
Just like films, TV shows often go through several name changes from original concept to pilot script to pitch meeting to “We think it would be more marketable if you called it…..” Here are 8 examples.
The original title for Roseanne was Life and Stuff, which its star felt neatly summed up the premise of the show. However, by the time the pilot was filmed, the producers thought it wise to exploit the skyrocketing success of Roseanne Barr’s standup comedy and named the show after the “Domestic Goddess” America seemed to love. “Life and Stuff” became the title of the premiere episode.

Remember Fraggle Rock? When creator Jim Henson first envisioned his utopia of different Muppet creatures living together in harmony, he called them “Woozles” and the tentatively titled the series Woozle World. The other “species” detailed in his early drafts included the Giant Wozles (who evolved into the Gorgs) and the Wizzles, a precursor to the Doozers.
While Roseanne specialized in blue collar humor, Married…with Children’s humor was usually just plain blue. In fact, it ran so contrary to the accepted norm for a family sitcom that creators Michael Moye and Ron Leavitt originally shopped their pilot script around under the title Not the Cosby Show.
The science fiction anthology series The Outer Limits was originally going to be called Please Stand By (as can be seen in this rare clip). But with the Cuban Missile Crisis so fresh in America’s mind, ABC decided that flashing the words “Please Stand By” on TV screens might send viewers rushing to their back yard bomb shelters.
That 70s Show was called Teenage Wasteland when Ashton Kutcher auditioned for the role of Michael Kelso. The pilot script underwent a few more name changes (including another Who classic, The Kids Are Alright) before it finally aired.

When Glenn Howerton, Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney were cobbling together the pilot script for a proposed TV series about a group of very self-centered buddies, they pitched it to various networks with a title which they felt best summed up the main characters: Jerks. FX kinda sorta liked the idea, except for the title and the locale (the show was originally set in Los Angeles). The creators changed the setting of their show to McElhenney’s home town and the new name just presented itself: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

When Norman Lear was asked by Fred Silverman to build a series around 10-year-old wiseguy Gary Coleman, he mapped out a basic story that had Gary being adopted by a wealthy white man who lived in the Westchester town of Hastings-on-Hudson and called the project 45 Minutes from Harlem. Conrad Bain was brought on board to portray the pater familias, and he suggested the backstory (wealthy widower honoring his dying housekeeper’s request that he adopt her two boys) that became the premise of the series. Since the millionaire’s home had moved from the suburbs to nearby Manhattan, the name of the show was changed to Diff’rent Strokes.
In the early 1970s, Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson collaborated on a TV series set in idyllic 1950s Milwaukee. Paramount passed on New Family in Town, but they did eventually retool that pilot script and used it as a piece called “Love and the Happy Days” on their anthology series Love, American Style in 1972. That segment was so well-received that Marshall and Belson were hired to produce a series based on their original idea, only with a new title (Happy Days) and some new casting (Tom Bosley instead of Harold Gould).
i remember reading somewhere that ‘that 70′s show’ got it’s name because when they showed its pilot, along with some others, to a test audience, and then asked them which show they liked the best, most of them said they liked ‘that 70′s show’.
posted by alison on 3-27-2009 at 11:29 am
After the Fonz became a huge hit during the 1st season of Happy Days, they wanted to change the name to Fonzis Happy Days. I believe it was Henry Winkler that voted the idea down.
posted by Patrick on 4-6-2009 at 7:01 pm
“It’s Always Sunny…” was also titled “It’s Always Sunny on TV” because the show was supposed to be so unlike any other TV show.
posted by rich on 4-9-2009 at 2:05 pm
I thought that 70′s show was just a little bit over rated when in comparison to the classics of the 60s 70s and 80s.
posted by global7x on 5-5-2009 at 9:08 pm
The only one I can picture being named something else is Fraggle Rock –> Woozle World. It’s kinda catchy!
posted by Levinson Axelrod on 12-28-2009 at 10:57 am
I feel obligated to point out that although the phrase “Teenage Wasteland” figures prominently into that The Who song, it is actually called Baba O’Riley.
posted by Cookie on 5-12-2010 at 12:30 pm
The discarded ’45 Minutes from Harlem’ sounds even more leaden when you consider that it was a play on the title of the then-seventy-year-old George M. Cohan song ’45 Minutes from Broadway.’
posted by Ego Nemo on 1-18-2011 at 1:01 pm
It’s probably a good thing Jim Henson dropped “Woozle World”. All it makes me think of is Heffalumps and Woozles, from “Winnie-the-Pooh.”
posted by Grobanite33 on 1-18-2011 at 4:17 pm