Fake Doctors, Real Friends with Zach and Donald107: My Super Ego with John C. McGinley
On this week's episode of Scrubs, there's a new hotshot intern at Sacred Heart. JD's place at the top of his class may be in jeopardy. Meanwhile, in the real world, John C. McGinley join Zach and Donald as they remember 9/11.
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What are you drinking today that that liquor cabinet is getting empty? What do we got today?
Listen, lemonade, I hear the liquor store is not the place to go. I went, when'd you go?
I gloved up, I masked up, I has matted up, and I went in and filled a freaking basket.
Yeah.
You know what's crazy? They're talking about opening it back up.
Well not California.
Texas is talking about opening back up next week.
Yeah, well that's not gonna work out.
That's just the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life.
That's not gonna work out for anyone. Good thing we have Governor knew someone I think he's doing.
Offen and Garcetti, man, Thank goodness for Garcetti too. Man, both doing well.
Let's give them both a shout out.
On hold on, let's see here's some stories I'm not show we made about a bunch of dogs and nurses said, here's the stories new.
So YadA.
Yea Donald Faison, It's a very very exciting day today on this podcast.
Do you know why we're getting epic today? We're going now, we're going uber epic today.
Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. The creator of the show that's fancy, America's favorite Canadian, Sarah Chalk. That's fancy, But nothing is as fancy as someone who we love as much as this man who I I can say I learned a lot as an actor from and uh is just a really fucking talented and hilarious human being. Stand by Dan with the thunderous applause que Johnny c McGinley.
Yeah, yeah, boy, the legend, the legend that is John c McGinley.
Hello, Donald, Hello, Zachie, how are you?
I'm yeah, you are always, always always.
Johnny, how's your how's the you know you? You were saying just before we started recording that you know that you had been homeschooling your kids, So this isn't as odd of a switch for you. Tell everybody a little bit about that.
We've been homeschooling forever.
Billy is twelve, Kates almost ten, and we've been homeschooling for since, all the way through elementary school.
Here.
One thing in this is the friends, obviously, and we've been taking this thing super seriously, and we're totally locked down because we've got Nicole, my wife's father here, who has some pre existing challenges and pre existent conditions, and so we've been taking this thing by the letter. And so look, we're lucky enough to live in this place. I mean, I built a baseball field during the writer's strike on Scrubs, and so there's a baseball field right behind me. And so we use that almost as a playground. And you know, there's stuff. This is a kid compound, so they can run around here. They don't get to see their friends. They don't go to do dance and aeriel and pottery and all the stuff you do when you're not homeschooling or go out of the beach friends.
Do you have friends like I was just thinking about Donald, who are homeschooling for the first time. Who are calling you like gonny advice or anything? Because I'm watching Donald do it and he's like hiding out in his closet.
I've run my kids. This is how bad.
People don't call.
This department for that. They call upstairs to the nicole department.
Oh no, go Well, then she and I need to get on the phone because I am failing miserably. My wife is My wife is a champion. She runs the household. But I feel like I'm starting to slack so much that she's like, when this is over, I'm leaving you.
I think if you could compartmentalize and play to your strengths, Donald, you'd be better off.
I don't have many strengths. Johnny, you do.
You got sports, Johnny said, he's doing pe. You could be in charge of bee.
Dude.
I have a competitive spirit in me that won't allow my kids to beat me. I have problems. Guys have problems. Well, then here my son screams at me because I never let him win. He meeting me at this We have this thing called Papa Shot, and it's like you know how you go to the carnival, of course, and you get to shoot as many jump shots as you can and you burst somebody. We have that. He destroys me, and that so much so that I don't want to play the game anymore. Man.
Well, I'm so I'm still for you guys doing this.
This this podcast I've listened to. This is either the fourth or fifth one I've listened to everything, and it's I've listened to it while I'm working out, because it's about an hour and a half or so, and I put it on and I go in the garage and it just makes me happy?
Does it? Does it get when the theme song comes on? Does that get you pumped?
I liked it. Well, you guys are so goddamn town.
Johnny, Johnny, we wrote that. It's our first It's our first time. As as as lyricists. Donald, I don't know if you've been a lyricist before, but it's my first time as a lyrics putting.
I put a lyric or two to two songs in song form. I've done it.
Yes, Well, it's my first time, and I you're very good at it.
That's not your first time, dude. You say that. Listen, guys, you don't remember the songs that we had. Baby, keep it real, Baby, let's chill. I'm tired of you all in my Crewe see Donald so goddamn talent that he could sing all these songs and remember his lines.
I could only do one thing, remember my lines.
Well, I want to talk about that for a second, Johnny, because Donald did. Donald you well, as far as I see it, in the world of scrubs, there were two extremes. There was you knowing every fucking piece of syllable and punctuation mark and Donald being like am I in the scene.
Yeah, but Donald's so goddamn talented that even if it took him.
Three or four takes, the fourth take was perfect. It was heaven. I mean in this episode.
In this episode, we'll talk about this, but there's a scene where he dances to Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson knockoff and Billy had to be just it's like a fair catch in football. He's just like that was manna from heaven that an actor would bust that out.
That's not on the page. No, that was not on the page.
It wasn't.
I think that's also the beginning of turk dancing and damn near.
Believe a gift.
Yeah, yeah, Johnny, what was talk a little bit about how you did those because sometimes, just for people who are listening, Johnny would sometimes get those speeches the night before, because the.
Writers were sometimes the day before, hours before absolutely speech.
Yeah, and I just I for those of you who don't memorize for a living, it's can be very hard. But doing what Johnny had to do on the spot is sometimes close to impossible. So I remember you having a bit of a system, will you will you talk about that for people?
Well, I keep these composition books.
Uh, you know the composition books you have in high school, those black and white things. Well, the first thing I do is I write out the text in my own hand, and then in the margins I put the verbs of what I'm doing. And so that just by virtue of writing it out starts to get it in your skull. And then by assigning verbs to every action that you're doing, that's the second stage.
And then if I had time, I keep a rehearsal space here. I would go.
Down and there's a whole kind of little film studio downstairs, and I would.
Get in front of that.
But a lot of times that was out the window because Billy would hand it to you on your way into the hospital. And I'm not being method. Hospital. We did, in fact, work in a defunct hospital. Sometimes I'll say that to different people, are like, ooh, you're so method.
I'm like, no, not fucking method. It was a hospital.
So I set the fuck up, and so I got when I got to the hospital, and they would hand me new lines every year.
Disney would give us make it up.
You guys, remember but fifteen hundred dollars to improve our dressing rooms. Since our dressing rooms were hospital rooms where people had died and where people had been saved. And what I did with my fifteen hundred dollars is I doubled down, and I hired an acoustic firm, and they came in and soundproofed my dressing room so I wouldn't have to hear you idiots.
In the hallway and all the dogs.
For some reason, because one or two of you brought your dogs, the whole crew decided, well, if Zach and Donald can do it, the guy in sound and the guy the production is.
That he can do it. So all of a sudden there was a pack.
Of about son marteen dogs, and as Karma would have it, And I like dogs. I hate most people's dogs. I just I like dogs, but I don't like them at work.
And so I remember, I remember that. I remember all I all you would hear was get out.
I'm trying to remember space two pages, single space.
Do you remember do you remember in the Christmas Story how he's always fighting the dogs next door. That was like Johnny C on our on our floor, because Johnny C was like, oh, someone shut the dogs up. The dogs all wanted to be with Johnny C in a round.
