Chicks & Dicks sounds alarmingly like something that would have Schmidt contributing to the Douchebag Jar. And yet that was the series we almost tuned into every Tuesday.
Admittedly, it was a placeholder, insists New Girl creator Liz Meriwether, who told Glamour in 2018, “There’s so many pilots during any given pilot season that it’s nice to have a title that catches people’s attention.”
And it does succinctly summarize her brainchild, inspired from her years “of bouncing from Craigslist sublet to Craigslist sublet” in Los Angeles: A heightened, yet, not all that unrealistic look at twentysomethings living in a loft and trying to get their s–t together.
It came from me kind of looking around
“It came from me kind of looking around my life and realizing a lot of my friends were guys,” Meriwether explained to E! News. “They’re guys who have been my friends since I was 17. I go to them for really specific things that I don’t go to my girlfriends for. It kind of just got me thinking about a sort of wish fulfillment situation where I get to live with my guy friends and they get to tell me what to do, like not to call him and not to wear that.”
In an L.A.-area loft, she paired her so-called adorkable lead (more on that later), handbell-playing, pink wine-drinking recently dumped teacher Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel) with a collection of still-figuring-it-out men (Max Greenfield‘s pretentious, yet, lovable Schmidt, Jake Johnson‘s endearingly hapless Nick Miller, Lamorne Morris‘ sweet, loyal Winston and Damon Wayans Jr.‘s self-assured personal trainer Coach).
Throw in a supportive best friend (Hannah Simone‘s CeCe), a drinking game no one quite understands but wants to try and a seemingly endless supply of memorable one-liners (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? No, a summer’s day is not a bitch”) and you’ve got the show E! News dubbed the best new release of the 2011 fall slate.
Some 10 million viewers tuned in for the Sept
Some 10 million viewers tuned in for the Sept. 20, 2011 premiere making it the night’s No. 1 show. And though the series’ viewership petered out by its 2018 finale, they still delivered the perfect happy endings for their lovable crew.
And with a new fanbase stumbling into the loft during quarantine, the door was left slightly ajar for a reunion.
The gang is already set to receive an award at the Oct. 10 Chrysalis Butterfly Ball. “Max is involved in that and he just sent a text to the group,” Johnson explained to E! News in August. “He said, ‘Can you guys do this with me so it could help try to raise money for this organization?’ And we all just said yes.”
As for an actual reboot, Whenever Liz says,
As for an actual reboot, “Whenever Liz says, ‘This is what I want to do,’ if we were all in, then I would love to get in there,” he told Collider in July. “I’ll always love that show and everybody involved in it.”
Besides, as a wise manonce said, “The economy stinks, bees are dying, and movies are pretty much all sequels now.” So, let’s reflect on seven very quotable seasons.
(Originally published Sept. 20, 2025, at 12 a.m. PT)
—With reporting by Spencer Lubitz
