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
Play for Today (1971), "The Foxtrot" (1971), "Home" (1972), "Bar Mitzvah Boy" (1976), "Abigail's Party" (1977), "Blue Remembered Hills" (1979) and "Just a Boys' Game" (1979). Certain other well known plays, including "Penda's Fen" (1974), "Nuts in May" (1976), were commissioned by David Rose of the BBC's English Regions Drama department based in Birmingham. Some installments in the series were spun off into full-blown series. Probably the two best-remembered examples of this are "", which was produced as a one-off in the "Play for Today" strand in 1975 and three years later became a series for Thames Television, again with Leo McKern, and