Fake Doctors, Real Friends with Zach and DonaldReal Friends Classic - 110: My Nickname with Bill Lawrence
On this week's episode of Scrubs, JD and Carla's friendship hits a rough patch, and reoccurring character Jill Tracy makes her debut. In the real world, Zach and Donald welcome back their first repeat guest, Bill Lawrence!
Dude, how that Beastie I'm great. What's that Beastie Boys song that's like Intergalactic? Now? Someone told yeah, and someone told me that if you listen closely, you can hear Intergalactic Kill the children, Kill the children, and Turgalactic. I'm telling you, once you hear that, you will forever hear it. When you listen to that song, I want you listen.
I don't this podcast.
You will hear.
Young children.
You know when someone points something out to you and then you can never not hear it that way.
It's like, it's like listening to that song, Sir shut, Dircy so shut.
They put on the interweb on like memes and stuff. They give you fake lyrics, and it really sounds like these people are saying that.
Bill Bill Lawrence arrived in the zoom call everybody Intergalactic, Kill the children, Kill the children.
I don't like that.
I don't like it either, But the Beastie Boys did it.
Donald, They did not do that.
I'm not one of the Beastie Boys.
But I'm a huge fan of the Beastie Boys, and I refuse to believe that they kill children, or that they want you to kill children. In an intergalactic planetary way.
Intergalactic Kill the children, Kill the children. And here's for Lawrence. Everybody.
You guys, watch the Beastie Boys documentary.
Not yet.
I really want to watch it, though it's on my to do list. I'm stuck on the right now.
I'm watching them. You know who really.
Likes the Beastie Boys a lot?
The Beastie Boys.
Documentary.
And then we did this great thing.
Bill.
I imagine you as a sports fan. You're watching the the the.
That's the one. I'm stuck on.
The Bulls.
Yes, oh my gosh, this is But Bill, doesn't this remind you of why you loved Michael Jordan so much when you were younger? Like this makes me realize why he was one of my idols growing up.
Even I had the poster. Guys, I want you to know that I had a poster of him in my room because I wanted to be cool too. Every every kid that age, our age at that time had the Michael Jordan poster. And even though I didn't watch any of it, I was like, well, I'm gonna need one of those.
There is nothing funnier than you with the Michael Jordan poster.
It was right next to a Phantom of the opera beach towel. My father bought me a Phantom of the opera beach towel, and you were supposed to use it at the beach. And I was like, this is art. I will hang this on my wall. And I took thumbtacks and hung it like a tapestry, like like a really precious, rare tapestry. It was a fan of the opera beach towel. And right next to that was Michael Jordan dunking with his tongue out. So there you go.
I was trying, should I start his voice memo? Now, guys, all right, well you should have.
Yeah, Zach forgot the the other day.
Oh I fucked up.
I hear that. I was the only one I haven't heard. I haven't heard Judy Is yet because I fell asleep last night.
It's so good.
Judy was a man. She was great.
Wait, we forgot to sing. We forgot to sing, Bill say five, six, seven, eight, Oh.
I've always wanted to do this. Wait, is is it going to be at the end or oh? Yes?
The audience waited in Bill. Thousands of people did an online Twitter poll and decided that the mhm, stays all.
Right, well I'm gonna do oh yeah, because that's what it is in my head five six, seven, eight stories.
About show We made about a bunch of dogs and nurses and.
Said he's the stories net No, so ganda ra here yea here.
Oh yeah, Bill, you're the very first for the obvious reasons, you're the very first we've invited back.
He's a reoccurring.
Yes, you're recurring, Bill, Just just how you had the power to make characters on Scrubs re reccurring, We bon Donald and I have have the power to make you the creator of the show recurring, and we've chosen you.
Oh I like that.
It makes it makes me feel like it's tenuous, like I could lose this at any second.
Yeah, Bill, you could fuck up and be cut anytime.
You know what.
Speaking of reoccurring, Uh, it's it has a lot to do with the episode.
But Yo, how where did you? Where did you find Rob? How did that happen?
What's the Rob story?
Bill?
Because we had versions of this, How did you find Rob? Who plays the tod?
Everyone?
All my laugh out loud moments in this episode were Rob. And I'm embarrassed to say that because they're the dumbest fucking sex jokes. But every time I always write down lo ol, just so I can mark when I actually leafed out loud. And they were all Robs.
Rob was an actor that got cast in a play that I wrote, and so I got to know him, and he was a stand up comic and his performance was always better than his material because he was just, you know, had crazy amounts of confidence. And I just got to be buddies with him, playing basketball and hanging out. And my wife always says that I ruined his life because Rob went to Columbia and I think he was thinking about doing other things besides acting, And right then I said, I'm doing the Scrubs pilot. You want to be the jockey surgeon. He might have a line here and there. I think line had Rob had one line in every episode for nine years.
And then.
You know, and after that, I think, you know, he was a guy that had been doing it so long it was too late to reinvent himself and to start over as anything other than an actor.
But this says a very good ending.
Because he's a hugely He's still the Todd and he has a hugely successful real estate business in Venice, California, and is killing it out there. And he's still occasionally though, dyes his hair black, puts the fake tattoo on, and goes to like European comic cons as the Todd And he's got to pay people pay him for high fives.
And he's got his cameo business, which you can get him to cameo all your friends if you go.
And if I were hiring Rob to do a Todd appearance, he'd have to be into banana hammock like I'd be.
And you have to.
Probably costs extra. Donald. That probably costs extra.
I would probably cost ever extra.
And now he probably needs about a six month lead time on that to start starving himself.
By the way, if you need a real estate, if you need a real estate broker in southern California, especially down at the beach, hire Rob Mashio, because I'm sure he'd be willing to give you a high five while he shows you places. In Venice.
There is, without a doubt way to buy a house from me high five out there for someone.
You could buy a house and get a high five from Robin, surell throw it in with the yeah.
I don't even think you have to pay extra for that, but he couldn't be. It couldn't be a nicer guy. Loved the show. I used to love how passionate he was about it. And you guys made the joke because he would have one line and he would be running it over and over and that it's still one of my favorite jokes.
Rob's over there running line.
Running singular. He would take it. He would take it so seriously, and we were laughing with him because he would laugh at it with us. But he would be like over there in the corner being like high five, high five, fine working.
It out, but I mean, come on, always delivered.
He's so fucking funny man. It's it's always the same joke. But that's another testament to Rob. It's like, it's always an innuendo joke. It's the same joke, and it's always in a sexual innuendo joke. But I but a testament to you and him. I laugh every fucking time.
You by the way, you you just nailed. I believe it might be you know, old war in history. But my favorite Todd joke I think came from a one a month.
I think it was Neil Goldman that I hate giving him a name check because he wants them so bad.
I know. I saw Neil Goman wrote on Twitter He's like, there's been six episodes. I've been mentioned.
Once, I know, but the I think it was I think it was him. I think someone of the writer's room said, is every time the Todd talks just going to be sexual innuendo? And I think he's the one that said in your end, in your.
Endo, he has the best line. He has the best line in this episode. It made me laugh so hard when he says it's.
One of my l O lst I bet you it is.
When he goes, you know what else? You know what else?