Absolutely and so much so that I don't know what you guys are. Remember, I don't know what season.
But I wrote a letter to our bosses at Disney, to the HR Department Human Resources. And then I did what you're supposed to do with an angry letter. I according my grandfather, I put it in the drawer for two nights. You're supposed to take angry letters. You don't press. This was not when you press send. I wrote it, and I put it in the drawer for two nights.
And in the intervening time, someone.
Got nipped by a dog on our war and Disney found out about it, not because of me, and they were like, what, there are seventeen dogs kissing and shitting on the third floor.
I took that letter and I put it right over in the shredder because.
I thought I thought you were I thought you were going to give us a big reveal that you had written the HR letter. But you're saying you never said to it.
I did not. I kept it in the drawer, and then I was let off the hook.
Because if you're the guy who made it so that people couldn't bring their goddamn dogs to work.
Then you're that guy.
I was look the fact of the matters that you asked, how do you memorize those things?
Good?
Fear?
Fear is a really good thing.
And I was just afraid to disappoint Billy, and I wanted him to write those things for me.
And so you were so good at a way to get him into my skull.
You were so good at it, John, And those rants. I was looking on YouTube just as we're gearing up for this episode, and just like people have like top five Doctor Cox rants, like it's like a thing. People love to just listen back to those, and just some of them are just so epic and hilarious.
Where they get hard is when Billy started, and I don't know whether it was season four or five six, it's a good problem. When he just started writing lists that had nothing to do with the item that came before it, and he just write two pages of lists reasons why I don't care about you becoming a doctor or something like that, and they're just this random list. Those were hard memorizing the story is, but these lists to two pages, single space a list.
On the other side, we were talking about how Donald would show up and be like, oh shit, I got a monologue today.
You know, that was a time in my life. That was a time in my life. I don't know, I just I don't know what was the matter with me. I smoked. I smoked a lot of marijuana back then too, not that I don't now, but I smoked a tremendous amount back then. I don't think this was the beginning of the run that I did this. I think as I got comfortable, things changed, and as the show got successful, things changed and I slacked, and I remember somebody asking me like, dude, what do you do when you go home? And I was like, I live my life. They were like, they were like, but what about your job. I was like, it's getting done, like I was.
So I think you just got comfortable that you knew that you'd get it, and you knew that it would be cut together and be funny. So you're just like figge.
Well, I don't know if I was. Yeah, you know, I don't know what it was. Since then, I have, you know, I've tried to make sure that if I ever ran into anyone else, if I ran into people on other jobs that worked with me on Scrubs and remembered how I was on scrubs, I wanted them to have a completely different opinion of me after we finished working. And so it's if anything, uh, all of the you know, all of the you know, me being unprepared and stuff like that prepared me for later on because now forget about it. You know, I'm like you, Johnny, if I mess up a line, I'm putting a hole through a wall or something like that. You know what I mean.
I want you to get it done in three or four takes. I want us to get out of here get it.
If I'm not done it, If I can't do it in three takes, then forget about it, man. Like, then I've wasted I feel like I've wasted everybody's time.
Well I feel that more, and especially now when it's not your own show. When I'm going to do a supporting part on something and I fuck up a line, I just I get so mad at myself.
You know.
It's funny, you know, after doing the show for nine years, we were so comfortable, and that that comfortableness led to a lot of amazing stuff because there was no wrong answer, and we were so silly with each other and we could riff. But now I find when I go do roles where I'm not the lead, or I'm supporting, or i'm or I'm in any whatever I'm doing. I'm really get mad at myself if I fuck up a line like I really, I really put more effort into it than I ever have.
I was about to say, because Zach, I remember a night where you put the sides people out there who don't know what sides are there, the piece of paper where the line where they write, the where they miniaturize the script into.
The tiny Each day we get a tiny version of the script. It's probably I don't know what is it, like eight inches by four inches.
Something like that. I remember one night where you tape those sides to my forehead on off camera.
Yeah, but I would like everyone to google Marlon Brando in The Godfather and you'll see and you can just put in like Marlin Randa Godfather line memorization and you'll see a picture with James Kahn with a huge poster board taped to his chest. Now, I'm not saying is this real? Yeah, I'll send you guys the picture. I'm not saying I'm I'm I'm Marlon Brando, but I am saying you're James Kahn and I, uh, yeah, listen, there's times where you go, I'm fucked. I do not know this. Donald, would you mind taping this to your forehead?
No, you didn't say, Donald, would you mind? You were like, come here. No, used to I remember taking on and being like you mother, I will know.
What we used to do is like, whenever there was a place to hide them out of camera, we'd tape them to the desk, We'd tape them to whatever. Sometimes you tape them to the front of the camera. But I remember that one time and I couldn't get it down and was like the time was running out, and I was like, Donald, I'm so sorry, but I need my character needs to be looking at your face. Johnny, you never did that. Donald, Donald and I would hide our sides all over the place. I don't have any memory you ever do it.
Johnny used to have like little notes here and there in your hand.
No, but not he wouldn't hide them and reference them during the scene like you.
No.
No, No.
I just if I was struggling with Latin, which all medical terms are Latin based, if I was struggling with something in Latin that I hadn't been on the phone with real JD for an hour the night before I would I would fanatically put it on those clipboards that we carried, and the last second I'd take a look. Now, I remember, the hardest one ever was broken heart syndrome. Was took a subo cardio myopathy. And that's about this long, and I still freaking remember it took a subo cardio myopathy.
Now, legend has it that some of the best home tests for movies or television shows have happened at your house. Is it true that you once dug a hole in your backyard for a part? No, that's not true.
No are what are you talking about? Why would he dig a hole in his backyard?
I thought he was self taped and was digging a hole.
Oh oh, he's saying that you, you like, got all into yourself tapes and would dig holes. What would that be for platoon? Like he's gonna audition like something.
No. No, I met with Oliver five times. No, No, but you did.
But you did used to self tape at home a lot. Though at some point, right well.
When that came into vogue.
Sure, now you can do it on this thing, but for a little while, you know, there's a camera on a tripod down there was down in the rehearsal space, and yeah, for a little while that that's what auditions came to be.
Yeah, Donnie, that's a good segue into into your auditioning for this. You Donald and I and we asked Sarah to talk a little bit about our experiences.
Hilarious, right, I listened to all of it yesterday. It was genius.
So tell us about yours, because you know, you heard Bill's telling of yours. But I think I think our fans are interested and how it all came to be. Do you remember, like your very first time reading and all that.
Yeah, because you had already been in so many other things before this.
I know you were coming to it from a very different space because you'd been in such amazing movies. And I just wondered, you know, Donald had done some work. I had done virtually nothing, So how is it different for you?
I was coming from because I heard Zachie, I heard yours with that you were a waiter at the La Colonial.
Yeah, you were a waiter over there.
And I know Donald had done Denzel's movie and done something. But I was on a track and how to take something off of this? So it doesn't sound arrogant, but I was on about I was on a track of doing about four films a year, and in my brain it was that if you ever, I said yes to everything. So I did plenty of stinkers, but I just always felt like that more film begat more film. So I was just always around the world doing whatever you offered me. And I wasn't going to come off the film train. And so then they sent me scrubs and there was as Billy told you, there was a John McGinley part in parentheses. It said a John McGinley type for doctor Cox. And I'm like, well, just make the offer, and as you mean, yeah. So I went into meet with Billy over at Disney and that was great. He was, you know, he was one of the great guys in the planet.
