Melissa Joan Hart thinks it's for the best that the failed "Clarissa Explains It All" spinoff didn't make it to television, she told HuffPost Live's Caitlyn Becker on Tuesday.
After the iconic Nickelodeon series ended in 1994, producers created a pilot episode for "Clarissa Now," a spinoff that found Clarissa going to college and interning at a newspaper in New York City. (The pilot is available on YouTube.) The goal was to bring young fans of "Clarissa" to network TV, Hart explained.
"'Clarissa' kind of grew some legs toward the end, I think, so they decided to do it as a spinoff. CBS was known as, like, the old man's network, and they were like, 'Let's bring some youth to it. Let's bring "Clarissa" to CBS,'" Hart said.
But that pilot was the only episode ever shot. In retrospect, Hart said that was the right decision:
It didn't really have the feel of "Clarissa," so it didn't really take off. The network decided not to make the show, not to go forward with it, and when people found out about it recently, they've been pretty upset that it didn't go forward. But it wouldn't have been the same show. I don't think people would have liked it as much.
These days, "Clarissa" is a distant memory for Hart, who is busy with her latest series "Melissa & Joey" and her new clothing line King of Harts.
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