Remember, I think it's I'm not sure, Todd, but I'm gonna guess it's your penis.
Yeah, Todd, I'm not sure, but I'm gonna guess it's your penis. And it was now Bill Bill in your mind? Is he a good surgeon?
Yeah? I don't know if you remember, if you guys have gotten there yet, no, we're only on this one ten.
One of my favorite moments that the writer's room all loved was because we had read something about how surgeons are just cutters, you know, medical guys call them hammers and the patient and nail, and if they get too caught up in their head, they sometimes aren't as good. And that gave us the idea for Turk's character. Ask doctor when who the best surgeon is, thinking it would be that young girl Bonnie or whatever her name is, and doctor Wenn says, you really want to know who it is, and he points at the Todd and you say, no way. And then doctor Wenn says, you're all caught up in your brain thinking about all these problems. You know what Todd's doing, and they cut to Todd and surgery. We actually paid for the Bonanza.
Theme because he's just he's just looking at all his instruments. He's going tiny scalpel like DECII.
So it's he's still present in the moment because his mind isn't getting distracted. He's just like, yeah, he's.
Got nothing to distract him. It's like somebody. It's like, it's like, how somebody that's not that bright could be great at the video game. That's Todd.
Let's talk about Bonnie because we mentioned it earlier that she was supposed to be my nemesis at one point, right, like that was supposed.
Yeah, we we she got another gig. She was good.
She would have stayed around the same way Doug did, in the same way other you know, JD. Had Doug on the medical side, she would have been the person that stayed around on the surgical side.
But she got another gig.
You know.
That's why we we sent her off on that trip and came up with that story only because we knew she was not going to be around to.
Work for a while.
That's always tough, man, that has to be difficult. Like when we talk about the people that have him through the show, and you know, like Azz and all of these other people, it's like, you know, if they weren't bubbling and doing their thing at the time, they would have been staples on the show for years.
To without a doubt.
Man.
Even Charles Chung disappeared for a second because he got some pilot or movie and stuff.
And we loved having that dude around.
He's just a really kind of you know, meet Potato's good actor, you know, and uh.
And he was a good straight man too for Donald's because he was just so good at deadpan, you know, and Donald could be like wacky Turk and he was just perfect.
Like we had. You can keep listening him.
Remember Neil and Garrett called them our weapons chest, and those were one line characters that we thought were so very funny that not just Ted the lawyer and Aloma, you know, Nurse Roberts, but like doctor Zeltzer, you know.
And Bob yeah, way, Bob Lennon, who's yet to make an appearance. I don't know if he arrives in season one or not, but you introduced me to Bob Clint Dennon on the show and he played Zeltzer, and I just thought that is one of the funniest character actors I've ever met. I've put him in, I put him in a bunch of stuff since because I just love that guy.
He's uh, he's amazing, you know him and Sam Lloyd and uh, Krista and Aloma.
I mean, they could all be regulars on any show. And so it was.
Though of like you'd have like your guest star level, like Krista, and then you'd have like the Aloma level who were like and then you'd have people used to call your assassins who would just come by once in a while and they do like a drive by one liner and just kill it like and and Bob Clintdennon was one of those. He will there will there be prostitutes.
He would just my favorite part of that joke, you love that.
My favorite was doctor Cox going no and Bob's read of Poe Good.
SOEs no, oh good good.
He was not worried about it at all. He was hopeful.
Hey, Bill, I thought we could start off since we have you, and I was thinking today because I did, because you're here, and I put on a nice shirt. I was telling him before you got on that because we had you, I put on a nice shirt. And I actually did a lot of preparation for this episode.
I'll watched it last night too. I'm ready.
It's very good.
First, it was such a great episode.
Dude, Judy fucking Raly, we gotta do you guys got to carry one torch for me beforehand.
The only thing that really bummed me out about this episode and all my experiences is when I catch up with you guys, unless I want to pop a DVD and I watch on Hulu. And the song that Christa picked at the end of this episode was so good and it was it's not you know, the original music is not on these episodes and streaming, and it bums me out.
When I heard you. We keep telling the audience that, And just to reiterate if you're just hearing this, not that we don't love Hulu, but we do love who but we love you Hulu, but because of streaming rights and contracts and such, you're not gonna get all of the original songs that that Bill and Christa and others placed in.
Zach And the ending song of this in the rain was a song by a band called Sebadoh, and it was so good and so poignant in the real production of it.
Speaking of music, we used it so much.
That's in this episode right, definitely in this episode, and.
It's kind of new in the scrubs. It's like the second time we've used it. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. But when it came on, it pissed me off so much.
It was like, oh, you ruined it with the what's funny.
What's funny is like back when they back when they introduced that sad c This was like, you know, this was like, you know, a tenth episode of season one. It was genuinely like sweet and heartfelt. Now that we did nine seasons and then started to make fun of it. Now when it's like in a point you moment, you're like, oh, not that sad. This is the second time. This is the second time.
This was the second time. I remember when it finally caught my attention, I was like, how come it fucking keeps going? Because at first I was like, oh, such a beautiful moment for so long, for so long, and then somebody was like, dude, the sad song, We gotta figure that out.
I think it was you Bill that said that it's gotta go.
All in our head.
All those cues were the stuff that's happening in Zach's head. Zach's character's ahead while he's rooming around.
You know.
So then you ended up doing a moment where in one of the episodes where I actually referenced the cue.
Well, you say what do you mean?
And now is when you say something poignant it makes me think about it, And then the sad music places.
And then you hear me, you hear me in the voiceover go and then I think, and then and then you geniously fucking then use the queue out of that scene.
Now it's so fun.
Yeah, he walks away and says you're an idiot, and it goes the real cue goes mam uh, and then then you lip sync the last one you go.
I thought that.
I think that guy's name is Jan Stevens, and I think he won a bunch of score awards for our show.
I don't think he was happy when you were like, I don't like the anymore.
I want to he understood.
He got it.
That guy got it that he got to write, by the way, just right hard, very hard assignment, just like you guys.
Are joking about yourself, as with anybody that was a dude that worked his butt off, Oh my god here for years and then when you get later in it, you'd be like, hey, we need a queue four in your inbox?
Will go how about this one?
Just be literally he was like one hand on his keyboard when you said I need a cue, just going bomb bomb bum bum bum.
There you go done, I'm gonna head out to the park.
What's funny was that? There? You know when there's these things called stings, which are really quick little moments. They're all over scrubs and and uh and it's funny. One yeah, Jan would write one like hey, we need some stings for the end of the scene, and you get one to be like boom, and you like boom, but we'd use them. It was like big scrub scene. And bow, I thought, I thought, because we have you here and and and we're really we're really not We're not only entertaining the audience, but we want to provide a service so that you could explain a little bit about what a showrunner does. Because I was thinking as we were having you on today that I honestly think I've done a bunch of different jobs in my career. I think a showrunner is the hardest job there is. And it's dovetails with this episode, because this is about taking on too much workload and being stressed and being overwhelmed, particularly for the character of Joe Tracy and Sarah Chalk. And I just I thought you could explain to people that aren't in the business, uh, what a show what a show runner is, what a show runner does, and why it's such a fucking impossibly hard job.
