one of those latter-day episodes, like John Doe, Via Negativa and Darin Morgan’s revival episodes, that reminds you how good the X-Files could be when CC’s iron grip of making everything bullshit conspiracy nonsense relaxed a little
My favorite episodes are the ones that riff directly on the show’s “mythology”; Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’ is the best episode of the series IMO.
I loved most of the high-concept X-files episodes but “Jose Chung’s” is the best by far, followed by “Bad Blood”. I even enjoyed “the Post-Modern Prometheus” until I watched it again as an adult and realized how rapey it is.
I am surprised they missed the X-Files/Simpsons crossover, but good choices for both in other crossovers.
“The Springfield Files” is one of the better episodes to come out of the initial decline of The Simpsons (Season 8, when the show had run through most of the “realistic” core plots at least once and wackier/fanciful content became more frequent to compensate). “Keep watching the skis!”
Also, I’m always going to stump for “A Star Is Burns” from Season 6, the crossover with The Critic. I know it got a lot of grief at the time even from Matt Groening, but it found so much great material in the process of coming up with an excuse to merge the two shows. (“But the ball! His groin! It works on so many levels!”)
The Critic crossover works better than it probably should. And the X-Files crossover is an all-timer. Moe’s stolen orca (and its weird groaning). Mulder’s FBI badge having an underwear photo. “The unsolved mysteries of… Unsolved Mysteries.” Spock’s hot dog. Homer’s hypnotic jiggling. Honestly, I would love that episode just for Burns calling himself “impotent as a Nevada boxing commissioner.”
One thing I liked about Bryan Fuller was his weird insistence on recycling a bunch of elements across his shows, like Beth Grant playing either three similarly named characters or the same person at different life stages on Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, and his failed Munsters reboot/TV movie.(Or having a comedic Wonderfalls side character character go on to be a victim in Hannibal.)
He also strongly hinted that the not-Clarice character was George’s sister from Dead Like Me.
Didn’t Scott Thompson’s character on Hannibal also have some connection another Fuller show? I thought I read that somewhere ages ago in an interview with Thompson. Or maybe there was a plan for that on some upcoming show but the character (or maybe the show itself) fell through.
Or have the main character of Dead Like Me show up on Hannibal with a slightly different name.
Ooh, I missed that! “Georgia Lass” on DLM, “Georgia Madchen” on Hannibal, with Madchen being German for girl.
What, no “Murder, She Wrote”/“Magnum P.I.”?Or the NBC-verse that had “Mad About You”s Helen Hunt visiting Central Perk, and Paul Reiser subletting his old apartment to Kramer?
I’ve always loved that Mad About You/Seinfeld connection.
Esp. since in the episode where George gets engaged to Susan, they watch an episode of Mad About You during the closing credits.
That was undoubtedly because Seinfeld and Larry David hated the idea of crossing over with other NBC series so they went out of their way to invalidate the “connection” by explicitly making “Mad About You” a fictional show in the proper Seinfeld universe.
There was one time when all the Thursday night NBC sitcoms (except Seinfeld, because by then they didn’t need that gimmicky crap) crossed over. All I remember about it is Ross from Friends thinking Jonathan Silverman’s Single Guy was gay because in the ‘90s, gay panic=hilarity.There was another Thursday where all the New York-set sitcoms experienced a blackout, I think caused by Paul Buchmann’s incompetence at trying to steal cable, which led to Chandler being trapped in an ATM booth with supermodel Jill Goodacre. But that might not count as a crossover since none of the characters appeared in a different show. And Seinfeld also got to sit that one out, for the same reason mentioned aboveAnd there was the perpetual connection between Mad About You and Friends, owing to Phoebe’s ditzier, sluttier identical twin sister Ursula the bad waitress.Also, I watched too much goddamn “Must-See TV” in the ‘90s.Oh, yeah, the Magnum/Murder crossover should have been on this list, because they were both pretty different genres: ‘80s P.I. crime drama/action show mashed up with whodunnit murder mystery.AND let’s not forget the multi-network crossover of Kramer leaving New York for L.A. and then Jerry and Elaine see Kramer on TV playing Murphy Brown’s new secretary.
I thought Seinfeld was involved. The power outage one. Speaking of sitcoms, didn’t Abed appear in the bg of some other sitcom at one point?
Speaking of sitcoms, didn’t Abed appear in the bg of some other sitcom at one point?The show was Cougar Town, and yes, that happened.
I don’t recall a Seinfeld blackout episode, and that’s the one show from that era that I watch pretty regularly in re-runs/streaming.Well, that and The Simpsons.
When you wrote your first paragraph I assumed you were referring to blackout night. I was wondering if Seinfeld was involved because wasn’t there one where Elaine was trapped on a Subway for a bit, but that may have been unrelated. So, was there another crossover night?
Yeah, there was “Blackout Night,” but I think that one where Elaine’s subway train got stuck was an unrelated episode, from an earlier season. I could be wrong, though.Then there was another crossover night, but all I can remember are the gay panic shenanigans involving Ross on The Single Guy, and that only sticks in my memory because Schwimmer did some pretty good comedy acting that made it almost bearable.
Yeah, they did it on ABC with the characters on 4 shows having a wild night in Vegas. I know one of them was Drew Carey Show, I think maybe Dharma and Greg was in there somewhere
Paul Buchman also wooed TV legend Alan Brady to narrate one of his documentaries, which could have been considered a crossover with The Dick Van Dyke Show.
It’s not “considered” a crossover, it IS explicitly a crossover. Not a terrible episode, either.
How could it be, it has Carl freaking Reiner reprising Alan Brady!
You forgot Ursula being Pheobe’s twin sister too.
Or Magnum P.I. and Simon and Simon.
I always thought it was a missed opportunity that Mad About You never had Tim Tommerson on as Jack Deth. Those low budget Trancers movies were Hunt’s springboard into fame, and are surprisingly watchable (well, the first two anyway).
PushingUpRoses did a great roundup of the Magnum PI/Murder She Wrote crossovers:
Wow, that’s pretty cool. I feel like Ellen and Mad About You was kind of a crossover since both shows were going on at the same time and Ellen was basically playing Ellen
The beauty of the Archer/Bob crossover was having John Roberts play Linda, and then bringing in Kristen Schaal and Gene Mirman for the “Sea Tunt” season finale. Shame Dan Mintz didn’t get in the mix, but the fact that Season 4 bookends with the shared universe is just a great bit of coming full circle.
