We love a good crossover. Whether it's Buffy dropping in on Angel in, um, Angel, or the Cheers lot heading to Seattle to hang out with their pal Frasier, there's nothing like seeing old friends in new surroundings.
But some shows are so radically different they'd have to break their own space-time continuum in order to merge.
Shows like that would never, ever cross over... Would they?
1. The X-Files & Cops – The X-Files, Season 7, Episode 12: 'X-Cops'
File this in the cabinet next to Bones / Sleepy Hollow in terms of concepts that should have never, ever met... but turned out to be quite fun when they did.
Cops, a reality TV programme known for its gritty aesthetic, was merged with a slickly shot sci-fi show about a couple of government agents investigating aliens and werewolves and stuff.
The whole thing was cooked up by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, and the episode had a similarly intoxicating effect as blue meth (but made you feel even more guilty afterwards).
2. Bones & Sleepy Hollow – Bones, Season 11, Episode 5: 'The Resurrection in the Remains'
This is potentially our most mind-boggling entry, in that it mixes a modern-day police procedural show with a supernatural series inspired by a short story from the 1800s. The closest equivalent we can think of is if the cast of Penny Dreadful strolled onto the set of The Bill, and even that doesn't really convey how truly bizarre this episode is. And fun, actually. Bones has an innate charm that can even infect Ichabod Crane and his po-faced decapitation-obsessed mates.
Still, spells and demons on a forensic investigations show, whatever next? Blossom, that's what's next.
3. Blossom & The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – Blossom, Season 2, Episode 4: 'I'm With The Band'
Hold on to your preposterous hats, this one's really going to bake your noodle. In Season 2 of Blossom, Hilary Banks from The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air wins a competition to go on a date with Blossom's brother Tony. All fine, nothing baffling about that. Well, until you remember that 15 episodes earlier, Blossom got super-excited about meeting Will Smith – as in, the real-life actual Will Smith – in an elevator.
Which begs the question, who is the Fresh Prince in the Blossomverse? Because if Hilary Banks is real, and Will Smith is real then… then… *zones out*
4. The Simpsons & 24 – The Simpsons, Season 18, Episode 21: '24 Minutes'
The Simpsons and 24 are both Fox shows, which does make us wonder if the above scene is more cross-promotion than actual crossover. And it leads to so many questions. How did Jack misdial a cartoon? Why is Jack bright yellow (radiation poisoning)? And is that prank call gag a tiny bit racist?
Still, at least it contains Bauer's iconic "Dammit" catchphrase, which was created because Kiefer Sutherland decided he needed a regular way to express frustration / exit scenes that felt a bit dead, and landed on the only swear he was allowed to utter on network TV.
Which is a bit like Bart Simpson's "Eat my shorts" line – so maybe these shows do work together, after all.
5. Roseanne and Absolutely Fabulous – Roseanne Season 9, Episode 7: "Satan, Darling"
The question with this one is whether it strictly counts as a crossover, because it took place during a dream sequence. In the mad series of Roseanne where the family win the lottery and mingle with the wealthy, Roseanne encounters Eddy and Pats at a swanky soiree (later revealed to be a daydream).
So do Edina and Patsy exist in Roseanne's world? Or was her reverie induced by having watched the TV show Absolutely Fabulous? Either way it counts and we're having it.
6. Mork & Mindy & Happy Days – Happy Days, Season 5, Episode 22: 'My Favourite Orkan'
This is a tiny bit of a cheat, as Mork actually originated on an episode of Happy Days, with the character such a hit he was spun off into his own show. But it's so weird, we're having it.
Mork invades the Happy Days gang with the intention of taking Richie Cunningham back to his home planet for experimentation. Fonz foils Mork's plan, but then everything turns out to be a dream (until the spin-off show was commissioned, and it was retconned that Mork had erased everyone's memory).