Well, so it was here. What's interesting, man, Hollywood. The first thing that you know, even when you're.
A kid, if you like movies and TV and stuff like that, is that you know that feature films are a director's industry. We have all gone like, oh, it's a Martin Scorsese movie, it's a Steven Spielerberg movie, no matter who wrote it, you know, and the directors get to do it.
They want the script and they cast it, and they argue for final cut.
And what's really interesting is in TV, directors come and go week to week, and so the person that creates the show, the head writer, often becomes an advent of the term for it, the showrunner. And it's why I think, and I'm not being self aggrandizing. I'm talking about other people, not myself, some of the best writers in entertainment stay in television because in west you're the movie director. In movies that you're like, hey, you give us the script and then we'll do whatever we want to it.
And in TV they go, all right, if we decide to do.
Your TV show, you get to cast it, you get to write it, you get final cut the music. You're in charge of the director so that you can come down and say, no, I don't like the way this scene's blocked. It's gonna be funny if you do it this way, and you get to run the whole shebang, right, And so that's really appealing. The danger of the job is since they said essentially, if you're the showrunner, you can do everything.
The people whose brains explode.
Are the ones that go, all right, I'm gonna do all those things, but I'm also going to do wardrobe, and I'm also going to stand on set and make sure no one changes and to also and I'm also going to do props, and I'm gonna do you know.
And those are the people that sometimes they melt.
Sometimes they're viewed as kind of tyrants, you know, Like you know, Aaron Sorkin, I think would be one of the first people to tell you that he's hard to work with and for because you know, every last detail you know drives him banana pants and the job. The hard part of the job become whether or not you can go of control and seed some things to talented people. And I was lucky enough that we had so many talented people there, like Carrie Bennett, the head of wardrobe.
She's done a lot of shows for me after that. If I was somebody that needed to look at every T shirt, every outfit, I think I would have you not made it.
That would have burnt out quicker, but I was lucky and said, hey, you do this and I'll only say a word if I think it's wrong, And then I never had to say anything, so to.
Me, yes, that's what the gig is great. It forces you to pick the things that you prioritize the most personally and not get lost in the things you don't care about and the people that drown try to do everything.
But even in not micromanaging Bill, in a typical hour, you are leading a writer's room, then being called to set to watch a rehearsal for the scene being shot, then needing to go to editorial to look at a cut that has to go out to the network.
Doing rewrites if jokes don't work right.
I mean, I just remember watching you and thinking, God, I mean, and it takes a person who can multitask without going fucking nuts, because it's just a lot of pressure the herd, believe it or not.
The hardest part for me and I had a little of it with YouTube, but more with the writers is you also become, if not a big brother, you know, a parent and a psychiatrist to people.
And the joke was, you know a lot of the writers stayed for five, six, seven, even eight years.
On Scrubs, which is unheard of. I didn't know it was a good gig. Yeah, I didn't know.
You take off, but if you're on a hit show, you stay and your salary goes up every year. And the joke was that by the end, every single writer had been in my office emotional crying about something, you know what I mean. And Zach and Donald, you guys can't see them, they're laughing because I think they both inherently know.
That I'm the last person on earth that wants somebody to be in his office.
We turned you into a hugger, Bill, BILLT. Donald and I. I remember when you didn't hoddle the night Donald Donald and I broke you down.
You were finally like, yo, dude, come on, let's hug and I.
Was like, yeah, Donald and I broke him down. He was not a hugger. He was a very waspy Connecticut guy.
Oh.
They used to always make fun of He think, come in with some emotional thing of work or life or whatever, and I would, subconsciously, with all the things on my desk, build a wall between the two almost nuts.
What's going on with you? And your uh and your your boyfriend.
Yeah, do that, and you had to do that with with everyone. And also I think you know, you started on Spin City where you were you were young, and you had, you know, a legend like Michael j. Fox to to work with and to make sure he was happy. And then when when Scrubs came on, we were all unknown. Did you feel a little bit of uh an onus to keep everyone's egos in check? I mean I would, I would think that.
Yeah, I really wanted to keep people's egos in check because in between, you know, I had seen, you know, how hard it is when certain things hit you.
You know, I was on the first year of Friends and actually.
Empathized with that actors and actresses because watching how you know that group of there air kids, how their lives all change so fast, sometimes to the better, and you know, you guys know this burden nothing to complain about, but sometimes in complicated ways. So yeah, it was it was really important to me to have a good culture at work, to keep everybody's egos from blowing up. And I'm not you know, I don't uh to equate it to sports because we were talking about the Michael Jordan thing, No, I'm not Michael Jordan, but to be a leader for a group of people that they at least knew there were levels of respect you had to have for each other and ways you're supposed to behave, and that somebody would watch your back.
You know, you might not be a Michael Jordan, but I think of you like a Mike Jaminsky.
Donald and I are basketball guys. It's such an insult man.
That is the problem is is that that's the only basketball guy. He knows.
No.
Listen, when my father of a certain age, my father would drag me to the New Jersey Nets games and so I only know whatever year that was, that team, Darryl Dawkins, Mike Jaminsky, otis Bird's song. So whenever I have to make a basketball reference, I'm still like, oh, you mean like otis Bird's song?
Do you know?
Do you know Darryl Dawkins uh nickname?
Yeah? It doesn't wait doesn't he doesn't top the Thunder Thunder and Bards.
Yes.
And you know why I care because there was a pitch that we were really trying to do. I don't don't know why we got bogged down in it, but it lived for the better part of two years that everybody wanted Darryl Dawkins to be nurse Robert sex husband.
That would have been awesome. Oh man, God rest his soul, but that would have been awesome. If he was on the show. That would have been the best day. That would have been. Oh, that would have been a highlight for me. Oh my.
It was so like it sucks because it breaks.
It sounds like it breaks down on male female Dynamics because there's a lot of guy sports fans in there. But it was one of those things that a lot of the great female writers on that show were like, I don't understand.
Why do you want this former seven foot tall NBA that would have been perfect that they called Chocolate Thunder to be your exit. He's not even an actor, right, He's not an actor? Is being funny? No, he breaks he breaks backboards?
Why was? Why am I right with the trivia that he was famous for breaking backwards? And why was why did he do that? And how could he do that?
At He didn't do it in person? He used to the Thunder.
He used to dunk so hard that occasionally when he would dunk, even just with a rubber basketball, he would shi leather basketball, it would shatter the backboard.
Yeah, he's he was the first one. Yeah, he would do it in games. It wouldn't fans.
Would go nuts. They'd have to sweep it up and put a new one up.
It was really crazy because when Shaq broke the backboard, he just made the backboard fall to the ground, you know what I mean, Like the whole thing came down chocolate thunder.
When he hit the rim, that thing exploded like the death Star. Dude.
It was like wow.
It was such a his He has like two or three of them, I think two, but they were so thunderous and monstrous.
Man.
And when he did it was so hard.
And this was you know, basketball is a finesse game, and you know it's a it's a it's a game of you know where athletes they run real hard and then they go at this little cup and it's so like, you know, graceful and everything like that. There was no grace in the way he slammed a basketball, you know.