And then.
By the time, actors do this weird thing when they get a little too comfortable as they subvert themselves, and I felt like I did that because there were tears of different hierarchy that you had to go through on this thing. There was the casting people, which I got to skip. There was Billy. Then you had to audition to Disney. Then you had to audition at NBC, and so I tanked the one at Disney.
And I don't know why. I was either lazy or presumptuous or but a socked.
Know you, Donny, did you feel that in the room?
I always know?
And so I told I said, Billy, just let me go to the next level and I'll blow the back of the room out, don't I just filed a few off at Disney.
And when I went to NBC, as.
You guys have sorted it out with Billy and Sarah, there's a room not much bigger than the one I'm sitting in, maybe sixteen by twenty, and it's the casting guys room.
And there's people on the fennel, on the fence.
There's people everywhere, hiding on the city, sitting on the ground.
Over It's like a bad Thanksgiving talent show production with your aunts and uncles. And so I didn't recognize there were four or five other doctor Coxes there. I didn't recognize any of them. And I was just like, it didn't really matter because I already did.
Just for actors.
You can get good at auditioning, and I got really good at it because I used the rehearsal.
Space as a spot to get.
This four minute compressed little impression you make a discipline down. I got really good at it. The fact that I tanked that Disney didn't matter. I was doing some other bullshit. But when I went into that room, I was just going to fucking kill it.
And I did.
And when I shut the door, and at the time, I had this Jersey muscle car. I had a Mustang five point zero black convertible and I started driving home in the one oh one and I was like, I put Bruce on and it was blaring, and I'm like, I definitely got that.
And if I didn't, the show sucks.
Bill sold.
Do you hear Bill's story where you said, Johnny, how do you feel it? You said, like cash, money or something like that.
I said it was money. I said money. He said, if you want to do it again?
And I'm like, for I hate when directors say do you want to do it again?
Because if you got it, you got it.
Because all I do when I do things again. When you asked me, I'm gonna start changing things. And I hate rewriting. If everything's I like to rewrite shit. I don't like to rewrite anything. I like it on the page I like to crush it and I like to leave. And then if you ask me to keep doing it again and again, I'm gonna get bored because I know you have it in the can, and I'm gonna start changing things. And what I did with doctor Cox over the years is so I changed his syncopation. I turned into this kind of Martin SCORSESEI on LSD thing where.
I did these long pauses. And because I was getting bored.
And again, like sometimes you'd walk in out and do some like like crazy pause, I was, and.
I would stretch these words and.
I want people love that when you go right.
I was bored. I want to fucking some more. I wanted more challenges.
And so that's the actor's brains, if it's really firing, like our brains were on that thing. Remember, people don't understand we were there sixteen hours a day, five days a week. We spent much more time with each other than we did any semblance of family because there's a finite amount of hours in a week. And for nine years, pretty much we were together for fourteen to by the end of the week, sixteen hours and in.
A hospital, in an abandoned hopital, in.
An abandoned hospital.
And it's almost like Donald will understand when your practice and free throws. If you do nothing but practice free throws, you will get good at it.
You just will.
And by virtue of beat, just scrub saturation, people got really good at their jobs. Yeah.
Yeah, that was the other thing. I remember times where we'd you'd have like long, long monologues. There were times where you didn't get it in one take, but then there were times where you would get it in one take. And I remember directors being like, should we go again, and you being like, we got it, let's go, and like we only got one take, John, and I don't moving it on, Let's go.
There's so many Donald, let's go through some of our favorite johnnyisms. One that just came to my mind was moving on, there's five good.
Ones for you.
There's five good ones for you. Was when you would shake your hand.
How are you better now?
Yeah?
Better now?
And then he'd go when we were done with John Michelle was the name of one of our editors, And when when when we were done with the scene and go, I think we gave Jean Michelle some memmo.
Yeah, cut to cut through a couple of days later, I'm down in the editing suite just micromanaging everything John Michelle was doing all.
I know.
You were always That's.
Where that was like your that was your that was your escape from hanging out on the third.
Floor from the dogs.
From the dogs, you just run down to editing and be like, show me what you got.
But I also had a post production company in New York for when I when I lived in New York up in the Brill Building for fifteen years, and so post is a very comfortable place for me.
Yeah, yeah, and and uh and and I just remember you being even Donald and I were always trying to sneak in there as well, and you'd be like, I remember, I have great memories of you being like, come in here. You gotta see that, you gotta.
Well.
People have to understand it was a very insular place. There was no place to go.
It was Scrubs University in this five story abandoned hospital, and you had to be there. You couldn't really go off campus. You'd get in trouble because invariably we'd skip a scene and would say where's John and he went down to do something?
To say he can't go down to do anything.
It's interesting to be on here. When you're on a back lot, you can saunter around and you can talk to other shows, and you can talk to people that have nothing to do with your show. But there was something I think great that happened on our show in that we were so insular, Like Johnny said in that hospital, that it made us extra close because we never went anywhere. It wasn't like we just all were always together. And I think.
Something Billy didn't share, which I've brought to different films TV shows I've produced since, is Billy introduced the first or second day of shooting in the cafeteria, which is the largest space that one hundred and twenty person crew could all congregate.
He got everybody together.
And he told them that he was going to put a no asshole policy in place, and everybody laughed, and you know, sounded kind of stupid, and Billy's the least confrontational person on the planet. And what he meant was that if you come to work, you've got to bring at least a modicum of respect with you, otherwise don't come. And everybody knows, just all the way back to the schoolyard, how to be nice to each other and how to be respectful, and a couple of people subsequently got fired for the no asshole policy. It didn't mean you had to come to work and walk on pins and needles, but you had to come to work and be respectful.
And I thought that was great, and I do.
It on my sets now too, and if people don't like it, they can get the fuck out.
Yeah, that's real talk. You know. Since Scrubs, I've been a part of cast where you know, everybody's been chill and lovely and everything like that, but there's there's that one time where you have that one person where you're like, oh my god, I wish I was still on Scrubs right now so I could freaking sit in the background and watch you get fired for being such a fucking asshole right now, you know what I mean.
It's not that complicated, It really isn't.
It's really easy to be a good person.
We were really lucky, I think, though. I mean, there's so many casts that when you hear about a show that you know there's there's a finite number of shows that go this long. And we genuinely all really liked each other. I mean I always say that when I'm do pressed or someone asked me about the show, and you know, what was the secret to the magic, and one of them is that we genuinely all liked each other. We genuinely all rooted for each other. When we would see each other at the bar after after we wrapped, we were like just as excited to see you know, Johnny walk in the door. We and that didn't wear off. I mean we we we genuinely all loved each other company for nine years.
Yeah, you know that's you know, that's that's that's actually very true. We partied so hard. After sixteen hours of hanging out with each other a day, you would still be like, yo, Fox and the Hound still has about two more hours until it closes, and we'd all congregate at Fox and the Hound after spending the whole day in some of the night together.
Man like I would, I would go back to my hospital room and go to sleep for the night because I couldn't drive out the Malibu. And so after after having a couple of beers, I went back to the hospital went to sleep.
Wow, they just woke up the next time.
Johnny telling them about how sometimes you'd come in to be traffic at like four in the morning.
I would I had this thing where I can't be late. It's I just can't. I just I can't.
Organize being late.