The Archer/Bob’s Burgers crossover is still one of my favorites. It made sense in a lot of ways, and while Bob’s only factored in at the beginning and end, it played into the sensibilities of both series pretty damn well. I know it wasn’t a true “crossover”, but the Venture Bros episode where the grown up Scooby Doo gang end up at the Venture compound was highly inspired writing. I really want to know what Hammer and Publick were taking when they wrote it.
I can’t decide if my favourite part of Fugue and Riffs is Louise smiling at the carnage while the rest of the family is horrified or Archer forgetting Tina’s name. Both perfect notes.
The credit for the Groovy Gang ep (Viva los Muertos!) also partly goes to The Tick creator Ben Edlund, who was the writer on that one (one of the only eps Publick and Hammer didn’t write.)
Although technically that wasn’t the Scooby Doo gang (and not even in the “we are just avoiding copyright” way that say, Professor Impossible was Mr. Fantastic and Action Johnny was Jonny Quest). Rather it was a weird mixture of the Scooby Doo gang and various 1960s crazy groups like Charles Manson’s “Family” and the Symbionese Liberation Army (including a character who was clearly based on Patty Hearst).
And Shaggy was Son of Sam, don’t forget that.
Thanks dad. I got all the references (and pretty much all of them in the Venture Bros) in that episode, but thanks for over explaining it all.
Then you know it was not a grown up Scooby Gang.
A fan-made Bob’s Burgers / Archer crossover from the other direction:
That worked a lot better than I expected, though some of the Archer cast (e.g. Pam) look… weird in the BB style.The opening credits were fantastic.
OH. MY. GOD!!!!!!!!! how have i never seen this before??????
That crossover bit really highlights how nuanced Benjamin’s vocal performance is. Archer and Bob sound the same, but Archer’s always kind of cocky and Bob is always kind of tired. You can hear how differently they see themselves and how different their lives are, even though it’s fundamentally the same voice.
it would be great to see bob wander into archer’s world – he’s mistaken for archer while making a burger delivery & hijinks ensue.
Thinking about the H. Jon Benjamin connection in terms of crossovers, now I really want to see Archer as Coach McGuirk from Home Movies…quite possibly the only way to make Sterling into a less-responsible adult.
VB could more rightly be credited with crossing over with Johnny Quest as Race Bannon dies in a season one parachuting accident (he and Brock were tight back in the day) and Johnny, Doctor Zimm, and even Hadji have multiple guest appearances. Not official crossovers, sure, but they were right up to the line this-close/so close as to barely be a line at all. I suspect the rule was they could use all the first names, but legally could never say “Quest.”
There are so many layers to the Venture Bros. that went over my head, basing the Scooby Doo gang around serial killers and radicalized figures of the 60’s and 70’s is a depth I don’t think I could get into.
Hell, I didn’t even know about Klaus Nomi before this show.
“Hell, I didn’t even know about Klaus Nomi before this show.”The 1970’s were a weird time, and I was barely alive during that decade. Getting into Bowie early on in life probably either helped or hurt my knowledge of random musical people. I can’t remember the name of the first episode with The Pirate, but it’s still one of my favorite Venture Bros episodes. The beginning with nothing but Bowie song quotes is perfect. “Ashes. To Ashes.”
Ghosts of the Sargasso.
I never really got into Archer, but I love Bob’s Burger, and the only bit of Archer I’ve ever caught on TV was that crossover and it was amazing.
article fails to mention the Bob’s Burgers/Archer crossover moment was also a riff on A History of Violence (namely the coffee pot to the face). It sound weird but watching that opening of Archer made me watch Bob’s Burgers haha
I’ve been an Archer fan for a long time, but didn’t start watching Bob’s until last fall. For some reason, I assumed it would be like Family Guy, which I’m not crazy about, so I didn’t watch it. Was pleasantly surprised that it managed to be laugh-out-loud funny AND full of really sweet moments and characters that love each other. Anyway, now I’m trying to figure out what happened to Archer-universe Bob. Did he go into a fugue state of his own and wander off and Linda just found Archer and was like “close enough”?
It was the “Scooby Gang” with Ted Bundy, Patty Hearst, the SCUM Manifesto woman, and Son of Sam guy.
The Archer/Bob’s Burgers one reminds me of a similar sort-of crossover of Futurama and Adventure Time. Jake, who’s played by John DiMaggio (the voice of Bender on Futurama), goes to a world filled with people who happen to sound exactly like Billy West’s characters on Futurama. I was hoping it’d be mentioned in the inventory, but it’s an odd case that doesn’t really qualify.
I’d bring up the Doctor Who/Eastenders charity crossover here, but by all accounts it was complete and utter shit so there’s probably no need to.That said, Doctor Who should pop up in more things IMO*. It’s got a surprisingly easy device to facilitate a crossover, since the TARDIS can go pretty much anywhere and anywhen. All you really need to do is drop it in and have the Doctor wander out to meet the other characters. *Obviously I know why it doesn’t, intellectual property and all that, but still, let me live in my fantasy world a bit longer. It’s nicer in there than out here.
I’ve watched that Doctor Who special and yes, it’s absolute shit. The biggest issue with it is that the second half especially makes virtually no sense whatsoever.It’s nice to see Pertwee making his final appearance as the Doctor as well as all the companions and others who show up, but it’s just terrible.
There was a fun Tenth Doctor/Star Trek TNG crossover comic. I’m a little surprised there’s not more in that medium, since it’s a lot easier to do crossovers there.
There are some other ones. There is currently a My Little Pony/Transformers crossover being done by IDW, and there was big Hasbro crossover event done by the same company a little while back.
Legal/licensing issues! I have that Who/Trek comic. It’s pretty good. The Cybermen/Borg team-up is pretty lame, but the interaction between the casts is done well.
I wonder if the British standard of creators of certain things keeping ownership of them – a la the Terry Nation estate still (AFAIK) maintaining ownership over the Daleks – gets in the way in addition to the regular Byzantine maze of licensing.
Great point! I’m sure that is/would be a factor in any kind of crossover.