What I mean.
It was like wow, you know what I said, You know what I mean?
I heard it.
Yes, drink wow, drink up, Bill, Bill Bill. The fans have started a drinking game because Donald says, you know what I mean? So much that they're drinking every time he says you know what I mean, I would force people by.
The way, I want to say two things.
Wonder that one of the things, you guys can see the connection to how much fun it would have been for JD to want to call Turk, as one of his many nicknames, Chocolate Thunder.
And then Nurse Roberts doesn't like it. And then you guys don't know why she doesn't like it, and it's because the man that left her is Chocolate thunderbirl donks.
Oh my god, it must have been so late in the night in writer's room when you guys are wrestling with that just hours.
How do we reach by the way? And by the way, I'm sure he was a lovely man, but there's no doubt in my mind while he's alive, if he had showed up, first of all, if he had gotten that call. You've been like, they want me to do what beyond skullcause I don't think I ever saw him like on Love Boat or on any shows they want me to. They want me to come out of retirement to do something I've never done before and play a nurse's husband.
All right, him break it backboard or something.
I think people should also drink at any time, Zach, And I've only heard it three or four times that you say one of the things that you would always say to sum up the show and the voiceovers at the end because it's become part of our lexicon, and one of them I heard you going at the end of the day. It was so funny to me because you're talking.
About scrubs in an episode that if you listen to it goes at the end of the day all you can really hope and then you go at the end of the day, what we so any any any scrubs at the end of the day type things?
Okay, and I had another drinking game idea for people. You're gonna get shit faced listening to this podcast. But I got really excited in this episode when I when I had a Snoop Dogg intern sighting, and I thought it might be fun for fans to also do a shot every time you see Snoop Dogg intern resident attending.
Well, it should start with Snoop Dogg, but then once you know, Mickhead shows up and and and be doctor doc, doctor oh Man, man, Colonel.
Doctor passed away, didn't.
He Colonel Doctor?
Just so what he knows is called Colonel Doctor because he looks like the colonel from Kentucky pried Chicken.
Yeah, And my favorite thing about that, that's why.
You think he's I mean, it's funny that that's his nickname, Colonel Doctor, and his name turns out to be Coleman Slowski, which is cole Slaw.
Oh my god, here's what I like.
My favorite thing that you guys all liked that Zach is the first one kind of that he noticed was he had all these great background performers, and we wanted the consistency of recognizing nurses and doctors, and so he tried to have the same people come back. And then because they were around, whether it was Coleman Slavsky, when doctor Mickhead who ultimately I think murdered his spouse and gag me on.
The show, Yes, and Colonel Doctor and Snoop dogg Beard fac and the.
World's oldest intern Gloria, I think it's really But the point is that even amongst the background people, they became tears like a call sheet.
And I started noticing that I'd come into like the background holding area, and there'd be all the background and then there'd be the king shit background of those four doing the equivalent of like drinking martinis as the ones that had been the ones that have names to sit around and going like we're fucking we're ruling this world.
And I loved it.
What was really cool was when you would trust them with lines and stuff like that and they would deliver. Like I remember, Mickhead had so many lines and you gave him a storyline and everything, and it was because you were like, yo, he delivers every time I give him something.
I mean, yeah, A lot of folks were actors. They just hadn't had a break yet. And you know, like like any group of actors, some could act and some couldn't. But I think Mickhead was one that was actually really good.
His backstory was Frank's backstory was a fascinating He was a paid screenwriter that none of his even though he'd sold a bunch of movies, none of them ever got made. And you eventually reached the end of that career and he was still plugging away writing and came by to make dough and then when he was doing it, he at least had a knowledge of film enough you know that. He was good and subtle and he's like, what are you making me into an actor for?
This is not my plan.
It was really fun well and mainly Henry delivered one of the greatest lines in Scrubs history, where mahoes at, I haven't seen them.
I haven't seen you know. I played golf with Mickhead quite a bit. We played.
That's one of my golf buddies. And he still writes books. He's a novelist, you know, he writes with his with his wife and it's say hi for me man.
He was a nice man.
Yeah, well, I definitely will. Let's take a break.
We'll be right back after these fine words.
You okay, So we're back. Yeah, oh yeah, No.
Bill, it's you know, and we don't do the full song at the commercial breaks. Bill does the.
Song start whenever I say five to six seven eight.
Unfortunately Dan's got his finger on the trigger. And whenever you say five hits, please.
Don't say five six.
Stop saying five to six eight.
That's my favorite. He should Dan should just be contractually obligated to do it. Whenever he hears that.
Yeah, whenever Dan, he started, he started Dan, I have the power to say, got it all right, Donald, you were going to start us off. We're forty minutes and we should probably talk about the TV show.
Okay.
So, first of all, Whiney Dancer was pretty good. I'm gonna put that out there. I thought that was a very funny nickname. Yes, I laughed very hard at that, and I was mad that.
It didn't stick. But Scooter short for Scooter pie? Is he even because he hates Scooter Pie?
There's two things.
It was hard for me to watch that story because a Neil Flynn is funnier than the material he gave him, you know what I mean in that one, because we could have done a much funnier stuff with your nickname.
Uh.
And then b is I don't know why he's eating a popsicle In that next one, he seemed to want to be eating it, which made me really laugh.
And then the third one is I remember that because we're you know, strapped for figured out a moment. Uh at the end when someone finally calls you Scooter, which is a moment I do like uh, and I go it's revealed, Neil, and he's like, how should I celebrate?
I'm like I don't know, do some kind of dance or Irish jigg or something. And that made me laugh out loud because he committed to it, like good.
God, yeah he can, really he could. But Neil just pulled out an r SHA because it looked pretty good.
Yeah, I didn't. I don't think that he We had planned that, you know, and you know we put the music to it. We put the music to it. Afterwards.
It was really went straight river dance. He went to straight river dance.
That was funny before.
That's also not us at that beach by the way.
Yeah, I want to ask you, I don't know those doubles because that's not my hair and I know.
That is your my head.
Also, yeah, no, I think we went and got that without you guys.
Okay, but Donald's double is good my mind.
I alway ran now it doesn't look like my head. Unique I'm going.
To do that.
I'm going to that Donald that looks like your head. I'm at four four seconds if you're following.
I wish it was my head.
It is so not you guys, A and B.
You guys.
This is the show runner issue. And I don't know if you guys have this.
What the on.
Fun thing about watching these shows for me is that I just watched them for all the mistakes I made, especially early and like even that stupid fantasy, I didn't have a frontal shot coming back on you two, like the flash out of.
It, So it was a weird transition, Like, ah, man, it screwed that up too.
I still at the stage I think this is I think this is such a funny episode. I laughed so many times in this episode. So what you see is your mess ups. What I see is you know, I that That's how it always feel. Like that's how it always is with people, you know what I mean? Like we we make things and then we find the flaws in them. But if you sit back and let other people tell you how amazing it is, you'll be like, really, I didn't see it.
You know what I mean? This again, that's another one.
Oh drink Bill. I laughed that you chose smooth jazz from when we're sitting on the bench, unless that's another track that's been changed.
But when I don't, I don't know, but I didn't remember it. Look, I had my first weird thing.