And so my window was I could leave it a normal time if I had a call time at six or at ten, But if my call time was anywhere between six and ten, I would take a six o'clock hall time and just drive in at five, go to sleep for a couple hours, memorize all the shit that Billy was writing, and then be fresh and ready to go. And plus there was a shower. There was a communal shower at the end of our hallway, and I used that thing all the time.
I've never I think I never showered there.
Donald.
I think maybe once or twice.
Oh god, I was in there every day.
Was it was it a good shower?
Was it a it was hot water? End care.
That's what's all right.
We're going to go to a break and we'll be right book and we're back, and we're back.
We are back.
Donald Dumb whenever he would him again, whenever Donald does these ins and outs of a commercial, he turns into Oprah, We're back.
I heard him do that with Sarah. I was listening to it on the deck, and I was dying.
I could have given you. I could have totally given you an Oprah introduction, John seem a good.
Night I was.
I was thinking about the one oh seven, which is interesting that we would be doing one O seven, which when I looked in my composition book, it was actually one O six and it got shifted because.
Of nine to eleven.
Yes, and but before we get into the nine to eleven of it all, which has a profound impact on this episode. When I was looking through my composition book down in the rehearsal space last night, when I was looking forward to talking to you guys, I noticed that I always in the first if you're lucky enough to have to write a lot of different composition books like we were on Scrubs, I always put a mission statement on the first page of what I John not I doctor Cox want to do with this thing. And I saw that the mission statement on Scrubs was to find a place underneath the text for with every episode where you can say I love you to Max. And I took that seriously because my son Max had been born a year or two earlier, and when we started in two thousand and one, and Max was born with challenges.
MAXI roming down syndrome. He's doing great now.
But I decided that Cox underneath it all, so that it would never became too too drippy, just underneath it. Every episode there had to be one spot where I got to say I John, not doctor Cox, got to say I love you to Max.
And in this episode it's it's right where.
When I'm talking to Judy and I say, just because a guy has problems, that doesn't mean he doesn't need and then there's this long pause and it's because I kept getting an apple in my throat, and then he says you and I I reminded me that I took the thing, so god damn seriously, this mission stake that I wrote to Max, yes, and it informs everything that.
Cox does, because I think Zachy knows this.
I always consider the camera an X ray machine that it can see through all the actors bullshit. And we all try to bring a walk and a lisp or some eccentricity, and unless that's distilled down to a real pure instinct, the camera's just like bullshit.
That's bullshit, and you can see it.
It's night and day, and so that when an actor actually brings a mission statement that demands that he finds a place somewhere in the text underneath it, not just underneath the text, to say I love you to a kid who is just born with challenges that pops that the camera goes, Oh, that's his truth. He's telling the truth, and that's what pops.
I love that you said that, Johnny, because I think one of the magical things that you did with doctor Cox was find a guy who's so tough and find a way in every episode to show that his heart, that he was doing everything he can to protect everyone from protect his heart and from people seeing the amount of love. He actually had super super tough cement exterior because he was alpha and he was a badass doctor and he didn't want people to know. But then you would just it was like it was leaking out of him. You could you couldn't help it, and you would see these little moments where it's like, this guy has the biggest heart, he's just keeping it all under wraps.
That's perfect for this episode that we're talking about right now, one oh seven. Carla is the only person in the hospital who's known you long enough at this point to be able to see through that bullshit. Okay, you're being tough on all of these people, but you care. You're you're in it just like you know what I mean. You're not scared, but you care. And I think that's what started you, what started Cox. Correct me if I'm wrong to have feelings for her, like, Okay, well, if everybody's afraid of me and there's this one person in the hospital who's willing to stand up to me, not even stand up, but to call me on my bullshit, there's a there's a special place in my heart for that. And I honestly thought that Carla was gonna choose you know, when we were making the show, I thought she was gonna choose Cox over Turk. I was kind of hoping at that when I was younger, that she would choose Cox over Turk so that I'd have more love interests her.
Oh my god, I can't wait to talk about that with Judy when she comes on the show.
You know, the writers, the writers, as Donald was suggesting, out of that writer's room came different, nuanced flirtations between Cox and Carla.
I never noticed that this one is obviously really prevalent, and I hadn't. I hadn't seen this in twenty years, but I was like, there's a vibe between those two.
It lasted for the next like five six episodes, and absolutely, yeah, it's and then and then Cox and Turk have it out. And then Cox.
Do you remember thinking Donald, do you remember thinking like, because we didn't know what the fuck the writers were gonna do you remember thinking like, oh, shit, is Judy is Are they gonna write her to go off with him?
Yeah? I remember thinking that because they had history. That's the one thing that the two of them out of everyone in the show, and also Ken's character Kelso the three of them all have history. But Cox and Carla have history. Like I imagine Carla Cox was a very young doctor when Carla came in, you know what I mean, Like, you know what I mean, she had been there, Carla, Carla had been there for a while, and so they knew each other.
They may have hooked up. They may have hooked up.
That's what I thought. I thought there was that one time I was.
Watching today, I was like, these two fucks, it.
Looks like the two characters have history.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, and that that that we're gonna take it to our grave and never speak about this history.
Right, And I I like Donald and like you Zachy.
I unabashedly loved Judy, and so that was an easy thing to groove into.
You guys had great chemistry. And I was really noticing that again we're watching all these with fresh eyes after so many years, and I was watching this one, I was really I don't know, I just was reminded how good those scenes are when it was you two. You guys had amazing chemistry together.
Absolutely, I don't think there's any acting going on.
Like I say, the camera is an X ray machine and it can see through bullshit, and it could see that.
I love Judie rays on a bachelorfor and I always have that.
Well, let's get into the elephant in the room, because I was actually really nervous to watch this episode. It's the first one that I was like, I had a pit in my stomach because, as Johnny touched on, this was the episode we were shooting when nine to eleven occurred. Nine to eleven happened on a Tuesday. Well, we had shot a Monday and then nine to eleven occurred, and we should all tell our stories of that day. I think I remember I woke up to Howard Stern, you know when you're half awake and you're listening, and Howard Stern was talking about it, and it got to a point where I went, wait what And I leapt up out of bed and I went and turned on the TV. And I remember thinking, as we all did, holy shit, this is what the fuck's happening in the world. But also as a young actor who just got on a job, I was like, what are we supposed to do here? We do we go to work today? Like how? And I remember I still was like, I think I'm supposed to still go to work. So I went in and I remember Sean Haynes, who was our guest star, was there, and he and I sat in my dressing room and watched it happen, and shortly that thereafter the day was canceled. Do you guys want to want to tell what your memory of that.
I remember getting a phone call and it was like five o'clock in the morning. I remember picking up the phone and recognizing the number and cursing the person out on the other what the fuck is your problem? I'm working, I got work in a couple of hours. How why are you calling me this early, you know what I mean, And she said, and she over the phone goes, I'm sorry, shit, sorry, I just wanted to tell you that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. And I was like, oh shit, I'm sorry, wha what?
What?
Wait? What? What? And I ran to the television and I turned it on, and like everybody else in America, I was stuck watching television for and then Randall finally called him, was like, we're not coming into work, you know, but today the day is canceled. You don't have to come in. But I remember just sitting in front of the television very much like I am right now, you know what I mean. I feel like I wake up every morning and my and the minute I wake up, I turn on the news to check to see how many people have COVID nineteen, how many people we lost because of COVID nineteen, and what the plan is to figure out how we're going to get rid of COVID nineteen, you know what I mean. And I, you know, very for the next week. I remember that was all that I did was I just watched the news to see what the heck is America going to do next? How about you?
