• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, Yesterday

An episode of “House Hunters” late last month featuring a cougar and her cub drew more attention than usual to the HGTV staple.

Titled “Cougar Needs a Den for Her Cub,” the episode had a California couple -- 52-year-old Sara (the “cougar”) and 22-year-old Jack (the “cub”) -- searching for a home in the Sacramento area.

The episode drew more than the usual social-media attention to “House Hunters” because the couple and their lifestyle differed so markedly from the usual homebuyers on the long-running show.

“I like the fact that Jack’s an alpha male,” Sara said on the show. “I think he’s nice and bulky. But more importantly I like how calm he keeps me.”

“She’s really attractive and she seems like she’s my age when I talk to her,” said Jack, who aspires to become a professional mixed-martial arts fighter.

Actually, there is evidence to suggest that Sara is like someone even younger than Jack. At one point in the episode, when Jack was slicing some fruit in the kitchen, Sara commented, “I like your banana.”

A promo clip posted by HGTV on TikTok a few days before the show aired on July 26 had drawn 40,000 likes and more than 1,300 comments up to August 5, according to a story posted on that date on People.com.

According to Sara, she met Jack when she worked at a storage facility and he came to her office to complain that his unit had ants. 

It was apparently love at first sight. After their first date, Jack moved into her home. “He moved in SAME DAY? Girl she kidnapped him,” wrote one TikTokker.

 “He was living in the storage unit I’m convinced,” speculated another TikTokker.

“Oh mama this is NOT the house hunters I grew up with,” wrote another.

One of the oldest series on HGTV, “House Hunters” began 26 years ago in 1999 and has since cycled through 260 seasons.

On the show, ordinary couples, families and singles are seen touring homes for sale in communities both large and small across the country.

In each show, they see three homes and at the end of the show, they reveal their choice. 

Generally speaking, the conversations on the show revolve around issues such as kitchen appliances, the condition of old, “dated” bathrooms and the size of bedrooms.

The TV Blog has no insight into how the participants in “House Hunters” are found or recruited, but it is possible that Sara may have sought out the show.

She bills herself as a “supermodel” and “CA realtor” on Instagram and has dreams of reality-show stardom. “I hope that ‘Selling Sunset’ or ‘Selling the OC’ takes me on a cast member,” Sara told People.

“I’m able to play any character, but I definitely wouldn’t mind playing the villain,” Sara said. “I don’t have a problem with being the bad girl.”

With her reality-show dreams and his dreams of MMA stardom, Sara and Jack clearly have their sights set on the American dream, starting with the dream of homeownership.