I was giving you guys ship here at home for not remembering any of this stuff. And uh, I wrote this script by myself like at home to catch us.
Up, and h I didn't remember writing it. I didn't remember what it was about till I watched it was really weird.
So is that what?
Just talk to that for a second. So, so when you're the showrunner, you're overseeing your writing staff having episodes, and then of course you end up rewriting them a lot yourself. But when you said you wrote this to catch up, just to explain that to people the you know, you in.
Comedy staffs especially, someone will go out and write a draft. The whole staff will help kind of you know, you'll outline it and do ou stuff. Whole staff will help kind of punch it up. And then the showrunner of any show that you've ever loved will usually do a pass of it before it shoots, you know, just not just out of arrogance, but out of wanting the show to sound like it's from that one distinct voice. That's why people over the years, you know, they noticed when the showrunner on one of their favorite shows left for a year, how it suddenly sounds different, you know. And when you get caught and behind in writing, you know, when you look at all the different stages, outline which has to be approved by the showrunner, draft which gets notes from the showrunner, rewrite with the whole staff, which the showrunner does, you know what I mean. It's you often can catch back up if you're behind writing. If as the showrunner, you're like, hey.
While we're all doing this, I'll outline one on my own and write it and then just drag all you this whole gang and to punch it up really quick and then we'll shoot it, you know. And so that was one of those one.
And sometimes those, to tell you the truth in a weird way, sometimes don't, aren't. Those aren't as good as other episodes because showrunners don't have to listen to other people's input. And sometimes and sometimes instead of the whole group punching it up, you'll.
Just hand it in and go that's done.
Now. We're as long as we don't spend four days trying to make it better. We're back on timing again, you know, make twenty four episodes this year.
Well, you nailed it with this one, man.
This one has everything that you're looking for from you know, from the drama to the comedy.
This was I laughed so many times at this episode.
There was a couple of things.
I really liked it, mate, you know want At one fourteen, Neil is just boring a giant hole in the reception desk for no, for no apparent reason. I was trying to think about what Neil's doing.
Now, you know what, you know what that's for. This is what you'll see early on, and you guys should look for it.
There are certain things that exist solely because directors, once they knew that they were allowed to have fun visually, you know, on this particular show, would work backwards from the shot they wanted, so that, without a doubt, was somebody working backwards from in the script JD going hey, uh and the jannit they're turning and being imposing, you know what I mean, and saying, oh, you know what would be cool is this giant ten foot drill in JD's face.
I know, I know, but I'm just laughing it. I'm just laughing because I like to just rationalize things. I'm like, well, what assignment did he have with that drill in that reception desk? I guess he was adding a new hole for a new phone line or something.
Well, dude.
We used to get It's so funny if you think about this in terms for writers. At first, it would annoy us when we would see you know, uh, directors came up with for like why is the janitor there?
How is he going to be imposing?
And then when we would get trapped, we'd start making jokes out of it. And one of my favorite ones, we needed the janitor in there and we didn't know why, and so we had him say I don't really have anything to do.
I'm mopping the rug, and then I love you.
I don't know if you guys remember then the rest of that scene, when you guys walked across that rug, you would hear squishy sounds.
Like why is that guy mob on the rug?
I love that. Neil would Neil would take it seriously and he'd be like, I why would my character be mopping in a carpeted room? Yeah, you know, it's just everybody wants their motivation, you know, of course, but Donald pointed out I think and what Donald was?
You mentioned that?
You know?
I never realized either. But the janitor feels like he's a pretty good janitor, right, I mean, he's absolutely I never realized until rewatching it. But like, even though he spends his entire existence fuggy with me, you know, he does his best. He's pretty much a one man band except for that that that Troy Troy, Oh my god, nice to holes the except for Troy and then Martin.
Yeah, Troy was the best because Troy frustrated the janitor to no end.
My favorite thing was when Troy's like, I'm gonna go beat you up. He's like, that's not how we do it, man, It's not how we do it. It was literally like, we're better than that, man. I enjoyed working with Flynn and.
I forgot about the frozen effect thing Bill, and it's really cool. It's a two forty three. It's really done well and I don't even remember how we pulled that off. But the foreground and background are frozen. Yeah, and whoever that was executed was really good. And then we go to the guy who's then on the other side of things. We go to the guy who's just frozen and doing a horrible job trying to be frozen without anything.
I know, you know, you know what's really interesting is it one of the things you'll see in the first year, much like the sound effects that you guys notice is they're drifting away.
I think they're almost gone. I'm hoping.
We keep laughing, we keep laughing that that you say, they're almost going away, and then we hear and then there'.
Jingle bells. Yeah, jingle balls balls.
But that The other thing that you have to look for is we used to because writers love to procrastinate, We used to have hours of talks about rules, you know, and the rules of the world, and uh, this broke one of them, and we made it right after this was you can't still be in a fantasy after you're out of a fantasy.
Oh, you know, because then wow, after you flash out, it has to be real.
The one the conversation that tortured people forever and we didn't show the answer to it to like the six or seventh Year, is when Jad has these long fantasies, what's he doing?
Is he just standing there? Yeah?
What's happening?
And eventually eventually we had you talking to the todd in like the sixth or seventh Year when you go, h oh, that makes me think about trolls and you go like this and then rob the better part of like thirty second and then you're like, and.
That's why you shouldn't buy blah blah blahs or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, well you started. It's funny because the last time you're wrong. We talked about how when I, when I came out of a fantasy, I had agreed to buy Nurse Roberts dead husband's a bowling shoes and I didn't know because I was in a fantasy land. But I forgot. You didn't really keep that that little thing going that I would have been a funny runner if like JD, because he's in a fantasy, ends up agreeing to all this random shit.
We didn't have any of the rules yet, man, and we were trying.
People used to argue all like the biggest argument that you guys can look for in the writer's room in at eight up hours the first year was was JD's voiceover omniscient? Did he know what was going on in the other stories and could narrate them? Or did we have to write it so general as if he's talking about himself but doesn't know about those stories. And it used to drive people insane?
Right, were we a hit at this time? At this point where we like, did we get the back nine at this point.
Yeah, the first the.
Show, the show did so well coming out of the gate, the first year that it was considered a hit, and then the second year they made a mistake in my view, and h the first year of the show, it was sometimes increasing on its lead in and just crushing, and you're they should have kept it there forever. And then the set they said, it's such a big show for us. Next year, we're going to put it after Friends. And the combination of no show could retain eighty five percent of Friends' audience. It was a cultural you know, lightning bolt, and so you know, we were like the eighth rank.
Show in the country.
But they're like, you're only retaining like sixty seven percent of their audience. So we're and just so you know, anytime they want to do a forty minute episode, we're going to make it supersized, and you guys will be moved or not on or whatever. And they never they should have they didn't know the show. They should have put us after Friends and left us there in perpetuity. The sho would have been bigger and bigger, but instead they put nine thousand different shows, one after another after Friends. Each time pulling them when they don't get the same ratings as this giant monster juggernaut and never established a new successful show after that show in its entire existence.
Yeah, you know, not only that, it was also the end of Friends too, and then Joey came right after that, and then we followed Joey for a little.