Johnny, were you called in that day?
Yeah, I went back and looked it up last night.
So the North Tower got hit at five forty five am, and I would have left about ten minutes after that to get there, and so I saw the first well they didn't really show the first but it looked like a plane went into the first building.
And then I had to go.
And so the South Tower got hit about twenty two minutes later at six oh three our time, nine oh three New York time, and so I would have been listening to it on the news. But all of this to me, there's something called a mental model, and it's how you perceive things. In my mental model, it was it.
Was like the plane that hit the Empire State Building before we were born.
It was a prop plane that went into the Empire State Building and nothing really happened, not nothing.
I'm sure some people died and it was horrible.
But it sounded like that, and so that's how I was driving into Burbank.
And when I got there that clearly wasn't the case.
And then my brother worked on the sixty second floor of the South Tower, and so I kept trying to.
Call them so and.
Pretty early on it became clear that nobody was going to get through on any lines, on cell lines or landlines because those everything disconnected on those towers, and so I couldn't get through to my brother. And this is when an actor's imagination is a curse, not a blessing.
You only imagine horrible things.
And it turns out in those eighteen to twenty minutes, those intervening times between the North tower getting hit and the South tower getting hit on March trading desk, they all had been there when they shake from Newark, New Jersey, had set off that bomb in the van in the basement ten years earlier. So everyone in a Mark's trading desk got up when the first building got hit and they started to make their way down the stairs. But it was such a cluster flock going down the stairs in those eighteen minutes from the sixty second floor down, they only made it about twenty stories. Everybody from like seventy two up died, and so Mark got.
A concussion going down the stairs. I don't know how.
He got really disoriented, and by the time he got out of the building, he wandered up the FDR Drive to East Harlem, and so he was missing for about twelve hours, and so made.
All the way to Harlem.
Holy cow, Was he just in shock, Johnny?
And he walked that far? Yes, wow.
And so I sat in the hospital for all that time, and then I tried his wife, who lived out in Short Hills, New Jersey at the time. She only had an outgoing message on her machine saying, Mark, I know you're okay. I've gone over to the Smith's house and we're waiting for your call there. Well, no calls came for about twelve hours, and so I sat in the dressing room thinking horrible things. And then obviously the buildings came down shortly after that, and what almost four thousand Americans died, and so that was a that's the backdrop for us shooting this episode. Yeah, it's kind of miraculous that the episode even makes any sense that because of what some of some people were carrying into the frame.
I agree.
I think it's a weird episode. And also I don't know if I'm bringing my own anxiety of of of the time to it as I watch it now, But I'm also going we were all not present for these however many days, one hundred percent right, absolutely, And I felt like, especially when you look at the first episode Chunk that we've just watched, which you're like, holy shit, look at this show, look at their fire and on all cylinders. This is the first one where I go, oh, we all understandably, obviously we all look a little based out to me.
That's when I watched it last night. I I mean, there's obviously a lot of funny stuff in it that I wrote down that made me laugh. But it and again, like you, Zaki, I can't tell if it's me imposing my John McGinley onto what Billy Lawrence created for those twenty one minutes. But you just said disconnected it. It seemed a little disconnected to me.
This one does, yes, absolutely, but how could it not be? Right? Yeah?
Right, yeah.
If mcginley's brother, If mcginley's brother just got out of the what was the South Tower and was missing for a day, what do you, superman?
Of course you're going to carry that in front of the lens.
Now, do you guys remember we took that Tuesday off? Did we work the next day or take that day off as well?
I think we took Wednesday off and we worked Thursday.
Yeah, Now I do remember this. I remember the very first thing we came back, believe it or not, was that fucking dog show fantasy. So I remember feeling horribly guilty that we should a should we even be working there. I'm under a contract and I'm an actor and I'm not going to ruffle anybody's feathers, but it should be we be working. But then' like, yes, everyone's back to work. Here we go, and I was like, okay, what are we shooting. I can do this. We're gonna do a fantasy where you're a dog at a dog show and Johnny c is going to feel your balls. And I was like, the first thing up, Johnny, do you remember that? It was the first thing up? It must have been Thursday morning, was me.
I do remember now I watch it. I remember it. Oh my god, I remember that I wrote down.
I wrote down that during the dog show flashback, I had decided to make you both really uncomfortable. And I think it was because I was really uncomfortable. So I love actors, and I would never do anything to ever ever hurt of an actor, especially when it comes to physical contact. And I think I was just I was not appropriately gentle with you guys. I like took your ears, Zachie, and you can see. And I took your fucking mouth and I opened it up and I talked. I took Sean's ear, and I was I was uncharacteristically for me as an actor, not cos but I love actors so much. I would never ever do anything to hurt them, and I would think I was.
I was not appropriate with you two guys on that. I was very rough.
I remember being man handled. Thank you for pantomiming the testicle part, though, because I think that would have been a little too rough on me.
You know, I'm sure.
At some point I put my fist up your reck them.
I don't think so, at least not in this episode. That may have been in later. I think you did wear me like a hand puppet, but it was in episode four.
I think during the dog show thing may I may have engaged you.
Well.
We were joking with Bill about how the crazy sound effects would would would were slowly phased out. I don't know, maybe because we were all off in this episode. But this episode has so many ridiculous thought effects, so many and there's the there's like a Santa Sleigh jingle bell noise when you gra my balls. That's like the choice that was made somewhere in the in sound effects editing. They were like, Okay, what's the noise for Johnny grabbing JD's balls? Guys, how about a Santa Slave jingle bell o?
You know what?
I you know what I thought was really funny.
Zactually when you and Kenny are up on the roof and he goes to he does kind of a fake attacking you up on the roof. Yeah, And whether or not you're just a great actor or if it was really weird, it looked really weird.
It's a weird scene, by the way, can I just I don't understand.
He calls you, he goes you know what your problem is? Yeah, is that you're a pansy? Like just straight up.
It's a weird scene. And I was waiting for something to happen. I remember there was a fantasy where I where I fell off a roof and there was a stuntman and did a big jump and I thought, oh, is that this But it doesn't really go anywhere, and Ken's just up there smoking a pipe. He calls me a pansy and then almost throws me off the roof like legit, and then like that's the scene.
That's it, and and a couple of scenes before that at Mine forty four when when he goes keep shooting you the he he gumps over and gives you a hug, and then Kenny wraps his leg A.
Right, I think that's a fantasy, Johnny, I will I. I didn't know what the fuck was happening there either, And then there's a white flash out of it. I think that's JD's fantasy because why he mounted me? Well, I just want to say, I think that's I wrote down that. I think that's the only time in nine years that Ken Jenkins ever mounted me.
Can we talk? Can we talk about jerking off real quick?
Yeah? A big part as a part of the show or just in your own life.
Just yeah, we could talk about it both. Let's talk about both. How about that?
Okay?
Good?
Okay. So here's here's here's the one thing I get that. First of all, we have two callbacks to mash We have you as a kid playing with your brother, and this scene, the whole joke off scene is actually a scene from Mesh the movie, if I'm correct, where they trick somebody to go into the bathroom and drink off. When did jerking off become a bad thing that you got to be embarrassed about?
Well, but you're not. You're not supposed to jerk off at work. Donald write that down as a surgeon, got it?
So wait, hold up, Okay, So it's so we're clear. It's okay to masturbate, but once you do it at work, you've crossed the line.
