Lucy Becomes "Liz Cooper"
by Jess Oppenheimer
(from "Laughs, Luck...and Lucy")
"DECEMBER, 1948 BROUGHT good news. The ratings were up, and Pat Weaver at Young & Rubicam had bought the program for General Foods, makers of Jell-O, starting in January. Although Lucy’s new, more 'down-to-earth' Liz Cugat was an improvement, I decided that the show still needed a few more changes to make the characters easier for the audience to identify with. The first was to change their last name from 'Cugat' to 'Cooper.' I also didn’t feel the average listener related too well to the problems of the vice president of a bank, so we made it clear that husband George, although he had this fancy-sounding title, in fact wasn’t making any more than the garage attendant down the street. This gave them the universal 'average man's' problem of making ends meet. This also allowed us to have more fun with Liz’s 'unique' way of figuring household finances."
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