Also Doctor Who has also technically crossed over with the Marvel Universe when The Seventh Doctor dropped off Death’s Head on top of Four Freedoms Plaza, the then home of the Fantastic Four.And Death’s Head is still around in the Marvel Universe. In 2019 he got a mini series where he met the Young Avengers.
Better yet, just once per show, have the TARDIS in the background, in a location where a police box has no business being, as the characters walk obliviously by it.
Having seen it, it might objectively be the worst piece of Doctor Who content ever made, which is saying something since there is some stiff competition there. I don’t hate it because it’s mostly a harmless curiosity at this point, but it may be the most incoherent and nonsensical bit of filmmaking that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched Manos: The Hands of Fate, Monster A-Go-Go, Robot Monster, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, and Bride of the Monster.Wait, I just remembered that K-9 and Company existed. That might actually be worse.
The Red Dwarf /Coronation Street crossover was much better though!
I’m not sure it really fits but any excuse to remember Jimmy Kimmel completely wrecking Leno on Leno’s own show is worth it. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1fm3nv
A Star is Burns did a Simpsons crossover (much) better than the Family Guy crossover
Without it, I would have never learned the difficulties of being a film cricket.
I read this article partly to see if they would acknowledge that in their Simpsons Guy discussion and was surprised to see it didn’t even merit a name drop.
Better, yes, but not necessarily more ambitious.
Not sure Simpsons Guy is necessarily ambitious, to be honest
It got a lot of criticism at the time, but yeah, that episode is great for both shows, managing to play to both of their strengths.
No “Beverly Hillbillies/Petticoat Junction/Green Acres” crossovers?
I guess the best excuse is that all those shows were set in the same universe at their creation, so it’s not “ambitious”.
Showing my age some what but that Jetsons/Flinstones crossover was a huge deal when I was a kid. I remember watching it and the Jetsons movie so many times in the early 90s. I was so excited before seeing it the first time, having watched reruns of both shows religiously.
I swear there was an episode of The Flintstones long before the 1987 crossover listed here where the Great Gazoo zaps Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty to the 21st Century to meet the Jetsons.
There was!
But the Flintstones never met any humans and was just marveling at the future of the 21st Century. But I believe Fred did run in George Jetson’s job and pressed buttons for a gag.
They go to the future, which clearly reuses a lot of the backgrounds from The Jetsons (which was no longer on the air by that point, though it came back in the 80s), but the Jetsons themselves do not appear. There’s also a Flintstones where Fred gets his pic-a-nic basket stolen by Yogi Bear, although quite how Yogi ended up some 3.3 million years in the past is left a mystery.
how Yogi ended up some 3.3 million years in the past is left a mystery.Well, he is smarter than the average bear.
I agree that’s probably peak TV crossover, regardless of whether or not it’s actually any good. Two franchises that had been huge with groups of all ages for a couple of decades, in a world where crossovers were seen as a novelty rather than an inevitability. The perfect storm for it to be a huge deal.
In fact, as wild as it is, it’s now canon that Ezra Miller’s Justice League Flash got his superhero name from meeting Grant Gustin’s TV Flash.He really had to wring his hands around Arrowverse Barry and squeeze it out of him…
There was also a Baywatch/Gilligan’s Island crossover.
Came here for this.
Love Boat was great. All the B list stars of the 70s in one place. There was also a two part crossover episode where Loni Anderson got dropped off at Fantasy Island.
Agreed. They added a Love Boat channel on Pluto TV and the best part is the intro where you get to see the guest stars. There’s also a lot of past their prime starts as well: Oscar Winners like Ray Milland, Red Buttons and Gloria Swanson pop up. I saw one with Joseph Cotton where I could swear he probably died before the episode was filmed.I didn’t remember this from when I was a kid, but the first season actually doesn’t have the pictures of said guest stars which throws me off for those 70’s B stars who sound familiar but you need the picture to place them.
It is amazing how The Love Boat was “let’s throw a bone to these faded stars of yesteryear”
I have been watching. Seems like Jimmy ‘JJ’ Walker and the mom from Brady Bunch are on every other episode. The one where Gomez from the Addams Family kidnaps them to his deserted island is ridiculous. They only seem to be showing the first couple seasons though.
Pluto TV needs to add more episodes, because I notice after a while they start to repeat. Leslie Nielsen pops up a TON as well.
Newhart/The Bob Newhart Show???
Yes Mr Sherman, everything stinks.
Note: In context, “The Flintstones Meet the Jetsons” is about to come on!
I see The Defenders didn’t make the cut, which, y’know, fair.
Virtually every TV show is in that kid’s snow globe in the St. Elsewhere finale.
I watched a lot of TV in the 80’s/90’s, and I don’t have the first clue was Nurses is.
“Nurses” was a spin off of Empty Nest created by the legendary Susan Harris. I remember the mom from “Happily Ever After” was in it and at some point Loni Anderson joined the cast.
Empty Nest was bad enough. That sounds awful.
No Strange Luck/Xfiles?
I remember an episode that (lamely) name-dropped Mulder, but I don’t think they ever did a crossover.
i know…:O(
Remember that episode of Day By Day where Ross fell asleep and dreamt he was in a Brady Bunch episode? Then Chris Barnes (Ross) went on to play Greg in the Brady Bunch movies.Let me rephrase that… Remember that show Day by Day? Courtney Thorne Smith, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 6 year old Thora Birch? Just me?
I do recall this, but I’ve long conflated this with some other show with Dweezil Zappa.
Coulda swore Dweezil Zappa was in that too
That dumb show had me wearing my bathrobe out of the house
I remember Day by Day. But, not the episode.
I remember both the show and the episode. Ross loved that show.
I have to admit, Courtney Thorne-Smith probably played more than a little part in why I remember the show.
Thanks for giving me the chance to post this. One of the best off-the-rails interviews ever.
Cchairman of the B-O-R-E-D….get it!?
9 1/2 Seconds. Norm was on a god damn roll that night!
“Box office poison!”
… Box Office Poison … Chairman of the Bored … 9 1/2 Seconds. It’s pure, awesome Norm.
I remember!
I watched about 3 episodes of that show when it was on, including the Brady episode.
I remember that episode! Greg wasn’t there, they kept saying he was “fixing his bike” or something.
“Oh, we don’t ride our bikes, we just fix them.”For some reason, that line has always stuck with me.