Yes, I think this can a service announcement. This could be a public service announcement for people all over the world. Don't masturbate at work.
It's crossing the line.
The more you know, and Dan, you can put in a little more you know effect there.
I saw something.
I saw something when Donald and I get to do the scene that comes before this, when in the cafeteria and I tell you to go to go And what's the town I tell you to go to, like.
Spank Town or something like something like that.
I forgot, but what I Palmville, Palmdale. And I have a pet peeve with actors who wait until they swallow their food to say a line. And if you notice in that thing, I always take the soup to hear.
It doesn't go in.
No, it never does, don't I.
Never eat, by the way, it's disgusting. No, whenever there's you will. If you ever see me eating in a in anything I've ever done, it's it's rare. I always my character is always done because I don't want to deal with all the continuity and eating.
Okay, people are starting to notice that actors aren't eating on television shows or in movies now. Before before people didn't necessarily notice. That's something that I think people are starting to notice now. Other than Brad Pitt, No one eats.
No, whenever I see someone legit eating, Like whenever I see someone I watch a scene and someone's like eat, I'm like, oh my god. They ate like that for probably four hours. Not correct, My character's always.
Done, always, But also if it gets in the way of the actor saying the line and we have to wait for those of us in a big family, nobody waits.
To talk until they swallow. There's food in their mouth.
They just segregated over into kind of a chipmunk cheek and then they just fire.
Out the words. Otherwise you'll lose the floor at the dinner table.
Did you guys have go to meals that you know they were always? There are lots of scenes where we're supposed to have food in front of us. Did you guys have a go to thing you would ask to be in front.
Of you steak, super steak, me soup because you never have to eat it.
Yeah, I just I'm gonna steal that, Johnny, because I'm always have a plate of I would always tell them, can you make it look like I'm done?
And like you know, and because with soup you can just the spoon.
The prop of the spoon is it's indefatigable, it's perfect.
It can you can, and plus you can quow it at somebody.
You can.
It's the prop of the spoon. You use the spoon.
I always went for steak because I could eat steak forever. I could eat steak like nobody's business.
So you were eating, you were you were an eater.
No, but if I did have like there was that one episode where I did have to eat uh and because Turk gets really bad heartburn. And it's when UH had the lockleer was on the show and John c myself and head a lockleer at some benefit and Carl is supposed to meet us there and she never shows up and I wind up eating a bunch of steak and uh end up in the hospital with really bad heartburn. Uh So I always went. I always went for steak because I could eat it. It tastes good, it's easy to season, throw some salt on it, you know what I mean, It's it's good to go.
I thought there were a couple of different times in this episode where despite everything, the ensemble work in one where you is where you pass the torch to Sean and Sean just fits right into the style of the piece, like he just takes the torch, we pan with you at a frame, we come back, Sean's put the torch down and you guys just keep doing your thing.
That was clever. I was cleverly directed. And and I want to say, it's a rare moment where that's obviously a fantasy and there was no flash in out of it. I was clocking that because you know, Bill always delineated a fantasy with a with a little white flash and that noise. And this is one of those rare times where the torch is a character, a prop character in the piece, and there's no It's both times it comes in, it's just handed off and not really discussed.
What's Also, what's also interesting with Sean is Sean's introduction, which would become a classic Scrubs introduction, especially with beautiful females with wind and slow mow entrances.
As they walk down a hall.
Sean gets to come in on top of a gurney saving someone's life and it's just glorious.
Dude, I wrote that down, Johnny. I'm glad you brought that up because I wrote that down. I think that might be the best entrance other than other than.
Dick van Dyke.
Dick van Dyke's entrance is pretty amazing too, but that might be one of the best entrances for male in Scrubs history.
Yeah, all right, Joelle, do we need to go a break or we take to go to these lovely people? All right, We're gonna go take another break and we come back. We have questions from some fans that are calling in, and they're gonna have an amazing question. I'm sure, probably for the legendary Johnny ce McGinley.
I'll give you a hint. Her name's Ashley.
Also that.
We have a caller. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. Ashley Cooper harrow It.
And friend do you know how much money? Do you know much money it cost us to get Oprah to do all these introductions of our guests. It's fortune. Hi, guys, why did why did Joelle imply that there was something unique and special about you? Guys?
So I wrote in earlier this week, I was looking if I could figure out a way for you to to do like a birthday shout out.
This is my husband, Alexander.
Alexander he is their physician and absolutely loves your show.
What's up, man, how's a good deal?
Now?
Now?
Donald change? Now?
Donald showed?
Now Donald changed? Donald?
Respectful? Boys, let me shout that respect What is good?
Not too load?
Do this right before work. I'm about to head out of here about an hour.
Oh man, Wow, you're the real deal.
Very much. Thank you so much, very very much for for calling in. Uh who's going to ask the question? He is awesome.
This is my birthday, be Berfay, to.
Your happy birthday, to your happy birthday.
We called it Jamie Birthday.
He's a grown man, as you know. He works in the hospital. Not like us we would fake doctors on a TV show.
Yes, bringing it home?
Yes?
So wait, did you not know about this? Is this a surprise.
I fot I kept it a surprise for maybe for seconds, and.
You should have kept it a surprise until you guys zoomed in how cool had that been?
But then you never know, you would have.
Been like, who are these guys? Who are these guys?
Right?
Who are these guys?
All right? Go ahead, guys, go ahead.
Sure.
So I guess the biggest question is I guess what it came down through is I watched a lot of the different Pete medical shows, and I found that throughout my training so far, and I was attending so far that the show of Scrubs actually portrays how hospital life really works the most accurate of all the medical shows, despite it being primarily a comedy. Was that something that Bill purposely did? Was that something that the staff tried to incorporate? Because I was, I mean, I listened to the first one and sell like Donald really good around the hospital?
No, I was, I was, I was, You're absolutely right. I was so afraid to go into the hospital at that point. Listen. Since then, I've you know, I've developed a a listen if something's wrong or if I feel like something's wrong, I'm going right to my primary and we're going to talk about it. Before that, though, I was just like every other person, you know, in the African American community, we have a stigma when it comes to doctors. We're very afraid of the bad news. And you think I'm joking. But this is the honest and goodness truth and.
Very right.
I've done. I've done PSA after PSA about talking, you know, talking about you know, going and getting your numbers known. Go get your lesterol, get your your b M, I, your your blood pressure, your blood sugar.
I love You're trying to listen them to an er doc.
I'm just trying to listen.
He was like, he was like blue close and You're like, no, no, no, there's four there's uh anyway, But Johnny, Johnny, why don't you answer because you're the special guest about about his question.
I had spent the first three weeks of my son's life a couple of years earlier in the neonatal intensive care unit, and I carried most of that was that functioned largely is all the homework I ever needed for medical replication, trying to do medical stuff. And uh. Max had different challenges born down in Rome, and he had microscopicals and hard also, we had infatel seizures. We had all sorts of different challenges. But if you spend if you're the Akron, import is the nick you. If you spent three or four weeks in the nick you, you should get enough of that on you to be able to tell the truth in front of the lens. And so that that's largely what I was trying to honor when we were doing that medical scripts. I think Bill was relationship stuff.
I think Bill also has said, you know, we knew we were going to be silly, and we knew we were gonna have these crazy fantasies, and we knew in a lot in a lot of ways, it was gonna be a comedy. So he wanted the baseline. He wanted to drop in for all the medicine to be as accurate as possible.
