The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase unoriginal, poor television writing and references and parodies many television series. When Troy McClure mentions that Fox can only fill up three slots for the next season, the three series are "Melrose Place", "The X-Files" and "The Simpsons" itself. In the museum of television, Troy walks by posters of spin-offs, such as "The Ropers" (spun off from "Three's Company"), "Laverne & Shirley" (spun off from "Happy Days"), "Rhoda", a show that Julie Kavner, the voice of Marge, once starred in, (spun off from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show") and "Fish" (spun off from "Barney Miller"), to demonstrate the power of
Maude (TV series) program (during the heyday of topical sitcoms, which its presence helped to create), when it was regularly one of the top-ten highest-rated American television programs in any given week. In Great Britain, "Maude" was not shown nationally, although it was shown (beginning in 1975) in the ITV regions of Westward, Border, Tyne Tees, Anglia, Yorkshire, Granada and Channel. Satellite station Sky One ran the series in the early/mid 1990s. In the fifth season, "Maude" unexpectedly plunged from #4 to #31 in the Nielsen ratings as its lead-ins "Rhoda" and "Phyllis" began to struggle. In 1978, late in the sixth season,