I remember Day by Day. But nothing about the cast. I think it was a TGIF show and probably on before or after Full House.
This is extremely nerdy, but an episode of the 80s transformers cartoon had cobra commander as a “secret” crossover, and that blew my mind as a kid.https://kotaku.com/the-time-cobra-commander-guest-starred-on-transformers-1697525754#:~:text=While%20the%20third%20season%20episode,hatched%20in%20a%20Transformers%20cartoon.
It’s even more nerdy that I didn’t have to look up that they called him “Old Snake”.
I mean he literally ends the epoisode saying “Cooooh Brah!!!”
There was also an issue of the Transformers comic that had a GI JOE crossover (probably around the same time as the cartoon did, I’m guessing), with the Joes, the Dinobots, the Decepticons and Cobra all chasing down a newly-sentient non-Transformer robot through London’s sewers, and it was legitimately awesome.And if you’re wondering, “but how can a Transformer fit in a sewer?”, London has some enormous sewers from the Victorian era. Joseph Bazalgette did not fuck around when it came to drainage.
Are you British? That was Action Firce and Transformers from Marvel UK! In the states there was a 4 issue noncanon crossover in the 80s and a terrible run of issues in the 90s where gen 2 transformers appeared before their new comic, which had joes in a few issue.
Transformers was a weekly comic here, but only the first half of each issue was the Transformers story – the back half was filled with a variety of cheaper Marvel stories. There was a fairly long Hercules run, an Iron Man 2020 story, some Rocket Raccoon, etc. They were entertaining, but I was buying the comic for the giant smashy robots.To fill the Transformers shortfall, we had a lot of UK-created Transformers content, nearly all written by Simon Furman, and it was so much better than the imported stuff. “In The National Interest” is an all-time classic, if you can find it.Apparently, he eventually took over the US comic, but I had discovered girls and Iron Maiden by then.
He did take it over, yes. Action Force was also weekly, have most of it in my collection. I definitely prefer the longer stories of U.S. format, but you do get a lot of bang for your buck (our pound) with those UK weeklys. Though I visited London in 2016 and went to a couple comic stores there and in Stratford-upon-Avon, and they only seemed to have American and American style comics, which was a little sad. Had hoped to fill those Action Force gaps and struck out.
There was a GHI Joe vs. Trabsformers miniseries from Marvel. It was very important to canonical Marvel comics continuity because GI Joe blew up Bumblebee and then rebuilt him as Goldbug.
I also forgot that Spider-man met the Transformers in their first Marvel miniseries. There was also a Transsformers character made only for the comics that stayed arounfd in the regular Marvel universe as a badguy. I know what this character looks like but I can’t remember the name.
Death’s Head was his name, hmm?In further crossover weirdness, he was originally Transformer-sized, but before doing full Marvel, he got shrunk to people-size by Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor Who. No, really.
OK, you had it correct with Death’s Head. What is the meaning of the image below. No Googling. Don’t cheat.
Shit, it was “yes?”, Not “hmm?”
But did you get the “all are dead” thing. The overall motif?
Nope, you lost me.
It’s from the image of the 5th issue of Marvel’s American Transformers comic. The first issue after the miniseries establishing it as a regular monthly publication. The miniseries had wrapped up it’s intial story because it was a miniseries. For issue 5 as you can see Shockwave shows up and wipes out all the Transformers, Autobot and Decepticon. I think he came from the past and was a comtemporary of the dinobauts. It’s a classic cover. It’s done in a nicer painted stule than most comics. Apparently it is a classic, an inside joke, and apprears to be a meme. The other cover image I posted was a Deathhead comics as a play on the SHockwave cover. I just learned this and think it’s great. Here is a Google image searcvh if you want to see variations on thew theme. The Transformers are all dead.This pretty cool. It looks like somebody did a variant featuring Optimus Prime with a more positite message.
PLEASE tell me they had a bit where someone asked Cobra Commander why he sounded so much like Starscream.
This was the futuristic stuff after the movie, so by that point Starscream was gone and it was the characters like Ultra Magnus and Kup. I don’t remember if they actually interacted with Cobra Commander or not though, because he was a shady arms dealer, and at the end of the episode he escaped off into the night.
Which reminds me, many years ago I purchased a track jacket from Hot Topic that was too large for me just because it had a big Decepticons/COBRA logo on the back. It’s probably still in my closet and I rarely get use out of it because even 15 years later it’s too big.
That jacket was marketed towards, um, “plus sized” customers.
But really, I got it in either a large or XL and I’ve held a consistent medium build for my life so far
Anyone else remember that one time when Bojack met Mr. Peanutbutter?
While it was a TV movie and not a series, I can’t help mentioning the crossover the different Turtles iterations had with themselves in Turtles Forever — something that sits somewhere between Inception and incest, I guess, and is equal parts fascinating and alienating.
TMNT: Into The Turtle-verse?
I know the 87 series was hardly high art, but the clear bitterness (and dick-measuring) towards that series in the special is off-putting.
It was great with only one major flaw. The asses at 4Kids didn’t want to pay the voice cast of the original show. Getting the guy who voiced Yu-Gi-OH to voice 87 Leo was the dumbest choice ever.
I mean, The Jetsons Meet The Flintstones was also a TV movie rather than a series episode, so apparently it counts.
I never knew there was a Cheers/St. Elsewhere crossover. So now all of the Cheers (and Frasier) characters are the figment of an autistic boy’s imagination?Which also puts Wings in that universe, since Cheers characters crossed over on that show a couple of times.
Best not to pull too many threads and remind everyone of that terrible ending to an otherwise great show.
A friend of mine from the UK visited after the finale was broadcast here but they were a few seasons behind. She insisted on watching it (we’d videotaped it – my family had a weird habit of collecting final episodes) and hasn’t forgiven me for letting her to this day.
Hey! Tommy Westphall succeeded with one snowglobe in the 80s what countless internet nerds try to do with the Pixar canon today.
The Cheers series finale or St. Elsewhere. I think both were not well liked.I went to a birthday party the night of the Cheers finale and set the VCR. When I got home the tape didn’t record the last 5 minutes. I was pissed. It was very much like the Sopranos series finale. They reran the Cheers finale again the next evening just because it was a big tv event.
