The other day I watched Neil Simon’s Odd Couple II. Now that was odd. I never realized there was an Odd Couple II and I thought for sure I had seen everything that Neil Simon had written. Yet back in 1998 I missed that one. It was cute but had I missed it I probably wouldn’t have missed it.

Sequels are odd things in general. They can be wildly successful, consider the Hungry Games movies. They can be wildly unsuccessful ala the Hangover trilogy. Or they can be just plain unknown.

These are real movies with most if not all of the original cast (not direct to DVD or made for TV sequels banking on a movie name with actors names not household words like Road House 2 or Look What Happened to Rosemary’s Baby).

French Connection 2. The French Connection has what had been called the greatest car chase in movie history. An Oscar Winner in 1972 for best movie, best director, best adapted screenplay, and best actor (Gene Hackman), and nominated for best supporting actor (Roy Scheider). Hackman returned in the sequel four years later. Forty years later you can still find the French Connection on TV and movie sites but French Connection II has long been forgotten if it had ever been remembered at all.

Shock Treatment: This is a sort of sequel to the cult creating Rocky Horror Picture Show. Many of the original actors (though not Tim Curry) returned for this release six years after the Rocky Horror Picture Show but didn’t play the same characters as in the original movie.  Critically some called Shock Treatment a better film than the Rocky Horror Picture Show but where the latter has grossed $140 million in North American sales, the former hasn’t earned a quarter of that. But it is still out there and hit the London theater district with a live version in the spring of this year.

Psycho II (and III and even IV). Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller was reborn as Anthony Perkins reprised his role three times as Norman Bates. The only thing scary in the returns to the Bates Motel are that they were made at all. (Actually Pyscho IV isn’t a return. It is a prequel and was released as a made for TV movie.)

Then there are those sequels that some might not even know are sequels.

The Color of Money. With great performances by Paul Newman and Tom Cruise as mentor and student pool players, Newman’s Edie Felson character first hit the screen 25 years earlier when he starred as the young gun with Jackie Gleason as the established pool player and George C. Scott the mover and shaker in The Hustler.

They Call Me Mister Tibbs. Sidney Poitier repeated his role of Virgil Tibbs from In the Heat of the Night although he moved from Philadelphia to San Francisco to do it. The original movie was set in Sparta Mississippi where Philadelphian Poitier changes trains after visiting his mother. In the John Ball novel upon which the series is based, Virgil Tibbs is a police officer from Pasadena who is waiting for a train in Wells, South Carolina. In the sequel, Mr. Tibbs got to solve the crime in San Francisco where he now lives. A third movie, The Organization, also starring Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs completed the movie franchise. The book series spanned seven novels and four short stories featuring Tibbs. In the Heat of the Night is the only title and plot shared by movie and book offerings.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, so in 1820 said Charles Caleb Colton. Maybe that’s why there are so many sequels. Of course, that quote itself might be a sequel to other similarly worded sentiments from a couple hundred years earlier.  Sometimes sequels end up being an odd couple of movies, sometimes just plain odd, sometimes anything but odd. One thing is for sure, sequels will always be another thing.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?