This 90s Tom Hanks Movie Spawned 2 TV Shows – And It's Finally on Prime
Forrest Gump may have the Oscars, and The Green Mile has the tears, but the real turning point in Tom Hanks' career was a very different movie.
We're talking about 1992's A League of Their Own — the baseball dramedy that proved he could do more than mug his way through buddy comedies. It was a hit with critics, a hit at the box office, and in 2012, it was added to the National Film Archive. Not bad for a movie about an all-women's baseball team.
And now, after all these years, it's finally streaming on Prime Video.
But what most people forget — or choose to — is that A League of Their Own didn't stop at one movie. It spawned not one, but two TV shows. One in 1993, one in 2022. Both canceled.
The 1993 CBS series was a direct continuation of the film — minus most of the cast anyone cared about. No Madonna, no Rosie O'Donnell, and most importantly, no Tom Hanks. The role of Jimmy Dugan was recast, and what little charm the movie had didn't survive the jump to network TV.
Critics weren't kind:
"Lousy writing, an annoying laugh track, and a ho-hum cast do not make for a field of comedy dreams."
– Mike Duffy, Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Jon Lovitz popped in for a cameo as Ernie Capadino — the same character he played in the movie — but he wasn't sticking around. Hanks did return, sort of: he directed one episode, "The Monkey's Curse," which featured the team adopting a chimpanzee as a mascot. It bombed. The show aired three episodes, went on a four-month "hiatus," returned for two more, and was canceled before the sixth could even make it to air.
1993 TV series:
• Aired: 5 episodes total
• Directed by Tom Hanks (1 episode)
• Canceled mid-season by CBS
• Labeled "a smarmy loser" by critics
Jump ahead to 2022, and Prime Video gave the idea another swing — this time, as a reboot. It lasted one full season, drew critical praise, and then quietly got the axe in August 2023. Showrunner Abbi Jacobson didn't hold back when the news broke:
"To blame this cancelation on the strike... is bulls**t and cowardly... This post here is about the special show I was lucky to make... Full of so much heart and soul and value."
Two shows, one movie, and one long trail of corporate mishandling. But at least now, after three decades of botched spin-offs, you can finally stream the original A League of Their Own where it belongs — without a laugh track, without a chimp, and without the bitter aftertaste.