Superstore’s Original Title Feels Like A Completely Different Show

A lot of television shows get renamed before they make it to air. “Friends” was very nearly called “Insomnia Café” or “Six of One,” “Grey’s Anatomy” almost went with the super-simple title “Complications,” and “New Girl” nearly had an … even worse title. So what about “Superstore,” Justin Spitzer’s six-season sitcom about employees and managers at a big-box store in the fictional Cloud 9 chain? According to a panel during 2019’s San Diego Comic-Con, the initial title was sort of baffling.

Asked about the original title, Spitzer — who attended the panel with several cast members and fellow creatives including Ben Feldman, who plays Jonah Simms — revealed that the series was originally called “The Greatest Love Story Ever Told.” Again, to be clear, “Superstore” is a workplace sitcom, so that title seems nuts. Still, Spitzer was serious. “It’s not a joke,” he says in the clip. “That was the original title of ‘Superstore.'” Ultimately, though, the show’s network NBC said no to the title, and there’s a story behind that, too.

“They at first said yes, and then a bunch of romantic comedies, as Ben has attested to, failed that year,” Spitzer recalled. (Among them: TV rom-coms like “A to Z,” which starred Feldman and Cristin Milioti and was canceled in 2014 after one season; “Selfie” and “Love Bites.”) “And then they called and were like, ‘What if you just called it “Superstore?”‘” The rest is obviously history, but let’s consider why “The Greatest Love Story Ever Told” was even considered in the first place.

Pretty much every major sitcom has a “will they, won’t they” plotline, and “Superstore” is no exception. In the pilot, when business-school dropout Jonah Simms starts working at Cloud 9, he immediately runs afoul of associate floor supervisor Amelia “Amy” Sosa (America Ferrera). It’s clear, almost immediately, that sparks will fly between them, but there’s one very obvious problem: her husband, Adam Dubanowski (Ryan Gaul), with whom she shares a child. Adam and Amy do eventually get divorced, but still, there are plenty of obstacles for Amy and Jonah to overcome before they can get together; for example, even though they share a kiss when a tornado hits the store in Season 2, Jonah is dating their fellow employee Kelly Watson (Kelly Stables) at the time.

The two actually get together in Season 3, despite the fact that Amy is pregnant with Adam’s child — she ultimately gives birth to her son, Parker — and even though they kick off their relationship by getting down and dirty in front of a livestream camera that broadcasts their tryst to Cloud 9 stores around the country. (Things go pretty well for them otherwise!) As the show starts to wind down in Season 5, Amy gets offered a major job opportunity with Cloud 9’s corporate side in California, and Jonah initially decides to go with her but then changes his mind, leading to a breakup. By any metric, the union between Amy and Jonah is a “great” love story, so how does it all conclude?

Yes, Amy and Jonah do end up together by the end of “Superstore” — a flash-forward in the series finale shows us that they’re happily raising a family together — but this isn’t the show’s only love story. Somehow, Cheyenne Taylor Lee (Nichole Sakura) has a successful marriage to her sweet-but-dimwitted husband, Bo Thompson (Johnny Pemberton); and store manager Glenn Sturgis (Mark McKinney) has a strange, albeit happy, marriage to his wife, Jerusha (played by Kerri Kenney-Silver) — and slacker Garrett McNeill (Colton Dunn) and assistant store manager Dina Fox (Lauren Ash) strike up an unexpected but ultimately successful romance. 

What “Superstore” tells us at the end of the day, though, is that romantic love is great, but community is even better. Consider the final shots of “Superstore,” in which we see all of our favorite characters enjoying a barbecue together. Amy and Jonah’s love story is great, in large part because America Ferrera and Ben Feldman are such unbelievably charismatic performers — but what “Superstore” really reveals is that the greatest love story ever told can be platonic or romantic (or, in this case, both).

“Superstore” is streaming on Hulu.