Oh does the Tommy Westphall Universe go on forever. Don’t forget Cliff was on Jeopardy AND the Tonight Show which bring in Alex Trebeck & Johnny Carson and thus everyone who ever appeared on those shows.
That’s the problem with the Tommy Westphall Universe theory: Just because a real person shows up in your dreams doesn’t make them stop being real. Technically only shows where the hospital staff show up on them should be included
The entire “real people” concept hit me as I was replying and the implication of that amused me to no end.
That’s the basic crux, though. The majority of the universe is based on all the John Munch crossovers. Ehrlich and Turner show up on Homicide, so that’s in and the Munch is in everything. Furthermore, Munch’s changing backstory from Homicide to SVU is easily explained because Westphall is just changing things up.
Hm. Well that puts a whole lot of reality into the Westphall Universe.
St. Elsewhere also crossed over with The Bob Newhart Show…. and Newhart was all Bob Hartley’s dream. So Newhart is the dream of a person that is the figment of an autistic boys imagination.Newhart had a crossover with Coach which then crossed over with The Drew Carey Show and Ellen… it all just gets very weird.
Rush Limbaugh was in an episode of Drew Carey Show, so now MAGA’s involved in the Westphall universe too.
The Tommy Westphall Universe is a very very very deep hole to go down.
What about when Steven Universe met Uncle Grandpa? Oh yeah, it was terrible. . .
The only episode of Steven Universe that I outright skipped.
Yeah, I heard that you wouldn’t miss much if you skipped it.
They knew it, too.
Does the last episode of Newhart count — where he woke up next to Suzanne Pleshette from the Bob Newhart show? That always felt to me like Bob started with that joke in mind and then worked backward to build a show that led up to it.
It was actually a part of a joke that was pitched in the writer’s room that ended up getting taken seriously.
Literally the best series finale ever
I’d say Newhart wins best final episode for a comedy and for drama it would be Six Feet Under (going by Golden Globe rules).
By that logic Breaking Bad and Malcom in the Middle crossed over.(ok its a joke scene put in on one of the DVD sets , but STILL COUNTS!!)
The Scoobynatural was amazing. So well done. As someone said Venture Brothers did it as well but they did fake Scooby doo and it was hilarious.I loved Archer and Bob’s burgers cross over. I forgot about Love boat and the Angel’s. I was probably around 8 when that happened so I’m sure I saw it but can’t remember it.
Agreed. Scoobynatural was way better than it had any right to be.
Supernatural was actually doing okay that year but there was no way I thought they could pull off such a fun episode and they did. It must help that the actors and writers were probably all Scoobydoo fans as kids.
The Daphne freakout was the absolute highlight.
If ghosts are real, then that means the afterlife is real. Heaven, Hell … AM I GOING TO HELL!?!
It really was, I loved them losing it. I also loved Velma loving Sam’s big shoulders.
Scoobynatural was near perfect because you can tell how much thought they put into meshing the two universes, down to Castiel being the only one who thinks its odd that there is nothing supernatural in the Scooby-verse but nobody finds a talking dog unusual.
I love VB but Supernatural’s was way better. I mean they recreated an actual classic episode. It was a pure love letter to Scooby Doo.
Flintstones was not a Saturday morning cartoon. It aired for 5-6 years in prime time and is well-documented as the first prime time cartoon.There’s also a theory out there that the two worlds actually co-exist. The Jetsons live high off the ground in Orbit City and Bedrock is post-apocalyptic on the surface far below the buildings. But there’s a few episodes that show the ground in the Jetson’s, so it’s sorta debunked. But something fun to think about.
.
…like a Time Machine, Eloi / Morlock sort of thing? Interesting. I like it.
I’m not familiar with that, but it’s fun to think about and could make for some fun storytelling.
It’s a living!
I know it’s a TV Special, but A Muppet Family Christmas is an excellent crossover of all the Muppet things going on at the time.I am also genuinely shocked to see Hot in Cleveland make any kind of list.
I’m pretty sure that the Jetsons/Flinstone one is a TV movie, so A Muppet Family Christmas should still hypothetically count.
I loved Hot in Cleveland, and Lucci was so game it was hilarious.
Missing cougar town and community!
Look, if you want me to take it seriously, stop saying it’s name.
Also missing CSI/Two and a Half Men
Also Scrubs. Ted shows up in the Hawaii episodes after he and the Gooch break up. He also has a minor freak out when Ken Jenkins shows up.
Cougar Town is just Scrubs with wine, and I love it!
Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld don’t count?
I humbly submit the following: The Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Muppet Babies
THAT’S THE ONE! I was trying to convince my family the other night that Sesame Street are Muppets, and while I don’t think they actually are, THIS is why I had that notion in the first place. And I knew Fraggle Rock had something to do with it.
They are Muppets. Sesame Street Monsters, Fraggles, Bear from Bear in the Big Blue House (basically anything made of felt or monster fur with googly eyes) are all Jim Henson Muppets. Things like the Dinosaurs, Labyrinth Goblins, and characters from The Dark Crystal are Jim Henson Creatures.
It’s confusing because Muppet is a name for the creation itself, but it’s also the name of The Muppet brand that only includes characters from The Muppet Show not Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock. Kermit actually used to appear on Sesame Street before the The Muppet Show but Henson made it so that he kept ownership making Kermit a guest-star.
The first time they did this was in the wedding scene in THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN, and as a little kid it almost broke my brain in two.
I remember that. About Sesame Street cast being muppets, they all showed up at the wedding at the end of Muppets take Manhattan.
The pilot episode of Mork and Mindy contains a “flashback” scene featuring Mork, the Fonz, Laverne DiFazio, and the Cunninghams’ living room. Pretty much the only thing missing is some fireworks and a heart logo. Oh, and Chachi, I guess.
That’s because Mork & Mindy was actually a spin-off of Happy Days.
It wasn’t a flashback but Ritchie’s dream.
Not really a crossover. Mork & Mindy was a spinoff. That happened on an episode of Happy Days first.
What’s a Chachi
A chachi is a penis. Did you set that question up as a joke?
Re: Crisis On Infinite Earths – The Doom Patrol team can also be seen dancing their asses off. I love Doom Patrol.Also, Crisis On Infinite Earths was five hours and yet every moment felt rushed and nonsensical. It was nice when it was over, and I could go back to watching Legends Of Tomorrow’s non-crossover eps. Looks like those Legends that had a “hard pass” on another crossover were the real winners.