Bit, and I followed it.
It doesn't work either.
Now, yeah, we followed Joey for like a little bit.
And then for those of you who don't know what the networks want, Bill, please correct me if I'm wrong. Is they want you to hold that is to say, keep eighty five percent of the lead in shows audience, which is pretty impossible if it's Friends and it's the biggest show ever. And if you go below that then they kind of start thinking about moving you or losing you.
Right right, Oh yeah, Well, the only difference is they would have went because the show is so well reviewed and was doing really well. If they owned our show, this is all boring business, they would have kept us on there forever, going, hey, we'll keep this on forever and make tons of money for ourselves.
But since they didn't own.
It, the second it didn't immediately become bigger than Friends. They said, let's try some shows that we owned to see if they become bigger than Friends.
And just kind of feel like that was I feel like Friends was the end of tg of not TGIF, but that Thursday night lineup.
Must see, must see Thursdays. I feel like that's yes, you know, because you'll like this. You guys should get it.
And I interrupt him, Sorry, Donald, but Jeff and Gold, who is an NBC exec, has a must See Thursday poster in his office. He's proud of when it was US thirty Rock, the office and parks and rec We're all Thursday and that's that was a cool That was a cool lineup.
Yeah, at one point that was a Thursday Night.
I think it was I can't remember if I have the no, it might have been Earl, but it was US thirty Rock Office and either Earl or you know, but it was He's like, that was total, a total must they were still doing.
That's a pretty good muss seat Thursday. Man, that's a pretty must seat Thursday.
Shall we talk about Nicole Sullivan? Guys, absolutely, Bill tell us about obviously, you know a lot of people know knew Nicole Sullivan from mad TV and how did how did you choose her? Were you friends with her?
She was, Yeah, she was another you know, we brought people through our world that were friends of mine that I knew were super talented.
We wanted to have her in this world because not only is she really funny, but we knew she could actually act.
And we had, you know, kind of the idea beforehand, whether it was with Brendan Fraser or her or Missus Wilke, that there were sometimes patients that we would say, let's bring them in and know that they're going to come back, you know. And so we didn't know right then that Nicole was going to die, but we knew she was going to come back, and uh so we were setting her up for the crap that you know journey that her person went down, you know, in a cool way. I think the most fun way to do that. Donald said something about it is you sneak it up on people. You introduce somebody as something that's just going to be funny in a goof to see them, and you get people emotionally invested. So when there's stuff, when the wheels come off, people are just you know, emotionally affected by that.
That was something that you know, uh, and it just shows how great of a writer you are. You know, I'm sure you're you know this already, but he does like.
A like a like a Michael Jaminski of writing.
Almost you said you you would give everybody clues.
The clues are there, and if you're really paying attention, you know, if you're really really paying attention, when it happens, it's not that big of a surprise like it's for we foreshadowed so much.
Yeah, you talked about that, and I really appreciated it because the way our staff worked that I thought was cool before in the pre production every year before we wrote episodes, we talked about what big things, you know, arcs and stuff we wanted to do.
Like we'd say, hey, we want Turk and Car to get engaged, but we want it to be a little bit of a rocky road. And then we would work backwards, same way. We'd go, hey, we want Johnny c to end up with his X who he's never moved past. Now he's a more Maturesian. We wor work backwards. We're gonna kill Brendan Fraser.
It's worked backwards, and then it would almost seem when we're doing these initial episodes.
Since we had already plotted out these.
Arcs, it was very easy to go, all right, so if Nicole Sullivan's gonna eventually die, and let's establish her here as a fun, neurotic person that you think is just being kinde of hypochondriac, and then do you know what I mean? So it is set up because we were working backwards from the big episodes that we wanted to accomplish.
Was part of the fun.
Yeah, that's good writing to me.
That's because whenever you can look back and say to yourself, was there and I didn't see it? Right?
I feel like, you know, Kaiser So's you know.
Yeah, it is the it's the trick of it all.
That's the trick is that is you know you're not gonna the audience isn't gonna have the heartbreak for an asshole. You know, you got to have the audience fall in love with them and go, oh, I love listener. She's wacky, she's silly, She's I want to be her friend, she's you want to you want to fall in love with the person before Bill kills them.
It was the it was the one trick we went back to a lot.
It was too mean, was we knew in twenty two minutes it was too hard to get people to love someone and then kill them. So we're like, all right, let's bring them into another story. And our goal is not only to do a successful story, but make people like this person so that when they die, we're uh screwed. The only time we thought we pulled it off, that we killed someone people cared about in one episode. It ties to this one because this is me being a dummy. So Nicole Sullivan, you know, one of the bride'smaids at my wedding, old friend she I'm not good at naming characters. She played Jill Tracy, and uh, and then I didn't realize untill later Jill Tracy, who's Tim Hobert at the executive producer, one of them a great actress in her own right. Not only had I not put her on the show, but I named another character after and somebody else played it. So then Jill Tracy came and played the woman who died in a Broadway musical.
Waiting for my real life to be gamelin.
On a clear day when I can't see.
Very long?
So did she call you? Did? Did you real, jail Jill Tracy call you And.
What was she like?
No, Tim is just such a good buddy.
I realized that, you know, as it happened, and I'm like, oh, I'm a piece of ship. We got to make sure we get you in there. And she was luckily also a Broadway level singer and had done a musical theater her whole life.
You know, she was great, Hey, I'm looking at these blackberries and I remember that this was like the time that blackberries came out and Bill, as I recall, you gave us all our first blackberries as a present.
Yeah, it gave them to everybody as a Christmas gift.
And I have a memory I remember you like, we were like, what is this so you you can type on it?
Yeah that I wrote that down. Nicole Sullivan says email as we're talking. That kind of dates the show.
Yeah, I know, I know it was so weird.
That mean, right when they all came out. I mean that's we were like, state of the art. She's got a state of the art gadget.
Getting back to the show, that was one of my favorite things because we really wanted everybody had their thing to overcome on this show. And we really wanted Sarah Chalk's character to overcome how hard she always is on herself, and you know how much she buries herself psychologically and on an unhealthy way with all her work. And my favorite scene in this besides the Judy and Zach went out in the rain, was Sarah and Johnny C with Johnny C doing some really subtle stuff when he says, go ahead and make your case why Jill Tracy can stay in the hospital, and Sarah is saying, you know, sometimes you get overwhelmed, and it's this and this, and John McGinley is without doing anything big, proving to her that she does the very same thing to herself.
I love that moment.
Yeah.
The reason I loved it as a writer was it wasn't something that Sarah was necessarily doing in this episode, but she had done it in every episode up to this one.
Yeah.
I wrote that down that that's such a great moment. That scene is so awesome, and Sarah pulls it off really well where she's talking about you know, she's talking about Nicole's character and then and then you know, Johnny says, but have you looked at how you have you looked at yourself.
I know, I'm a skink. And then she.
She's like, and she's like and then she'll do anything. She's such a people pleas her for anyone. I think he says, will you go clean up my dog shit and take it to get it?
She's really good in that scene.
Oh but it cuts right from that into you pulling up in the cab, and that's where I got pissed off, because right there up like, no, not now, jam but it's but it marries so well, you know what I mean, it's drunk out.
