Shared universes have been booming for years thanks to Marvel's popularity, but the truth is that these superheroes didn't invent the trend. In fact, there is currently a little-known television universe that has more than 70 years of history and includes popular series such as Friends, Seinfeld, X-Files: On the Borders of Reality, Listening (The Wire in VO) and Frasier.
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The beginnings of this little-known universe
The oldest series I found that is part of it is I Love Lucythe legendary sitcom with Lucille Ball broadcast between 1951 and 1957, but what interests us today is that the character of Lucy Ricardo appears in an episode of The Danny Thomas Show in 1959. What could have been a simple cameo was in fact the first step in a slowly but surely developing universe.
In 1963, Carl Reiner played the role of Alan Brady, the character who appeared regularly in The Dick Van Dyke Showin an episode of Danny Thomas Show. It was at that moment that an unexpected link was created with a series which would not see the light of day until 1992: Crazy about you.
This series also had a special appearance by the same character played by Reiner in an episode released in 1995, titled The Alan Brady Show. The most important time jump has already been made, but don't worry, from now on we will go both forward and backward.
Crossovers you probably haven't noticed
The first and most obvious link is that with Friendsas any good fan of this series will remember that Phoebe had a sister called Ursula, who was the character played by Lisa Kudrow herself in Crazy about you. If we remove that, we can find other series in this universe, like Caroline in the Citysince Lea Thompson appeared in an episode of Friends and that Matthew Perry reprized Chandler Bing in another episode of the series.
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Besides the obvious Joeythe failed spin-off led by Matt LeBlanc after the end of Friendsthe series also spawned other lesser-known crossovers. Thus, the character of Ross Geller appeared in an episode of The Single Guya series broadcast between 1995 and 1997, while Cynthia Stevenson and Jessica Lundy reprized their roles as Hope & Gloria in an episode of Friends.
After having exhausted the track Friendsit is worth remembering the link between Caroline in the City et Frasiersince the unforgettable Niles, played by David Hyde Pierce, also appeared in an episode of the first season of the series directed by Thompson. To further complicate matters, Hyde Pierce returned in season 2, but with a different character.
For its part, the most obvious link with Frasier is that of Cheerssince it was born as a spin-off of this series. We could pull the thread with more subtle crossovers, like the Boston Mercy Hospital in M.A.S.H. mentioned in an episode of Cheerswhich would also include X-Files: On the Borders of Reality in this universe, but we need to make a little diversion to lead more naturally to MASH.
Episode 11 of season 4 of Hôpital St Elsewherethe series that made Denzel Washington famous, aired in late 1985, mentions that Dr. BJ Hunnicutt, the character played by Mike Farrell in MASH, is a former colleague of Dr. Craig (William Daniels) during his years of service in North Korea . The same year, three characters from the series were seen in an episode of Cheers visiting the bar they were all talking about.
A bottomless pit of crossovers
If we stop for a moment on Hôpital St Elsewherewe will find connections with other series, such as Chicago Hope: Life at all coststhrough a very specific prize that the characters of the two series won, and Homicide : Life on the Streetbecause Alfre Woodard took on a character from Hôpital St Elsewhere in an episode of this series during season 6.
This last series also interests us because it made a crossover with X-Files: On the Borders of Reality in 1997, thanks to the appearance of Richard Belzer taking on the character of detective John Munch. To further add fuel to the fire, this same character also appeared in an episode of The Wire.
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The series list is simply unmanageable and includes titles such as, to name a few, The Bob Newhart Show, Murphy Brown, Wings, A Nanny from Hell, Everyone loves Raymond, The College Years, The John Larroquette Show, A guy from Queens, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt et Becker. Going into detail about all the links would take too long and would probably never end.
Obviously the connections in this universe are much weaker than in the MCU, but there's a lot of merit in the fact that it's still going strong so many years later and encompassing series of all kinds.
Article written in collaboration with our colleagues from IGN Brazil.
