This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman reflects on the debate over the title ahead of tonight's 100-episode milestone

The Hollywood Reporter

Fogelman, who originally intended This Is Us to be a movie, originally called his script 36. "There were a lot of titles. I named it 36 because I didn’t want it to be untitled, and then I hated it," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "It had been the source of huge frustration for me over early parts of my career, where I would not be able to choose a title and so we would make these films with 'Untitled Fogelman Project' signs all over town. Once you don’t have a title for something, you’re screwed. Because no one is ever going to agree after the fact. I started really fighting for This Is Us once we started making it." He adds: "I liked This Is Us lyrically. And I knew the show would, hopefully, be a reflection of a lot of different people and a lot of different lives. There was a huge movement at one point to name the show Happy Birthday, which we all banded against.