Crisis was all downhill after that Burt Ward bit. So bad my wife swore off all the Arrowverse shows.I’m a Marvel guy. Anyone know who is that in the red and white suit in the into?
That Hawk, from the duo Hawk and Dove, played by Alan Ritchson on Titans. Not a good show, but it fun and stupid.The best DC show currently on the air (ish, stupid pandemic), aside from Legends, is Young Justice. The Arrowverse can be fun, and incredibly dumb, but YJ is where it at.
Honestly, I love Doom Patrol so much, so much so that I was a little bit disappointed they didn’t get the shoutout.Credit where credit is due, the five hours were a mess. Such a big mess I couldn’t follow every thread, and I’m a huge comics nerd. It’s a mess. But an ambitious mess. I do and don’t want to see what Berlanti and co do with Infinite Crisis – that crossover event is even more packed to the rafters with heroes and interlocking, insane plot.
Despite its flaws I enjoyed Crisis on Infinite Earths but I think Crisis on Earth-X is the still the best Arrowverse crossover.
Agreed! INVASION was pretty good too.
Sadly abitious doesn’t equal good. If only crisis on Infinite Earths had some semblance of being good.
beavis and butthead appearing as live action characters on step by step will always be one thing that broke my brain as a child and hasn’t been replicated in any way since.
Wow I have no memory of this at all.
One of the great bits with the Homicide/Law & Order crossovers (I think it may have even been the first one) was Pembleton traveling to NYC and meeting Det. Logan to pick up a fugitive played by John Waters. The character wanted to be extradited because he couldn’t stand the idea of dying in NYC instead of Baltimore.
John Waters cameoed as several characters on Homocide and plays a semi-recurring porn producer on SVU (he was in a new episode a few weeks ago, he closed his porn studios to open a totally not Chaturbate camming site called Sugarfap) so I have this theory there’s some Invasion of the Body Snatchers type disease slowly turning citizens of this universe into John Waters.
He also played a bar owner in the first season of Homicide. As a huge John Waters fan (so much so that I’ve been to Camp John Waters which is a real thing), I like the way you think!
I didn’t see this mentioned. The John Munch Universe. Munch makes a cameo appearance on a fifth season episode of The Wire.[11] Munch can be seen at Kavanaugh’s Bar arguing with the bartender over his tab by referencing his experience running a bar (he opened The Waterfront Bar in Homicide). He appears in “Unusual Suspects”, the third episode of the fifth season of The X-Files—the episode is set in 1989, when Munch was still at the Baltimore Police Department.[12]
Arrested Development has the best John Munch crossover scene.
X-Files almost had a really ambitious crossover with Picket Fences. The shows were on different networks, which would have made it especially rare. And it would have happened on both shows. Mulder was supposed to visit PF’s Rome, WI, during the episode “Red Museum”, with the visit covered in the PF episode “Away in the Manger”. CBS said no. But “Away in the Manger” still has some bits of dialog that point to “Red Museum”, and there’s an FBI agent who obviously would have been Mulder.
It’s a slight side note but it is so weird to think about now how we had a show like Cops on a broadcast TV channel and almost nobody even thought that was odd, up to and including a crossover with a major show like the X-Files.I think the crossover between A&E’s Biography and the show Just Shoot Me should have been included as well.
I was always disappointed that there was never a real Psych/Monk crossover. It was RIGHT THERE. I mean, I know that in the Psych finale they do a little wink wink, nudge nudge reference to Monk but that’s as close as we ever got.
Did they do a Psych/Twin Peaks crossover?
More of an homage than an actual crossover.
It was more of a homage. They got a lot of the original cast back but they weren’t playing their Twin Peak characters. They did the same thing with Clue (the movie) as well.
I mean, everyone in Clue was pseudononymous, so it could very well have been the same characters.
I remember that USA’s original shows had commercials with characters crossing over with each other, but those were just commercials.
They did a series USA commercials that had characters from their shows interact with each other. More to promote their shows but closest to their own “crossover”
They did a series of USA commercials to promote their shows. Promotional stuff but closest they came to interacting with each other
I’m old, but Batman and Green Hornet crossover was fun.
I think Green Hornet was a planned spinoff from Batman.
Don’t forget Simpsons/Futurama, which was better, IMO, than Simpsons/Family Guy.
Of all the Simpsons crossovers, “A Star Is Burns” deserves the most love. Not only does it mesh the sensibilities of The Critic together seamlessly with The Simpsons style, the ep is full of classic bits (Senor Spielbergo, “boo-urns,” “just hook it to my veins!”). Glad to see the Family Guy ep getting rightfully trashed, tho- just a terrible hour of television. The FG style is too mean-spirited to work in Springfield, and the whole thread of “It’s okay to rip off you guys because you ripped off THESE guys” left a real bad taste in my mouth. The whole episode felt like an act of vengeance, like the Family Guy team was finally getting their pound of flesh after years of being kicked around with unflattering Simpsons comparisons. In other words:
The sad thing is, this Simpson’s episode was all James L. Brook’s baby. He was the EP on The Critic, and Groening felt that this was just a shameless attempt to push The Critic on audiences. Even to the point that he had his name removed from the credits and publicly criticized Brooks . And the reality is that it was a great Simpson’s episode that actually had little to do with The Critic. This episode was all Homer all the time. Groening was over-reacting.
“Dat’s da joke.”
“On closer inspection, these are loafers.”
“Uh, oh, I said the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet”
*bwaaaaaapppp!* “Coming, Eudora!”
“Agh, my groin!”
Came here for this, not disappointed. That episode has always been in my Top 10. I get why Groenig feels the way he does about it, but it’s a shame, because it’s one of the episodes that hits the gas pedal and just doesn’t let up. Every throwaway gag is just as funny as the stuff in the main story.Hell, Barney’s entry into the film festival has some genuine emotion it, on top of everything else. Really underrated gem, IMO.
Honestly I’ll take the single King of the Hill cameo in the peewee football episode over that entire crossover.
Mike Reiss’s book touches on the FG/Simpsons crossover, and apparently the Family Guy writers had so many “We ripped off the Simpsons and owe our jobs to its existence” jokes that Seth Macfarlane had to tell them to cut them down. It’s a terrible crossover, but if anything, it’s the opposite of vengeance.
