Can you consider the Happy Days thing a "backdoor pilot", though?

As best I recall (I was young when the show aired), Love American Style had one (or more) completely different stories each week. The stories were completely unrelated, and the show featured dozens (if not hundreds) of different actors over its run. In other words, it was more like The Twilight Zone or Tales From The Crypt, except each story was a lighthearted romance instead of something bizarre or scary. There wasn't such a thing as a "regular cast" for the show, nor were any of the characters related in any way (except within the single story, of course).

Not only can it be considered a "backdoor pilot," it literally was a pilot that was repurposed for Love American Style.

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love%2C_American_Style
And I don't see how the anthology format prohibits backdoor pilots. If anything, the anthology format shows are the perfect testing grounds for backdoor pilots, since the audiences for these shows are used to the wild shifts in focus and characters that backdoor pilots usually entail.

If your point is that spin-offs in general haven't been successful in the past fifteen years, you're wrong. Angel was a spin-off from Buffy that lasted 5 seasons. Boston Legal, a spin-off of The Practice, is in its 4th season. I think the new Grey's Anatomy spin-off is doing well. Stargate Atlantis is in its 4th season as well. Daria lasted 5 seasons. The Colbert Report in it's 3rd year and going strong. NCIS, spun off from JAG, is in it's 5th season. Xena lasted 6 seasons. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine could be considered a spin-off of Star Trek: The Next Generation and ran for 7 seasons. And of course, both CSI and Law & Order have had several successful spin-offs in the past few years.

A lot of spin-offs do fail, but then, so do a lot of new original shows too. I'd guess that the hit-to-cancelled ratio for spin-offs isn't any worse than it is for any other type of new show.

It certainly seems like a good candidate, and Lavern & Shirley is considered a spin-off. I'd say so, yeah.

Is there anyway to see the pilot? Or was it actually aired as the first episode? I remember seeing a very early season one Happy Days (maybe the first) where Fonzie was wearing a cloth (or silk) jacket. It seemed a lot more edgy than it became (and Fonzie was definitely a "bad boy" hood, not the silly caricature he became). I think Fonzie helped Richie against some gang members who wanted to beat him up. It might be the same episode where Fonzie also taught Richie how to open the snap on a bra one handed.

The pilot for Happy Days wasn't aired as the first episode. A 2nd season episode of Happy Days does use clips from the pilot though in service of a plot about the girlfriend from the pilot coming back to town. The pilot hasn't appeared on any of the Happy Days season sets though.

Love, American Style is getting a Season One DVD release this month, although the Happy Days pilot looks like it was part of the third season of that show.

From http://www.sitcomsonline.com/happyda...dvdreview.html
"Among the changes [from the pilot] was to include the character of Arthur Fonzarelli. ABC wanted to toughen up the show by having a gang of thugs beat up Richie Cunningham. Marshall agreed, but the character became a benevolent companion to Richie and his pals.... The 1st season often saw Fonzie in a gray McGregor windbreaker with penny loafers and not his later trademark leather jacket and motorcycle boots."

Michael Scott should get the tv show he's been writing picked up. The new show would be that show, entitled "When the Whistle Blows."

I seem to recall people saying the same thing about The Office when it was announced.

Indeed they did:
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....26#post4844226

but how will he get to pitch it to Patrick Stewart?

He wouldn't. He'd pitch it to William Shatner.

I was randomly browsing Washingtonpost.com and I saw they were doing a TV-related chat so I asked a question and it was actually answered!

There's actually a lot more information in this thread:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=528785