"Cougar Town" May Be Getting A New Title Next Season!

[Brian Damage]

Fans of Cougar Town may have to re-set their DVRs soon.

The show’s co-creator Bill Lawrence is hoping to change the ABC comedy’s title for the next season since it has evolved into an ensemble show rather than one that only focuses on Courteney Cox‘s character, Jules Cobb.

“You would be hard-pressed to watch the last three episodes of the show and asked anyone for titles I doubt anyone would say ‘Cougar Town,’ ” Lawrence tells HitFix.com.

But there’s another reason why he’s hoping for the name makeover: Attracting people who normally wouldn’t watch a show with the existing title. “Partly as a result of common sense and partly from [the studio's] research, they find too many instances of testing of people saying they would never watch a show called Cougar Town — ‘I don’t want to see some show about a 40-year-old woman nailing younger guys,’ ” says Lawrence. “And then they screen an episode, and people go, ‘Oh, I would watch this show.’ “

So what title does he have in mind? Lawrence says he constantly jokes the show should be called Friends and Neighbors with the ‘Friends‘ written in the same font as Cox’s old show. But he doesn’t “want to put [ideas] out there yet.”

http://tvwatch.people.com/2010/05/12...-cox-new-name/

[TV Knowledge Fan]

...Bill Lawrence wanted to alter the title to "SCRUBS MED" [since he correctly observed it was, for all intent and purposes, a "new" series], but ABC overrruled him (they figured they could get at least two more seasons out of the "new format" to add to the "inventory" of episodes already produced). It was just as well, as the series ain't never comin' back...in the case of "COUGAR TOWN", however, it's a matter of necessity, because it isn't the same series it started out to be. The obvious choice, of course, would be to retitle it "THE COURTENEY COX SHOW"....but that's too easy. "ON THE PROWL"? Too "provocative". "TRY, TRY AGAIN"? That has possibilities...

[Brian Damage]

Courteney Cox has suggested that she would like the name of her show 'Cougar Town' to be changed.

Cox, who stars in the show as Jules, told Access Hollywood that the current name could be misleading.

"We've been talking about (a name change) for a long time," she said. "I don't know if it's going to happen or not. I don't know... I honestly don't know."

AdvertisementShe continued: "This show is not just for women. It's for women and men. It's funny. It's crazy. It's kooky and you know it's heartfelt and it's all of that. So... we don't want people to get misled by the name Cougar Town. It's just about trying to get what the real show is about and we may do it or we may not."

The programme's executive producer Bill Lawrence recently confirmed that he is considering a different title for the series as the premise has changed since the pilot.

Cox's co-star Busy Philipps recently admitted that she has "mixed emotions" about a possible name change.

http://www.rte.ie/arts/2010/0605/coxc.html

[TJL]

Leave it alone. It's too late to change it now.