And by the way, and then the parents did in this one. The pairings we did in this show made me think of another question. I answered you guys in the previous episode, because I believe Kelso calls you Turk in this episode because you guys are having a battle, and he.
Did another episode too, he did it.
But that's why it's important. It's important to know that that's why we do believe he thinks your name is Turkleton. But that's why we got to the logic with the writers that he thinks your name is Turk Turkleton. When we said, when we said, you know, he thinks her name is doctor Turkleton.
You know, in the writers you fight about everything writer's room. A lot of the writers were like, he can't, he's called him Turk before. And then somebody's like, well, then he thinks his name is Turk Turkleton.
That's one of the best.
And to this day, to this day, to this day, there are a lot of there are a lot of Scrubs fans that know, you know, Christopher Turk is the name, but there are some that honestly believe Turk Turkleton is the character's name.
You know what else, by the way, came up randomly is somebody asked me after why you were named Gandhi, Like why doctor Coxon name check to you is Gandhi?
Because I was a bold head guy. It wasn't just that.
It was because I was concurrently looking at cartoons and okaying the character design with Chris and Phil for Clone High and the Gandhi character. They had him with a hip go t because he was a young teen version and whatever, and I'm like, oh, ship.
We should go I do. We were typically going to talk about that right now. Let's just go to commercial real quick.
Okay, sure, commercial, Okay, we're back.
Steph is in the house, y'all. Steph is in the house. Steph, Steph is in the house.
All right, Steph is in the house. But we're just gonna finish the Clone High chat. So Steph.
Okay, so let's get back into Clone High. Dude. You now, had Phil and Chris done anything before this?
Or or they were barely they were barely getting their careers started. They were young animators from for Disney that went to Dartmouth and we're also very funny and we're just starting their career as kind of comedy writer animated. They had done nothing.
It was like the first project that I supervised someone else the way I was supervised.
And now there are two guys that are gonna give me and you and Steph and Joelle a job.
Eventually, I pray that they give.
Me Donald wyt you explain the context, because not everyone's gonna know what the hell are Okay.
So Chris and Phil have gone on to create movies like twenty one Jump Street, twenty two Street, the Lego Mago movie, the.
Best probably the best Spider Man movie ever.
Into the Spider Verse.
Yeah, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Yes, they were the animators, directors writers of that as well.
Yes, they've gone on to do some amazing things.
But in the beginning, before this all happened, there was a little show called Clone High, which Bill was an executive producer on, And while we were making scrubs in the basement, they were doing all their recordings.
And in the mental war in the mental ward, I believe.
And because the writers we hid to save money. We hid our writing staff of that show in the hospital.
And then you guys just casually started to notice other writers around the commissary every day, eating step and just hanging out.
But they put us in the show too, So I got an opportunity to play two really cool characters in that were.
You I George Washington Carver, which I was George, and.
I was also Toots, who was Joanavoc's father in law or something like that.
Yeah, it was a blind It was a blind former jazz man.
Yeah.
Yeah, Yeah.
It's so weird because all a bunch of Clone High nerds.
I love Big Mouth, but Toots is very much like the jazzy ghost that they have in that cartoon Big Mouth.
You know, are you guys bringing it back in some way? Bill?
I'm not at liberty to discuss that.
Yet, No, I stumbled across something top secret audience.
That would be awesome.
That's a good tease.
I was in it too, but I don't know who. I played a lot.
You weren't in it a lot.
I don't minimize my part. I did occur.
I did it was it was such a cool college filmmaking type atmosphere, which is what Scrubs was.
Anyways, that you guys would be shooting scenes and we would literally go, hey, do you mind while you're eating to walk downstairs and record a voice being a cartoon character, and you guys were also nice about it.
Yeah.
Well, I loved working on that show Man. That was a lot of fun.
I was Paul Revere, Joelle is telling so Paul Revere is an important character everybody.
Yeah, but that was like one episode had a bigger You had a bigger You had a bigger one when you were selling a weird energy paste with Sarah Talk and Marilyn Manson came in and saying the food Pyramid song, it's very weird. Yeah, dude, I just remember being I remember being there, and this is the first time I met Mandy Moore.
She did a guest spot on the show.
I met Uh, I've never remember what shall we go to, Steph?
I met Tom Green? That was cool. That was the first time I've ever met Tom Green. And he was on fire at the time, and I was on it.
Steph was on I think.
And also we have a caller, guys, our caller has has finally we're gonna let her talk.
Okadies and gentlemen, please welcome Steph.
Bill.
Bill's counting into everything. Dan, turn off the theme song, Steph.
At any point that you want to hear that awesome song, just say five to six seven eight.
It's official.
Anytime you say five six seven eight, maybe wait three whole minutes.
So I think it's only just right. Okay, five six seven eight song?
Okay, but not the whole song.
Not the whole song.
Damn stop it, stop it.
Do you want to do the tag at the end? Stuff? I don't know?
Give us the teg.
You got?
Good boy?
All right, this this has all gone to ship Steph. What's your question?
So I'm finishing up my second year of medical school, which is in part due to scrubs.
So basically, yeah, super funny story.
I alluded to this in my personal statement, but left out certain details because I didn't want them to not take me seriously.
But basically, my mom is a surgeon.
So when I was growing up, I saw like, you know, pictures of her job and stuff like that, and I thought it looked awful.
I was like, I have no idea how you do what you do? She was a breast cancer surgeon, so I was like, that's disgusting, Like, how do you look at boobs all day?
So weird?
I never am going into medicine.
How do you look at boobs all day?
That's just I don't know, it's easier if you're not a medical professional. Continue, I got it.
Yeah, So I started watching Scrubs maybe like I don't even remember when, maybe in middle school, and I related to Elliott's character on such a spiritual level that I was like, this looks really fun. Maybe I will go into medicine. And since then kind of became more legitimate. But definitely the first thing that piqued my interest was Scrubs. So thank you guys.
Do you use the word frick a lot?
I kind of graduated to the U version.
But.
Sometimes I mean, I gotta say I want to interject stuff because that means so much to me because we wanted to make sure that medical personnel seemed like heroes and the job seemed like fun.
And I just was talking to the real JD last night and his wife Dolly, who Elliot's based on, and their favorite thing is is to consider you know that they might have had a tiny part in some people kind of embracing medicine as a career because it means.
So much to them.
That's A and B for those of you, they are just listenings that you can't see. Steph could easily have played Elliott just so you guys.
Know, she's elliot S.
She's elliot S both in her mannerisms and her appearance. And I almost, by the way, this is the thing that I have.
To watch out for late in life because I'm much older than all these people. But I almost said, I am here talking to a young Sarah Chalk. But Sarah Chalk is still very young, So I did not.
Say that Sarah is not a old person at all.
Yes, my God's school friends all tell me, all the ones that watch Scrubs religiously are all like you have the same luck that she does. When you guys, did the episode of Sarah Chalk. How like the crazy stories that come out of nowhere. You're like, there's no way that happened to you on a Monday.
That's me, Like, yeah, I was watching that.
