Sitcom creator Bill Lawrence has confirmed a Penny Can easter egg from Cougar Town in the opening scene of Rooster season 1, episode 3. The nod appears as character Greg tosses a coin into a jar of pennies during a lonely night in his Florida condo. Lawrence discussed the reference and his habit of reusing actors in a recent New York City interview.
In Rooster season 1, episode 3, now streaming on HBO Max, the episode opens with Greg watching a hockey game in his Florida condo before moving north to become writer-in-residence at Ludlow College. Restless, he picks up a coin and tosses it into a jar of pennies, a direct callback to the Penny Can game from Lawrence's former series Cougar Town, which aired on ABC and later TBS. Lawrence verified the easter egg during a sit-down in New York City. He explained that while an official Bobby Cobb Penny Can prop was not possible due to ownership differences—Rooster is a Warner Bros. property and Cougar Town belongs to Disney—he included the reference anyway. This is not Lawrence's first such crossover; he pointed out that in the Scrubs finale, Zach Braff delivers the exact four lines of dialogue Michael J. Fox said to Carla Gugino in the Spin City pilot. Rooster also features actors from Lawrence's past projects, including regulars John C. McGinley from Scrubs and Ground Floor, Phil Dunster from Ted Lasso, Alan Ruck and Connie Britton from Spin City, Rory Scovel from Ground Floor and Undateable, and Rick Glassman from Undateable. Lawrence addressed his tendency to recast familiar faces, saying, “I've been often accused of hiring the same people over and over, and I say, what a great gift to get to spend time with talented people that you would want to spend time with anyway. I'm going to keep doing it and no one can stop me.” He credited co-creator Matt Tarses for allowing these hires, noting the demands of modern TV: “TV now—you have to grab an audience and grab the characters' voices so quickly. ... So that shorthand is very helpful.”