20 Hilarious Friends Spin-Offs (That Never Existed)

20. The One With The Submarine Guy

Appearing in a single episode in season two (‘The One With The Chicken Pox’), Phoebe’s on-off Navy officer Ryan might not be everyone’s immediate first choice for a spin-off… if they didn’t know that he was played by Charlie Sheen.

Hollywood royalty or not, by 1996 Sheen’s movie career had stalled. He wouldn’t find television success until he stepped into a going concern, taking the place of Michael J. Fox on ABC’s Spin City in 2000. That, of course, led onto even greater success with CBS and Two And A Half Men a few years later.

Sheen was television dynamite: he just needed someone to take a risk on him. What might have happened had NBC chosen to take that risk in 1996/1997?

They could have spun Ryan off onto something like… Sweet Home Alabama, a show about the wacky crew of the US Navy Ohio class nuclear submarine Alabama (who go down for two years at a time), and the straight-laced Lieutenant Commander with no choice but to keep them all together.