The Happy Days lot loved an "it was all a dream" narrative (remember that one episode where Fonz fell in love with a ghost, who tried to kill him on a train track so they could be together? That was all a dream too. Or was it? It was). But this was utterly absurd.
7. Mad About You & Friends – Friends, Season 1, Episode 16: 'The One With The Two Parts'
Another strange one, inspired by the fact that Lisa Kudrow plays different characters on two different shows: Ursula, the ditzy waitress on Mad About You, and Phoebe on Friends.
When Mad About You's Jamie (Helen Hunt) stumbles into Central Perk, she mixes up one character for the other, and (sort-of) hilarity ensues. It's a relatively smart premise, if a little odd.
Bu what's super weird about this one is that the Friends creators decided the above scene was so great, it simply had to be canon – leading them to bring Ursula into the Friends universe, retconning her as Phoebe's evil twin.
Mad About You has a history of these weird crossovers though – you can read about another one here.
8. The Mask & Ace Ventura – The Mask, Season 3, Episode 9: 'The Aceman Cometh'
So, you're a TV exec with two separate based-on-a-movie animated series, that are only vaguely connected by the fact Jim Carrey starred in both of the original versions… Why not mix them together?
Sure, Jim doesn't actually do the voices for either show, and one takes place in a universe where magic exists and the other one doesn't, and it actually makes ZERO SENSE FOR THEM TO EVER MEET, but the kids will love it. That is, if they can work out what's going on.
9. Batman & The Green Hornet – Batman, Season 2, Episode 51: 'A Piece Of The Action'
The Green Hornet started life as the sort of serialised radio show that Bob Kane and Bill Finger listened to when they were creating their own vigilante hero, Batman, in the 1930s. Both premises featured wealthy heroes who stick on disguises to fight crime at night, and both have martial-arts experts for sidekicks. Significantly, both had serialised live-action TV shows in the '60s and, when we put it like that, it makes complete sense that they'd crossover.
Except that, it also kind of didn't. Bob Kane had a reputation for taking *ahem* inspiration from other sources when it came to inventing his characters, and he was almost certainly influenced by The Green Hornet.
So, for fans, seeing the Green Hornet shoved into Batman's format and – worse – witnessing his assistant Kato (played by BRUCE LEE) lose a fight to Robin (played by BURT WARD) felt like a bit of an insult. Worst of all, in order to make the set-up work, the writers invented a childhood rivalry between Bruce Wayne and Britt Reid, something neither character mentioned again.
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Freelancer writer
Sam is an entertainment writer with NCTJ accreditation and a twenty-year career as a film journalist.
Starting out as a staff writer at Total Film, moving up to Deputy Online Editor, Sam was responsible for Total Film’s YouTube channel, where he revolutionised the magazine’s approach to video junkets, creating influential formats that spread to other outlets.
He’s interviewed a wide range of film icons, including directors such as David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Ridley Scott, Michael Bay and Sam Raimi, as well as actors such as Meryl Streep, Nic Cage, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Anne Hathaway, Margot Robbie, Natalie Portman, Kermit the Frog, all of the Avengers and many more.
Sam has also interviewed several comic creators, including Stan Lee, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and he has a zombie cameo in The Walking Dead comic.
In 2014, Sam went freelance, working directly for film studios including Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox and Disney, as well as covering red carpet events for film marketing company PMA Productions.
Sam is the co-host, producer and editor of the Arrow Video podcast, which has seen year-on-year growth since its creation in 2017, gaining over half a million listens in that time.
His byline has appeared in outlets such as Yahoo, MTV, Dazed, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Good Housekeeping among others.
In 2012, Sam made it to the final of the Leicester Square Theatre New Comedian of the Year competition, and went on to become a filmmaker himself, directing three features that have all played major festivals, and secured distribution – starring in two of them.
Jim Carrey once mistook Sam for Johnny Cash, and John Carpenter told him to ‘Keep up the good work.’ He promises to try his best.