And and that was also something that John Doris wanted to the real JD wanted. He was like, listen, you can make fun of all of the things we did that I did in college and stuff like that, but it has to be grounded at the end of the day. Don't make a fool of us, you know what I mean. Make sure that that there's truth behind everything as well.
Yeah, I think that that that's one of the reason's works. And I think the American Medical Association has said, which we always thought was bizarre, but that they said that this was the most medical accurate of all the medical shows. So we always took that as a badge of honor, and I think Bill was really, really, really proud of that. He said, we can be as silly as we want to be when we get into the medicine. It's all gonna be gonna be real.
And also, yeah, once you get that, once you get that tag where you got where someone says to you, you guys are the most medically accurate, you don't ever want to fall off that that bandwagon. You want to stay. You want to stay on that. You want to make sure that every story, at least in the first at least in the first eight seasons. I don't know about season nine, but in the first eight seasons, we made sure to stick to the actual script to keep it real. As they say, oh, is that an expression? I hear the kids say that nowadays. Do you have another question?
Yeah, go ahead, So that'll be the I guess the more hey are they more difficult question. Easier one is what keepsticks? Did you guys get so rowdy? Didn't get taken with you guys? But what about like the tick necklaces or anything like that.
I'm not a I'm not a souvenir guy, so I don't ever I shouldn't taken stuff from a lot of sets. But it's not I always thought it was bad luck.
You don't know any scrubs whatsoever.
I don't have any scrubs in my house.
I think it's a I think it's a jink.
What about what about the kicks? Because Nike sent us a bunch of kicks when we were making that show.
That's different.
Swag. Swags are different than top big membilia back.
Yeah, I don't have any. I have the slate. I have the slates from episodes I directed. You know the thing we clap in front of the lens.
You're directing them.
Yeah, And then I have the I have the antlers from when we did the pilot, when I was a deer in headlights. Donald is showing you.
His his my scrub sneakers, my hundredth episode sneakers.
Look how warn and ruined they are.
I've rocked these for like a year.
I put mine on a shelf and saved them and they're mint and Donald's are all fucked up.
I'm so proud of these.
And look and look, I that's the best rewraps on the planet for for for Christmas, you guys.
Well, one thing that's funny about this podcast on the Zoom Call is that whenever Donald wants to reference a piece of clothing, he doesn't have to move from his seat. He just reaches out of frame and pulls it in.
Him.
Well, we are in my closet.
No, it's just funny, Like you've done that a few times now. It's not even like you have to stand. You just reach out a frame and pull out.
Well, I'm on my side. I mean I'm in, like I'm in, Like I'm on my side. So like all of this is me, this is my wife's stuff. So if I really, I'm never I was. You know, what I was thinking about doing was turning it all around and doing it from a different angle. But I think I just confuse everyone.
No, I love this. I will forever remember this time of doing this podcast and steering at you like it looks like you're sitting on the ground in your closet.
You know, it's not every day that we have a real live doctor on the show, right, and so this is this is this is a pretty special thing.
Uh.
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask us.
Well, Donald's giving you the rare third question you can have. It's never been bestowed. It's because you're a real doctor. It's never been bestowed upon anyone.
In all seven episodes of Fake Doctors, Real Friends.
All Right, what was the most emotionally difficult episode that you guys did?
Yes, good, Johnny, what's up?
I thought this one would have to be right up there, just getting through this one and trying to hew to the style of the piece and not fall too deep deep into an eleven of it all. It was it was impossible.
But Johnny, we have to give a nod to one of the best episodes ever where you were just incredibly good in that Brendan Frasier dying episode.
Yeah, but that that we got to act, That was acting. This was this was real life, just killed four thousand people, and and it was I thought it was almost impossible to get through this episode. And when I watched it and it actually just made sense, did it made sense. Yeah, it is good. Yeah, not great, It's just good.
Yeah, But I was gonna say it still has some really genuinely funny parts. And the emotion that Sean has at the end of the episode, and even the and the emotion that you have with Carla at the end of the episode. You talked about that earlier in the podcast, about how it gave you a lump in your throat and everything like that because you were speaking your truth at that moment. But that stuff right right, absolutely.
I think tough like potassium and ask and TikTok tourice, those things caught me off guard last night when I was watching it.
I also, I'm sorry to be I'm sorry to be the guy who laughs at a fart joke, but I legit laughed so hard when when Todd goes the wording of this line is so funny, sir, I farted long pause. That smell is from the fart that I made.
You know he.
Heard, But the wording of that, the wording of that, I think that's the funniest thing in the whole episode, to be honest, And I'm sorry to be so so simple that I love a fart joke that much. But I just thought the wording of that that smell pause is from the fart that I made. Meanwhile, the surgeon, what's his name? He's in there, like, what's what's that smell from? What the hell happened? What's going on?
Is that actor? That actor did a good job. Charles kind of a thankless role.
Yeah, he you know, he's been in a lot of movies. Actually he was in He was in Dumb and Dumb.
He's the guy dry and right down the middle.
Yeah, Charles was great. Man. He hes stuck around for damn near the whole show. You know what's interesting, I didn't realize Johnny Castle was in the show that much.
Me neither.
He's in like every episode, even he's.
Doug, don't I. I really don't remember that Doug had this bigger role in the show. But Doug's Doug. Doug's got a lot of stuff going on. Yeah, thank you guys so much for your questions, and of course, be safe on the on the front lines out there, my friend.
We totally appreciate you. Thank you so much, Thank you so so much. Thank you guys, and thank you Ashley for calling in with your husband on so we could have the honor of having some husband or boyfriend that's her husband.
Okay, good. I thought you might have been proposing for him and he just kinda.
You get it. If you get a surgeon, man or a woman, you you marry that person.
Yeah, lock it down, lock it down.
You're a guy who got a female surgeon. Is that you marry that?
Yeah?
Yeah? Be well, take care guys, all right.
I thought Sarah had a really nice beat. When Sarah is being overwhelmed for a moment where we're in the closet, she's so good at turning stuff. She just she's really upset, and then she turns it. She puts on that grave face and it's it's a little gem and I have no idea of nine to eleven imprinted on her in some way for that, but she just turns it, and it's she's so nimble. I forgot how how fast she is emotionally.
One of my favorite lines in the show is when she goes, I'd let him drool on me, and then the way she looks at Zach after she says it you she met that shit.
That's funny. Donald, Do you have any memory of the fantasy At ten forty seven? Which is that post apocalyptic like, no, you're standing by a fire.
I remember after I saw it, I remembered us doing that scene, but I was like, where is this going?
I didn't know where it was.
It was the basement.
It was a basement. You know what's interesting. I even though this took place during nine to eleven, there are a lot of moments in the show where I was like, well, I don't remember. I don't remember this. I don't I don't. You know, There's there's certain things that I did remember. I remembered Sean Hayes and him getting choked. I definitely remember the last scene with UH, with Johnny and UH and Judy where he kind of slips and professes his love for her. I remembered all of that because that tracked with my story. But other than that, man, you know, I say this every week watching this show is it's it's so much fun for me because I don't remember any of it. It's like I'm watching it with fresh eyes.
If you if you weren't in a scene, or let me say this about me, if I wasn't in a scene, I wasn't leaving my dressing room to go watch stuff.
Right, But even when the show came on, Right, this is all brand new for me.
But also, Johnny, you weren't smoking bong hits, so you probably have you probably have some of your brain left.