Man, I would love to watch The Critic again as an adult. I loved that show as a kid.
I’ve seen the Critic crossover a couple of times recently in the reruns. I like it, but its not one of my favourites (it was more of a sign the show was getting less grounded and more cartoony).
But on the other hand, that Family Guy crossover was just garbage. For everyone one joke that worked, four more jokes were just failures.
“Who’s gay?” “Haarvey Fierstein” “Noooo!”
South Park/Simpson’s where Bart and Cartman compare their pranks Bart: I stole the head off a statue. Cartman: I murdered this kid’s parents, cooked and fed them to him.
I feel like a Simpsons/Futurama crossover could have been really great if it was done in the early 2000s. What we ended up getting in 2014 was an extremely dull letdown.
Boy that was a letdown. I enjoyed the “Jurassic Bark” reference (well, enjoyed my not be the right word. Bawling my eyes might be more accurate), and the one joke about Homer and Benders’ character designs being similar, but the rest of it was just so…just there. Not terrible or good, just existing.
The one I liked was back in the 80s when my two fave PI shows crossed over doing a two parter. One for each show. Magnum/Simon&Simon. Also, didn’t XFiles cross over with Picket Fences once?
They (X-Files and Picket Fences) almost did. CBS nixed it. Mulder would have left during the episode “Red Museum” to investigate something similar in Rome. His adventure would have been covered in the Picket Fences episode. The Fences episode still has remnants of the aborted cross-over, including a generic FBI guy.
Man, that Roseanne-run adaptation of AbFab would have suuuuucked…
Really? No love for The Pretender/The Profiler cross-over? Or rather, cross-overs. There were 2 and a half. Ish.https://pretender.fandom.com/wiki/The_Pretender_%26_Profiler_crossover
I’ll just put this here…
Nothing about the Sabrina the Teenage Witch/Mortal Kombat crossover that really did happen?
Love the screen name. ATHF Forever!
I’m curious if the Community episode, GI Jeff, counts as a cross over.
I’m sure no one remembers it but me but the Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated episode where they met all the other “teens with a weird sidekick” mystery solving teams from Hanna-Barbera (The Funky Phantom, Speed Buggy, Captain Caveman, Jabberjaw) was inspired.
Not sure if it counts, but Webster appearing on TNG deserves at least a mention.
I vividly remember watching the song and dance number as a kid but have never seen the WebTrek before.
George Jefferson also bought the Banks house in the Fresh Prince finale, moving on up for the last time.
I know they never officially crossed over, but I did/do love the multiple instances of references to each other’s shows between Rick and Morty and Gravity Falls.
Obligatory Mr Peanutbutter, “Is this a crossover episode?”
Whaaat?! No Mention of the Magnum P.I./Simon and Simon crossover? As a kid in the 80s, I wanted an ultimate A-Team, Knight Rider, Airwolf, Streethawk, Magnum P.I., Simon and Simon, Spencer for Hire, crossover. Especially the first four in my list with their black emblematic vehicles.
I suppose it doesn’t technically count, but the episode where the DS9 characters travel back in time to Trouble With Tribbles and are intercut with the old footage was amazing.
The only context in which I remember that Nurses sitcom is its crossing over with Golden Girls and Empty Nest.
The Sleepy Hollow / Bones crossover was pretty bad. The Family Guy / Bones crossover (Booth hallucinates Stewie) was better.
Honorable mention goes to “Blackout Thursday”, where Paul and Jamie Buchman cause a New York City blackout (it’s complicated) that ripples across the other comedy shows of “Must-See Thursday” on NBC (Except Seinfeld,who refused to participate. That night, they aired “The Gymnast).
There was also the “ER/Third Watch” episode where Dr. Lewis is in a desperate search for her niece after her drug-addict sister has lost her in the aftermath of an overdose.
Different Strokes/Hello Larry
The Simpsons/The Critic
Two examples of high rated shows trying to give low rated shows a lift. Didn’t help either of them.
Hello Larry was technically a Diff’rent Strokes spinoff and oh my god I know this shit fuck me.
We.Have.Wasted.Our.Lives.
boo hoo hoo
You know what I did not lear until a couple years ago was that NCIS and CSI are both spin-offs of JAG.
🎶 “At times like these
When life is gettin’ me down
And the world seems like it’s gonna end . . . ship?
There’s at least one power
That we both still have
And that’s the power of friendship!” 🎶
I enjoyed this list. But I’m gonna put on my Snobby Elitist Cap and say, I don’t consider the CW or the Chicago shows “true” crossovers. It doesn’t count when they are shared universes with every intention of characters meeting up eventually. To me the ‘purity’ of a crossover is they have to be genuinely different worlds, and it can’t feel inevitable. There has to be a spontaneity factor. The Chicago and superhero stuff are very manufactured crossovers, that I thumb my nose at compared to the shocking joy of the others in this collection.
Do you watch the Crisis on Infinite Earths? I’d agree with your comment on crossovers not being that ambitious when all of the shows are on the same network, but Crisis incorporated a lot of cameos and guests outside of their core group of shows, some of which were from other networks or even the DCEU movies. It was definitely ambitious for a TV event.The Dick Wolf stuff…not so much. That’s just him combining casts of two similar shows he produces to solve a forgettable case.
I haven’t seen Crisis, but that does sound cool, and more ambitious than the typical CW crossovers. If they wrangled some movie characters, I’ll give them credit for that. I’ll also give credit to the list for not including Marvel/Netflix’s The Defenders. That’s exactly the kind of Dick Wolf-style I’m talking about.
Yea I don’t want to spoil the stuff that wasn’t made public (you can find a list of cameos online if you want to look) but they managed to have a lot of cool surprises and the whole thing played out like a love letter to DC entertainment over the past few decades.
The CW Crisis had Burt Ward, Kevin Conroy, and Robert Wuhl, and at least one character from a different network. Someone should get fired for this blunder.
Not sure if it’s the most ambitious but the Two and a Half Men and CSI crossover was definitely the oddest.
joke, right?
Family Guy’s sensibility Boy, ain’t that an oxymoron. Right up there with Microsoft Works back in the 90s.
Sorry, but the most ambitious (and arguably best) cross-over in TV history is “Trials and Tribble-ations.” How did that not even come up? Is it because DS9 and TOS are in the same continuity already so it’s not really a crossover if it’s set amongst spinoff series?
