Entertainment

‘Cougar Town’ finds new home

Bill Lawrence – creator of “Cougar Town,” which leaves ABC to make its TBS debut on Jan. 8 – doesn’t care if you’re sick of hearing about his show.

“For years, people were going, ‘When am I going to see a commercial for ‘Scrubs’? I don’t even know when it’s on!”” Lawrence told the Post on Friday, following the show’s panel at the Television Critics Association press tour, in Pasadena. “Now people are going, ‘Okay, ‘Cougar Town,’ you like wine, we get it.’ I gotta tell ya, I like this more.

TBS has pulled out all the stops to trumpet the arrival of the series on their network, including billboards in Times Square and on Sunset Boulevard as well as TV ads appearing up and down the broadcast and cable dial.

“Look, I have never been on a show where our fan base has been complaining about over-saturation of marketing before,” says Lawrence. “If people feel like they’re seeing too many of ’em, I’m just so sorry, because it’s a real treat for me.”

“Cougar Town,” which premiered on ABC in 2009, originally featured Courteney Cox as a forty-something single mother looking for love. As the series begins its fourth season, however, Cox’s character – real estate agent Jules Cobb – is now married to pub owner Grayson Ellis, played by Josh Hopkins.

“I love where my character’s going this year,” Cox tells the Post. “She’s a little crazier, but I love that she’s game for anything. Jules is just a really fun character to play.”

Hopkins feels the same way about Grayson, who he says “started as the normal guy and is becoming the weirdest out of all of them.”

“I think at the beginning of the series he was sort of standoffish and apart and didn’t know what to think of these weirdos, but now we’re starting to peer into Grayson’s past, and he’s got plenty of weirdness of his own,” says Hopkins. “He’s much more desperate than I ever knew.”

Lawrence was so happy with the aggression of TBS’s promotional campaign that he admits “we would’ve been open to any ideas they had,” but Michael Wright. head of programming for Turner Networks, came armed predominantly with praise.

“The coolest thing that happened when they were purchasing the show was that Michael Wright said, ‘I just want to know that you can deliver the same show, because I love it,’ so I was, like, ‘Okay, cool, there’s not gonna be a lot of notes!’” said Lawrence. “And then he said, ‘But I don’t want Travis and Laurie to hook up at the beginning of the year, because I think it’s too soon.’ But that was cool, too, because it let me know that he actually watched the show.”

Despite the evolution of the series’ premise and countless discussions about changing the name to something, anything other than “Cougar Town,” Michael Wright – head of programming for Turner Networks – said during the show’s TCA panel that TBS quickly decided that the name was part of the package.

“The truth is, ‘Cougar Town’ has become part of the humor,” said Wright. “The title itself, the subtitles that are written into it…why change something that we all appreciate as being part of the show’s humor, I think, and why look away from all the marketing that’s already been done to introduce the show?”

“TBS is so supportive,” says Cox. “It’s so great to feel this much excitement. It’s like a relaunch, as if it’s a brand new show. Even though nothing’s really changed, everything just seems better. In every way.”