In 2004 there was a pilot/TV movie made for Mr. Ed revival with Sherman Hemsley as the voice of Mr. Ed. Mr. Ed (TV Movie 2004) - Reference View - IMDb It never ended up airing anywhere. I would love to see this some day.
Thanks for answering for me, but no. Myself and my friends have been recording off air TV since the mid-70s and buying films for almost as long. Tons of 16mm prints of unsold pilots would be sold in the Big Reel. No secret method, just normal collector means. The networks used to burn off unsold pilots all of the time, especially in the summer.
While you're looking maybe you could see if you have Klein Time? Klein Time (1977) - IMDb I don't believe this ever aired. I know about it b/c Klein mentioned it in his classic Tomorrow appearance w/George Carlin in 1976 (another episode I wish somebody would upload to YT. I taped it on a cheap audio recorder and listened and listened and listened until the tape fell apart. I still have much of it memorized). Note this is not his talk show Robert Klein Time from the '80s. That's a completely different series.
During the 11th season of My Three Sons there was an attempt to spin Robbie, Katie, and their triplets off into their own series. In the episode “After the Honeymoon” (which also served as a backdoor pilot), Robbie was laid off from his job and moved his family to San Francisco to accept a new job. The apartment building that they moved into came equipped with wacky/overbearing landlords. The proposed spin-off series wasn’t picked up, much to Grady’s relief. He’d been ambivalent about the project from the get-go, having decided that he’d had enough of playing “Robbie” and acting in general. His true passion was music, and he longed to compose and perform his own songs. He left the series at the end of season 11, but Tina Cole returned; her husband’s absence was explained by having him transferred to Peru to oversee a construction job.
I just love stuff like this. And test-footage/test-reels too. Clearly some are better than others, and half are barely worth watching all the way through. Still, I could easily burn an entire weekend sampling stuff like this, especially footage from the 60's and 70's.
I think I'm safe in suggesting this is the greatest unsold pilot of all time (it won a Peabody Award)
The Over The Hill Gang TV movies were supposed to be TV pilots but the series was unsold, but I think that this is a case that the plots milk ran dry by the 2nd movie in the series.
Orson has 5 or 6 parts of a BBC documentary - real good Orson Welles Sketchbook - Episode 1: The Early Days
Stick Around (TV pilot) - Wikipedia Stick Around was an unsold television pilot for ABC, starring Andy Kaufman. Only one episode was ever made, airing on 30 May 1977. Kaufman portrayed Andy, a run-down servant robot in the future. He used the same voice of his "Foreign Man" character that would one day become the signature voice of Latka Gravas on Taxi. The pilot also starred Nancy New and Fred McCarren as Elaine and Vance Keefer, a married couple in the year 2055. The plot of the episode revolves around Andy the robot's inadequacies as an older model, and whether or not they should replace him. Vance owns an antique store, and there are a lot of jokes that revolve around his misconceptions about the antiques he has, all of which are common household appliances of the 1970s. Vance is very frustrated by Andy's incompetence but eventually he and Elaine decide to keep him. Andy would revive the robot character to some degree in the 1981 film Heartbeeps.
Heil Honey I'm Home Full Uncut Episode Of course, no one should be too surprised to see this was never picked up. And please no discussion of the subject matter, just keep those failed pilots coming
This reminds me a little bit of Rosie The Robot from The Jetsons. Her origin was similar: She was considered an obsolete model (the salesman attitude about Rosie was completely disdainful) that Jane Jetson chose over the more up-to-date models, and ends up becoming a part of the family.
W*A*L*T*E*R - Wikipedia W*A*L*T*E*R is a 1984 pilot episode for a spin-off of M*A*S*H that was never picked up. It starred Gary Burghoff, who reprised his M*A*S*H character. The episode relates the adventures of Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly after he returns home from the Korean War. He is no longer calling himself "Radar" and has moved away from Iowa after he sent his mother to live with his aunt. Settling in St. Louis, Missouri, by the beginning of the series he has become a police officer, though his character is still as in the original series.
Since the pilot was never picked up by CBS as a series, it was shown as a "CBS Special Presentation" on July 17, 1984. It was shown once in the Eastern and Central time zones of the United States, but pre-empted on the West Coast by CBS News coverage of the Democratic National Convention. This is the only known broadcast of the pilot.[5]
I remember a TV pilot that aired sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s that was a Golden Girls knock-off set in a retirement home. I don’t remember much other than a woman, who was like a Dorothy/Bea Arthur character, who just wanted to read the newspaper and sports pages. I have tried to find it but I can’t, I want to say it was like Sunset Delights or something cheesy like that. It featured an actress like Elaine Stritch-type (not her). I just remember seeing that at my grandparents one time. I also remember a pilot for a spin off from Evening Shade called Harlan and Merleen.
Howie (1962) Paul Lynde repeats his uptight father act from Bye Bye Birdie. Ten years later William Asher would take this script, tweak it a bit for the All In The Family age, and produce it as The Paul Lynde Show.
The Laughmakers was an unsold pilot from 1962, written by but not starring Woody Allen, and featuring Alan Alda in a supporting role. It was set mainly at a comedy club and centred around the hijinks of a group of comedians who performed there. Best scene was a bit where one of the comics read his drivers licence as a poem, beatnik-style. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be online, but lots more info here: WAGSTAFF: RARE WOODY ALLEN TV: PART ONE