Before New Girl became the TV show fans now love, it went through many changes, including the title, which was originally very different and wouldn’t have caught the attention of the audience... nor its main stars. Created by Elizabeth Meriwether, New Girl debuted on Fox in 2011 and lived on for six more seasons, coming to an end in 2018. The series was very well-received from the beginning and was praised for its tone, sense of humor, and the performances of the main cast, particularly those of Max Greenfield and Jake Johnson.
New Girl followed Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel), a bubbly teacher who discovered her boyfriend cheating on her at their home, and so moved out. She ended up moving into a loft with three complete strangers she found on the internet, and after a period of adjustment (that wasn’t easy for anyone), Jess ended up being very close to her roommates Schmidt (Greenfield), Nick Miller (Johnson), and Winston (Lamorne Morris). Like any other TV show, New Girl went through a whole creative process before becoming the series that made it to the televisions of many around the world, and that included a much-needed title change.
“New Girl” is a pretty simple title, but it’s also very direct and encapsulates the basic premise of the show: Jess Day was the new girl in the loft and the lives of Nick, Schmidt, Winston, and Coach (Damon Wayans Jr.). The original title, however, was very different, though also very direct but not in a way that could have been attractive to the audience. The title was Chicks & Dicks, and at the time, the show already had two characters similar to the final characters of Jess and Schmidt. Luckily, the title was changed and the characters too, making way for proper development for them and for the series to have a title that would benefit it more.
In an interview with Glamour in 2018, Meriwether shared she knew the title Chicks & Dicks wouldn’t stay, but as there are many pilots going around during pilot season, they needed one that would immediately catch people’s attention, and Chicks & Dicks was the chosen one. However, it didn’t have the desired effect on everyone, as Zooey Deschanel almost passed on reading the pilot script because of the title. Still, “New Girl” isn’t Meriwether’s favorite title, sharing that it’s something that she just stuck with for seven years, and felt that having the word “girl” in it made it harder for them to “ring in the male audience at first”. Ultimately, it worked very well, and “girl” was no impediment for the show to reach a wide audience.
Although New Girl’s success was thanks to its story, performances, and the different types of humor in each character, the title definitely played a part in it as well, as it wouldn’t have had the same impact had it been officially titled Chicks & Dicks. It’s fun to see a bit of the creative process behind some of the most popular and beloved TV shows, as most of them turn out to be very different from what the creators initially planned.