Okay.
So Donald was like, I didn't even know the show is about doctors.
I was very young. I smoked a lot of marijuana when I was a kid.
Was that?
So was that your first correct me if I'm wrong. Was that your guys first scene together? That you telling him to beat off?
Yeah?
It certainly seems like it in the content.
I don't know, but well writing, yeah, yeah, after that, you and I had so many scenes, you know, all of a sudden I became Gandhi. I don't even know how that came. Was that an improv from you? Did you make up Gandhi? Or was okay? Okay? But yeah, this is this is the beginning of the Cox and turk Uh. Yeah, your very first encounter you because we were the two athletes in the hospital, you know what I mean. And so now it was like, oh, okay, So it was like, you know, Michael Jordan versus Kobe Bryant, you know what I mean.
And also he really didn't you know, the whole point was he didn't like you fucking with Carlo.
In the beginning. Absolutely in the beginning, But as time goes on, the beat that Cox and Turk have is strictly it's all yo. You know, this is we have this competitive fire, you know what I mean, And it needs to be and it needs to be, you know way, we need to fan that bad boy so that you know, we can live. And so I think Cox and Turk really enjoyed trying to one up each other.
I do too, but I thought it was a little manufactured, because again, if the camera is an X ray machine and you can see how it was a little man, it always felt a little manufactured to me.
What do you mean?
I didn't believe that I had that big of a problem with.
You, Okay. I always looked at it as he didn't like that I was with Carla, and because I won and got that one up, he was always trying to get a one up on Turk. That's how I always looked at it.
But I guess I just I mean, even.
In basketball, even when we played, even when we played basketball and you hurt your back in that episode that we do that even that, you know what I mean? But hey, yeah, you know. I think also the love that we have for each other. I remember my first time being like, Johnny, please don't intimidate me, and you're like, shut the fuck up, nobody's intimidating you, and you're right, You're right. Yeah.
You were always so generous, though, Johnny with us, because you know, we we we we knew who you were. We both loved your work, and I think both I can think I could speak for both of us when we were like nervous. I was nervous to work with you, and I just want to thank you. You know, for those of you aren't actors, it's the person who's got more of a resume and is the bigger star. The onus is always on them to make everyone else feel comfortable around them. And I thought you always were so generous and never made us feel intimidated at all, unless it was obviously in the scene, but as a person, you never did.
I felt like we were gonna that this truly was even even though Jackie all respect was number one on the call sheet. I felt like this thing was the truest form of an ensemble and that was never lost on me. And if that a rising tide there's the same horizon tide floats all boats, and I thought we had to do this together or sink. Either either rise or sink together. With Billy at the helm, there was no confusion about that. One time, Billy Rosine, I had to kiss his wife, who played my wife or my ex wife on the show, Christa Miller, who is a very dear friend of mine, And so I kissed her, and in the middle of kissing her, she stuck her tongue in my mouth, and I was just I was like, I'm not okay with this, And so I go upstairs with the third floor where our dressing rooms are, where Billy's office goes, and I I knocked on the door and Billy took you saying, and he goes, yeah, come in and sit down. I go, I gotta, I gotta get something off my chest here. I was just in the scene that you wrote. I was just having a kiss Christa, and she she stuck her tongue in my mouth. And he's such a ballmuster. He gives it a pause and he goes, did you like it? They did it to get me.
By the way, Johnny, this dovetails into something I said this dovetails with something I said earlier. I think Billy has a little bit of a little bit of a thing for that.
It was horrorfying. Kissed by christ was horrorfying. But the boss's beautiful wife. It makes me nervous even telling the story.
That's so funny. I think I think Billy has a little bit of a special place in his heart for man he likes kissing his wife.
I have a question for you, guys, when you watch the show now, do you feel like we foreshadowed so much in every epith Like we foreshadowed a lot in every episode. Like, even when watching this episode, it's pretty clear that Sean Hayes's character, he doesn't have it all together, even though he seems like it, Hey, he has it together, and it's and maybe because we watched the whole episode now, but every time Nurse Roberts came in to address him, he always said, no problem, no problem. And I feel like I feel like that was foreshadowing. Obviously it was a problem and this was going to be the issue that broke him. I feel like, if you watch Scrubs, what we did very well. We presented the problem to you early on and disguised it and disguised it or hit it with comedy and other things. But then at the end of the episode, we always hit you with the drama to make you feel it. But if you watched all the way through, we would leave crumbs and hints that this was coming.
I think, yes, yes to that, and I think and it reminded me. I'm reminded of it in the first flashback where Zachi is with his brother and the tag out is we don't even talk that much, or he doesn't talk that much to me, And then there's this long, I don't know, we'll make it up, twenty year disconnect, And when Tommy Kavanaugh shows up at the hospital, all that stuff that Zach had, that Billy had insinuated in that scene yields dividends because they have lost contact. They're completely disconnected, and the disconnect is profound when they're a person to person. So when Tommy comes in and Jackie and him don't connect on any level, even the John River of Jackie's father, they don't connect at all. And that's all in that first flashback.
Yeah, but not just that, even you missing Jordan. The first time we meet Jordan at the end of it. You're reminiscing about the wedding and all of that stuff. It tracks later on because you guys get back together and you do still love her, even though in between all of that you guys are warring and you date someone else.
And you know what I mean, Billy, it's very good at his job, Johnny, did you like this?
Did you?
Will you come back again onto the podcast?
Yeah? It seems it seems impossible to unload the number of stories. And this was a particularly hard episode when I was watching it. It was just a hard episode to a lot of stuff from nine to eleven came back to me, which I don't know if a lot of people it's a heavy handed way of approaching something, but people, actors are human beings, and I was. I was really impacted by nine to eleven in an immediate family way. And to have gotten through this episode in retrospect seems impossible to me. And that is that It's that it's a coherent, well told tale that goes for twenty one minutes. Is good? That's good enough? Yeah, there are there are there are levels of good, better, best, excellent episodes, and this one just goes in under the category of executed. We executed. Yeah, there's some funny stuff in.
It, and that's good enough.
I totally agree. This is the first one. You know, Donald and I joked when we start doing this, like, you know, there's gonna be ones that we don't like, and we're like, that feels this is the first one that it's something we don't like it. It's just that it's like we all have this Pavlovian response to watching it, going, oh, this just feels wrong and weird, and we remember agree.
And I'm not discounting to all the great work that everybody did.
I'd about to say, I feel like everybody did their job so well though, you know what I mean, at the end of the day, regardless of what we were going through at the time, if you didn't know that that was the nine to eleven episode, you're not gonna be able to tell, you know what I mean.
I don't know. I don't know.
That's probably There's so many great jokes and we just talked yeout, including moments.
That smell was the fart that I made. But hey, wait, keep her there, keep her here? Have heard you the five, six, seven.
Eight, Okay, baby, baby, baby Wilder, come here.
We want to thank Johnny c McGinley the legend, and Johnny, we really want you to come back because we're just sitting around doing this. Man, we got nothing to do. We're sitting around watching episodes and laughing.
Yeah, please come back.
Here's one thousand times just and now Donald has a very special visitor who's gonna count us into the theme song.
Don Wilder Wilder, my daughter Wilder's here say a five six seven eight. Okay, she said, No, five six seven eight. Stories about show we made about a bunch of times and nurses and janitor. He said, here's the stories.
Next s No.
So yander around you here, YadA round you here, our stuffy show.
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