“The Flintstones” was a prime time cartoon, not a Saturday morning one. (though its various spinoffs and sequels were.)
“Ally McBeal” and “the Practice” did a surprisingly effective crossover. Yes, both were David E Kelly lawyer shows, but they were on different networks and had distinct sensibilities. It was impressive that a case that started out silly and goofy gradually took very dark turns once the storyline shifted to “The Practice”’s turf.
Never trust someone who talks like Mickey Mouse.Actually… he sounds like Sonic The Hedgehog.
No mention of The Muppets on WWE RAW? Or the time Bob Barker showed up on RAW and basically turned it into an episode of The Price Is Right?
Most of the guest host episodes of Raw were trash, but those two were absolutely golden.I love the idea that Sheamus and Beaker are cousins.
You could probably make a whole list of just weird wrestling crossovers. I think just a few years ago the main guy from Arrow wrestled a match in his Arrow costume.
It wasn’t in his costume, but he did have a match at SummerSlam 2015.
Nobody but me remember Detective Munch crossing over into The Wire, essentially folding Homicide and L&O into one shared universe?
How can you forget the Homicide/X-files crossover? Titled “Unusual Suspects”Even more odd, was that Munch mentions in an earlier episode of Homicide that people are home on Fridays watching X-Files…
I’m surprised the sheer number of series that Homicide’s Detective Munch appeared in played by Richard Belzer.According to Wikipedia: “Munch has become the only fictional character, played by a single actor, to physically appear on 10 different television series. These shows were on five different networks: NBC (Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, and 30 Rock), Fox (The X-Files and Arrested Development), UPN (The Beat), HBO (The Wire) and ABC (Jimmy Kimmel Live!). Munch has been one of the few television characters to cross genres, appearing not only in crime drama series, but sitcom (Arrested Development), late night comedy (Jimmy Kimmel Live!) and horror and science fiction (The X-Files).”
Law & Order/Homicide crossovers gave us Briscoe/Munch, and for that alone we are eternally thankful.
Fresh Prince also kinda crossed over with a UK/Channel 4 sitcom set in a barber shop, ‘Desmond’s’. The title character from Desmond’s visited them in an episode of Fresh Prince, and Jeffrey went back to England and showed up in an episode of Desmond’s. (IIRC)
The all time best crossover episode was Day by Day, a random little show in the 90’s about a couple who left the workforce to open a daycare with Courtney Thorne Smith as their employee, Christopher Daniel Barnes as their son, and Julia Louis Dreyfus as the wacky friend. (You had to have 3 names to be on this show.) Anyway apparently CD Barnes was a huge Brady Bunch fan and they did this fantasy episode where he was the 7th child, Chuck Brady. And then of course he played Greg in the movies a few years later. The episode is bizarre and hilarious and here it is in its entirety.
I know this doesn’t really count, but I loved the Letterman/Leno/Oprah Super Bowl crossover ad. https://youtu.be/-KSKkmypTZM
I’ve enjoyed the various NCIS crossovers, but really, they need to do a Crisis at NCIS, involving all three shows in one storyline. There was also the NCIS: LA/Hawaii 5-0 crossover.
As a fan of Reaper, I just found out the that the original characters appeared in that Kevin (Probably) Saves the Universe show and now I want to see that episode.
Someon’e probably posted this but obviously there was NewHart/The Bob Newhart show in the series finale of Newhart
no Chuck Brady?
I watched the Family Guy/Simpsons crossover just last week and it was garbage, and mean spirited garbage at that. What’s the deal with FG mocking Bob’s Burgers so much? Their “jokes” about them feel more like the type of petty baby dick bullshit the guy behind Mallard Fillmore would do.
I’ve never understood why the St. Elsewhere/Cheers is considered “bizarre”. (AVClub isn’t the first site to call it that.) At least at the time, it made perfect sense. Both shows were set in Boston. Cheers was a comedy elements of drama, and vice versa for St. Elsewhere. The three docs from St. Eligius often met over drinks.
The conversation between Westphall, Craig and Auschlander is some of the best writing on St. Elsewhere, and the acting is top notch as usual. Some of the interactions with the Cheers characters seem a bit out of place because they’re kind of silly in an otherwise serious discussion about life. But for the most part it works very well.
Glad you guys included it, though. St. Elsewhere gets far too little attention on the internet. Thankfully it’s now available on several streaming platforms after being largely absent from syndication for over 20 years. Some elements are dated, but it’s still a remarkably intelligent show that clearly laid the groundwork for what we now consider to be high quality TV.
There was also a side gag on Family Guy where Quagmire rapes Marge offscreen, but she ends up liking it, and it culminates in Quagmire killing every member of the Simpsons family during the pre-credits scene. Classy stuff.
I miss Caroline in the City, because they were a part of the NBC NYC blackout crossover, where Caroline, Friends and Mad About You all crossed over. Also two doctors from ER wanted to date the ladies fron Cheers, but I don’t think it was during the black out night.
Re Slide #2: You guys are certainly Simpsons partisans. Well, if you’re going to be on team Groening, at least acknowledge Futurama more often
#4: I think Funny or Die’s A Very Special Episode covers this and it’s hillarious
#6 I’m actually unfamiliar with Supernatural. Sounds a little like ABC’s Once Upon a Time at first glance? Should I be ashamed? Am I missing much
#7 Flintstones/Jetsons cross-over sounds like something that would just wreck both universees
#13 I think for this to be more of a crossover, they have to actually have Jimmy Kimmel pretend to be hosting the characters of Hot in Cleveland in character on HIS SHOW. Similar to how Larry King had Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton from Talladega Nights on his show rather than actors Will Ferrell and John C Reilly
If you’re doing Alf and Gilligan’s Island— which seems borderline since Alf isn’t affecting the Gilligan’s Island canon but rather reuniting actors — you might as well do 30 Rock/Night Court
You also forgot the Drew Carey Show crossover with three of it’s ABC peers on one night and it was l ike a drunken charade in Vegas
Also, David E Kelley combined his two shows—-Boston Legal and The Practice- Chi McBride fired Thomas McCarthy (who would later become an Oscar winning director) for not reporting a sttudent affair and he got legal representation from Camryn Manheim