As I just explained in a brief entry, I've taken the tagboard down until such times as it starts working again and stops preventing my page from loading. The home page isn't working at all and I can't see any boards. It's not just me having a problem, is it? Grr, stupid thing. As soon as it's working again I'll put it back up, but there's no point keeping it up there if it means no one can read my diary.
I'm still being a bit quiet at the moment I'm afraid. I've been bleeding heavier and heavier over the last couple of days and I am fearing another trip to the doctors on the horizon. I just feel horrid at the moment. Grimey, disgusting. I smell of blood. I can't escape the scent. Tomorrow morning I am going to have a very long bath, dose up on brainkillers and hot water bottles and watch Blue's Clues. They have been starting to show it from the start at half past eight in the mornings so I get to watch an episode before work each day :)
Last night Y and I had a conversation about spin-off series and what makes a successful one. It all started when I was telling him about an auction that I had proudly, delightfully and joyfully won yesterday morning, but it went off on a tangent. I was also trying to get an item for Y - a Taz golfing figure, but it went up too high and I missed out. The connection being that when I searched for Bugs, 99.999 percent of items that came up were for bloody Bugs Bunny, and that led me on to searching for Taz!
We were talking about how Taz had started off as a tiny role in just a handful of traditional Warner Bros. cartoons and yet made such a good series in his own right. The fact is, Taz was an unusual choice for a spin-off, but it worked. In a similar way, in Disney quarters, Chip & Dale were an unusual choice for their own series but Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers was a brilliant cartoon. What we established from this was the realization spin offs only actually have longevity when they are based around background characters rather than a main star.
Frasier, for example. As we discussed last night, Frasier was an unusual choice from Cheers to have his own series. Some of the other characters such as Norm or Woody would have been more expected choices as they had more natural comedy to them and had been more popular characters. But the fact is, the less you know about the character, the more scope there is for a spin off.
If you already know the whole family history, lifestyle, friends and job of a character, where is there for the spin-off to go? A spin off would be exactly the same as the original. But with Frasier being one of the least explored characters from Cheers, there was plenty of scope to expand his role into a whole new series.
We were discussing what characters we thought would make good spin-off subjects in various programmes. He told me there were rumours of a Niles and Daphne spin-off from frasier, but I don't think that would work because it would just be Frasier.... without the Frasier. I think Bulldog would be great for a spin-off - that way there would still be the familiarity of the radio station but we don't know anything about his family or his friends, and he could have a new conquest in every episode.
As for Friends, I think Gunther would be the best subject for a spin-off. None of the 6 main characters, sadly, would work as well because it would just be a poor man's Friends. It's got to be one of the lesser known characters and I think Gunther's got potential.
I suppose that's why when I am writing books and I borrow characters from all sorts of programmes I prefer the ones who are more in the background. I don;t even want to start thinking about who would be a good candidate for a spin-off from the Toisebook though. The Ever Dramatic Tim Henman, maybe? Ian The Inflatable Tortoise perhaps? Argh, it's too late - I'm thinking about it now! Damnit!
Anyway, entries will be back to normal over the next few days, or whatever passes for normal anyway!
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