Best TV Crossovers of All-Time
Thursday marked a special occasion on ABC when Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder joined [...]
Thursday marked a special occasion on ABC when Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder joined forces.
Blending the world's of Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) and Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) as they worked to fast-track a case of wrongful convictions up to the United States Supreme Court gave fans of both shows the opportunity to see two badass characters teaming up, making for an incredible television event.
Television crossovers are a wildly successful strategy, bringing two shows that otherwise don't mix too often together to boost ratings, and create iconic moments in pop culture history.
Scroll through to see some of the most memorable television crossovers of all time.
NBC's "BLACKOUT THURSDAY" (1994)
Back in 1994, NBC's sitcom roster dominated the ratings game, which encouraged them to take creative risks by having all of their shows interact in one way or another.
But no way was more crazy than NBC's Blackout Thursday, which started when Mad About You's Jamie (Helen Hunt) caused a black out in New York City. The impact was felt on Friends (where Chandler gets stuck in an ATM vestibule with supermodel Jill Goodacre), the short-lived Dabney Coleman series Madman of the People and, of course, Mad About You.
ABC's TGIF "Time Ball" (1995)
While TGIF mainstays Family Matters, Full House, and Step by Step had crossed paths before, and Full House had intersected with an episode of Hangin' With Mr. Cooper, those crossovers have nothing on the bizarre 1997 attempt at a crossover between unrelated shows Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Boy Meets World, and two shows much further down the food chain, You Wish and Teen Angel.
When Sabrina's cat, Salem, swallows a "time ball," the result is he bounces between the aforementioned shows, sending their plotlines into different eras.
prevnext"Batman and Robin meet the Green Hornet and Kate" (1967)
In a time before Crisis on Earth X elevated television crossovers into cinematic territory, Green Hornet teaming up with Batman was a pretty huge deal.
The two-part Batman episode showcased Hornet's stars (highlighting Bruce Lee's Kato scene-stealing performance), but the campy fun of Batman was too-little, too-late to boost the fortunes of the more-serious Green Hornet, whose last episode would air just weeks later.
prevnextBart Simpson prank-calls "24" (2007)
The Simpsons has had crossovers with so many pop culture giants it's hard to pick a favorite, but this cameo with live-action hit 24 took the cake.
On the episode "24 minutes," one of Bart's prank calls to Moe's Tavern gets the attention of the team as Mary Lynn Rajskub's Chloe O'Brian is forced to explain to Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer that "Ahmed Adoody" isn't a Saudi financier, but rather a joke by America's favorite fourth-grader.
prevnextAlf and a "dark" Gilligan's Island (1987)
Gilligan's Island had many surprise castaways over the years, but by far the darkest of them all was the 1987 episode of Alf featuring the original cast.
In the episode, titled "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island", series stars Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Dawn Wells and Russell Johnson reprise their roles in a dream sequence in which they continue to be stranded on the island for more than 20 years. Suffice it to say, things get sad pretty quickly.
prevnextThe Jeffersons stumble upon The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1995)
In an episode of Fresh Prince, Will (Will Smith ) and his fiancee Lisa (Nia Long) come face to face with Sherman Hemsley and Isable Sanford in their roles from the popular 1970s hit series.
The Jeffersons would also appear on Prince's series finale, along with Diff'rent Strokes stars Conrad Bain and Gary Coleman.
prevnext"Murder, She Wrote" vacations with "Magnum P.I." (1986)
Mystery writers don't get to take relaxing vacations. In the two-part story, Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) heads to Hawaii to unwind and crosses paths with Magnum P.I.
Though the shows were incredibly different, the charm of series leads Landsbury and Tom Selleck (and his mustache) made this crossover a delightful event.
prevnext"St. Elsewhere" visits "Cheers" (1985)
One of the weirdest crossovers of all time, the only thing these shows had in common was they fact they were set in Boston and both aired on NBC.
As the super-serious doctors of Elsewhere visited a local bar, their interaction with the world of Cheers only served to remind viewers that, in real life, going to that bar as an outsider would likely be a terrible experience.
Also, as the St. Elsewhere finale would establish the show was entirely a child's vivid dream, that implies that the kid also dreamed up Cheers, along with its spinoff Frasier.
prevnext"The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman" (1976)
Crossovers between the two shows were far from unusual — as, Woman was a spinoff of the more-established Man, and the two lead characters had an on-again, off-again romance — but their team-up in "The Return of Bigfoot" to fight Bigfoot, a robot (played by the Addams Family's Lurch, Ted Cassidy) built by aliens, was iconic.
prevnextThe X-Files' Cops Episode (2000)
Appropriately titled "X-Cops", the episode written by Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan blended reality show Cops' theme song, cast and crew with a typical X-Files case of the week for an epic television event.
As the team chases a werewolf, having the action take place in real time like a normal episode Cops caught the tension and reality of the supernatural series in unexpected, and brilliant ways.
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