# They pitched the project under this name, but wiser head prevailed.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 4, 2008, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061 "2008-11-04T15:37:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/1 "2008-11-04T15:37:47Z")
For some reason, [The West Wing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_West_Wing_(TV_series)) has been on my mind recently. Specifically, it occurs to me that [Aaron Sorkin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Sorkin)could easily have created it with the working title What Would the White House Have Been Like from 1993-2000 If Bill Clinton Had Been Just as Liberal and Generally Competent, But Not Nearly So Much of a Sexually-Predatory Creep. When the suits at NBC read the first script, someone sent a note saying, “Um…that’s a little long. Can we make it shorter and less insulting?”
What other television movies, television series, books, or so forth clearly benefited from a renaming?
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/2 "2008-11-04T15:48:15Z")
_Quantum Leap_ was originally titled _My Invisible Friend Follows Me Wherever I Go and Makes Lewd Comments Only I Can Hear; And Sometimes I Get to Be A Woman_.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/3 "2008-11-04T16:20:45Z")
Friends was originally called “Six of One; Half A Dozen of the Other.”
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### Author:  [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/4 "2008-11-04T17:16:30Z")
_Lost_ was originally titled _A Bunch of Highly Improbably Well-Groomed Plane Crash Victims and Other Various Unexplained Gits Going Around And Being Soap-Operaesquely Stupidly Evil To Each Other For No Apparent Or Remotely Entertaining Reason_
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### Author:  [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/5 "2008-11-04T17:41:54Z")
I still maintain that ‘Rome’ is a pretty boring name compared to the original 'The wacky misadventures of Lucius and Titus '.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/6 "2008-11-04T17:53:53Z")
> [@Sr\_Siete](#):
>
> I still maintain that ‘Rome’ is a pretty boring name compared to the original 'The wacky misadventures of Lucius and Titus '.
That’s nothing. _The Sopranos_ was originally going to be _The Whack-a-Moles_.
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### Author:  [@ShelliBean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShelliBean)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/7 "2008-11-04T18:51:56Z")
I think Big Bang Theory was originally called Dopers.
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### Author:  [@Mbossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mbossa)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/8 "2008-11-04T20:56:51Z")
_Snakes On A Plane_ could have easily been titled _Some Snakes Are On A Plane_.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/9 "2008-11-04T21:03:47Z")
_Idiocracy_ should have been marketed as _My Scientist Buddy Made A Time Machine And Visited The Future But The Only Souvenir I Got Was This Stupid DVD._
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### Author:  [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/10 "2008-11-04T21:05:13Z")
Three Hookers and Their Mom became Sex and the City.
(Thanks for that one Family Guy!)
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### Author:  [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/11 "2008-11-04T21:10:32Z")
According to George Hamilton’s recent autobiography _Don’t Mind If I Do_, his movie _Love At First Bite_ was originally titled _Dracula Sucks_.
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### Author:  [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/12 "2008-11-04T21:32:50Z")
**Doctor Who** possibly benefitted from a name-change from it’s original title: **The Mysterious Man Who May Look Young But Is Old, Old, OLD And His Ever-changing Roster of Very YOUNG Nubile Girl & Randy Bi-Sexual Boy Travelling Companions**. That was just way too long.
IRL, **That 70s Show** was originally going to be called **Teenaged Wasteland** - which IMO, is actually the better title. Why they didn’t go with that is beyond me. (It also wouldn’t have locked the show into the 1970s, and thus time could have been allowed to progress at a realistic pace throughout the course of the show.)
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### Author:  [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/13 "2008-11-04T21:35:36Z")
This one is actually true- Sid Sheinberg, the president of MCA, wrote a letter to Robert Zemeckis suggesting that he change the title of _Back to the Future_ to _Spaceman from Pluto_.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2008, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/14 "2008-11-04T23:50:27Z")
> [@The New and Improved Superman](#):
>
> IRL, **That 70s Show** was originally going to be called **Teenaged Wasteland** - which IMO, is actually the better title. Why they didn’t go with that is beyond me. (It also wouldn’t have locked the show into the 1970s, and thus time could have been allowed to progress at a realistic pace throughout the course of the show.)
Because everyone at the studio was calling it “that 70’s Show” and they realized it was more evocative of the premise than _Teenaged Wasteland_.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/15 "2008-11-05T02:39:09Z")
_Another Low-Budget Zombie Horror Explotation Flick_ was changed at the last minute to _The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies_
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2008, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/16 "2008-11-05T03:27:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> According to George Hamilton’s recent autobiography Don’t Mind If I Do, his movie Love At First Bite was originally titled Dracula Sucks.
There actually was a movie called [_Dracula Sucks_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079074/) made that same year.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2008, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/17 "2008-11-05T04:04:35Z")
> [@The New and Improved Superman](#):
>
> IRL, **That 70s Show** was originally going to be called **Teenaged Wasteland** - which IMO, is actually the better title. Why they didn’t go with that is beyond me. (It also wouldn’t have locked the show into the 1970s, and thus time could have been allowed to progress at a realistic pace throughout the course of the show.)
I remember hearing that they couldn’t get the rights to use The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” as their theme song.
Funnily enough, “Baba O’Riley” later became the theme song for “CSI: New York”. Probably just as well they didn’t call it “CSI: Teenage Wasteland”, although that might be an interesting premise for a show.
When I was living in Japan, one of my students informed me that there was a Japanese remake of “Bewitched” titled “Housewives Is Witches”. This was his own translation of the Japanese title “Okusama wa majo”. I think “(The) Wife Is a Witch” is probably the better translation of this phrase, but I rather like “Housewives Is Witches”.
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### Author:  [@audit1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audit1)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2008, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/18 "2008-11-05T05:07:48Z")
For its first season NCIS was known as NAVY NCIS, but luckily the Department of Redundancy Department prevailed.
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### Author:  [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2008, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/19 "2008-11-05T05:15:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> There actually was a movie called [_Dracula Sucks_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079074/) made that same year.
[Johnny Carson] I did not know that. [/Johnny Carson]
And I see from the IMDB link that it had quite an illustrious cast, too! 😉
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### Author:  [@cainxinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cainxinth)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2008, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-pitched-the-project-under-this-name-but-wiser-head-prevailed/471061/20 "2008-11-05T07:46:11Z")
> [@audit1](#):
>
> For its first season NCIS was known as NAVY NCIS, but luckily the Department of Redundancy Department prevailed.
I see what you did there.
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