I think that that that story that Zach and Donald told led us to write a story in which he bought a new car.
In every thirty seconds, someone someone took another door off.
That would happen to Sarah.
The best part of that episode is when the grumpy radiologists is like, thanks for stopping by and don't forget your car doors, Like, you know what.
You're a real fan. This will make you laugh. And I don't even know if Donald and Zach remember it. Different things from different episodes would stick on set and people would say them over and over and I never could predict what it was.
And I don't know Zach Donald, if you guys remember what it was from this one. But it was a made up flavor of smoothie that you guys kept saying for weeks.
Orange google.
Wait, which I remember that, What.
Flavor do you want? I'll have a fraspberry OLiS an orange goo go.
I believe that. I believe Bill. I believe that came from in the writer's rooms. You would have the assistance do like a smoothie run and you'd all be like calling out weird jama juice flavors.
Yes, you make up fake flavors, and just to torture that poor young people working on hourly waves.
Yeah, and so range goo go with immunity.
All right, stuff we're taking.
Come on, come on, that's your time. It's your time. Stuff, it's your time.
It's your time. Stuff, goonies, go ahead. Stuff.
So it's actually kind of perfect that Bill is here on this episode because it kind of relates to the behind the scenes part of it. But since I watched the show so much, a lot of the times when I'm studying, i'll recognize words that will like remind me of certain scenes of the show. And I know you guys talked about like trying to make it really medically accurate. It is reverifying, but it's also really funny, which I think is hard to do with medical vernacular if you're not really.
Used to it.
So I was wondering if there is a specific member of the writing team that was, you know, kind of crucial in making the medical scenes, specifically the funny ones, because I think it would be kind of hard to write if you didn't have that medical knowledge.
I'm going to give props to First of all, we have actors and actresses that can sell comedy, and they were great. But the real JD is, as I can tell by your persona, he is a guy that I would not have been surprised if he went into comedy writing. He was funny, and so for me it was it'd be interesting to even go back to all his memories. But I remember him talking about pimping, you know, when you get grilled with questions and rounds, and he would be like, I was never ready. I always felt, you know, like I was a deer in the headlights. And then just from him saying that, you know, I was like, oh, JD's gonna be a deer in the headlights when I asked him a question, you know what I mean? And I would bet stuff that you when you go through all this stuff, we'll meet it with humor and banter, because if you don't, I think you go crazy. So I give him the props for it, and the performers the props for it, because they'd find ways to make it funny.
You know, Bill did to JD. Ever like overstep the line and he's like, hey, Bill, I got an episode for you. Here's what's going to happen.
Yeah. They did two things.
One, he and Dolly once said hey, we got bored because we were both sick and stayed in all weekend.
We wrote an episode and.
I was like, oh my god.
I was like yeah, and of course I'll look at it. And then they're like, no, we're not going to show it to you. We forget it. We don't want to do that right, which was super.
Cool, probably brilliant, and in the movie version would be like the most brilliant script ever written, I know.
And then the other thing was to answer Steph's question.
We would sometimes work backwards, you know, which was really hard because for.
Him, because I'd go, I want to do this funny moment.
We need you to say something that would cause this guy to not have a sense of smell and not blah blah blah, and it can't be soious enough that I have to worry about whether or not he die. And he should still be conscious and be able to talk because he has to talk in the scene. And Jad would be like, dude, this is worse than med school.
Homework. This is impossible had one of my.
Favorites one speaking of speaking of funny medical dragon, Uh, it's pronounced annal Jesus.
I can't believe you said that. Literally, I had to give a talk to my like med school.
It was one of our small groups, and they were talking about how it's so important to be able to articulate in kind of Layman's terms, what you're talking about. And I was like, yeah, there's a scene of Scrubs where Turk has to explain that annal Jesick is like not the same as anal Jesus.
Put it in your bite and that. Everyone was like, I mean, yeah, I guess that works.
That was.
On my top ten jokes that I did not write that I wish I could take credit for. That's such a funny joke.
Man, Saniel Goldman, whatever you do, I'm not gonna.
It really bums me out.
I think that might have even been Arsist or Gabby I don't even know, or Hobert. That sounds like a Tim Hobert choke too.
All right, Steph, you got another question.
Yeah, it's kind of piggybacks off of the first one a little bit. So you guys talked about early on in your episodes that you kind of work to develop this character and figure out what kind of mannerisms you wanted and all that kind of stuff. It really shows throughout the progression of this season they kind of grow into those character traits while also still growing as people. But I find that they're really kind of congruent with how you would expect that person to act as a clinician. And I was wondering if the kind of character that you developed influenced the way that the writers wrote scenes of how you practiced medicine, Like.
Later on, I'll set Donald and Zach up to talk about this, but I'll tell you my philosophy of running a TV show is ook. They were talking about show running earlier. So your question's awesome because it means a lot to me that it felt that way to you. Because when I teach sometimes like the I teach the Writers Guild for kids running shows for the first time and stuff I said. The most successful shows, in my mind, when you write the pilot and come up with it and actors and actresses don't exist there.
The characters belong to you.
You invented them, and then you cast these people and when you do the pilot the first episode, for it to be great, it's got to be a partnership.
You know, it's half mine and half yours.
But then for a show to work, ownership you have to stop being a control freak, and ownership has to go to the actors and actresses playing the parts. And so I would ask Donald and Zach, you know at this point in the show where they said it, you know, because what would happen is it's really cool.
Eventually, on good shows, people start coming up to you and going, I don't think my character would say it this way? Or are you sure this is how my character would react.
In this moment, or should my character be more like this? And you on shows that are working, you have to listen, and I did you guys eventually kind of feel like those characters were yours?
You know, I definitely felt.
I definitely felt like Turk became if not I became Turk, or Turk became me. I definitely at some point everything it just seemed like I was living life on camera at some point. And what really helped me though, was you realizing medical jargon wasn't my strength, you know what I mean? And once you realized that, right, And once you realized that and made Turk just a scalpel jockey, it freed me, you know what I mean. And I didn't have to worry about having to say certain things, you know what I mean, drink up. I didn't have to worry about saying certain things, whereas Zach and Sarah would say and Johnny would say things, and I'd be like, I'm so happy I don't have to do that.
I remember being in the makeup chair in the morning and being like looking through the sides and being like, oh, no, Donald's got a medical jargon monologue. Those are just lunch is going to be late today.
Yeah, those would be the worst. Those would be the worst days. But once Bill was like, I'm not going to give you medical jargon anymore. Churk knows it, he just doesn't like to use it, right, life became so much easier.
It's a good question, though, because do you guys eventually even would start riffing your own lies, and I gladly would use them because they knew their characters and how they would react and what they would say and didn't bother me at all. It made me happy. And you're you know, even getting to talk to the same way you're getting to talk to you makes me happy.
One of the things I momentos I have on my wall in my office from Scrubs is from a med student, Steph, who pulled an answer it rounds out of their ass because they remembered a chunk of dialogue on our show. And they said the attending was so blown away because there was a question they shouldn't have known the answer to.
Do you know what I mean?
And I said same things about her med students that like all of the fact like trivia that people don't really they're not supposed to remember, you know, beers into practice because it just is you never see it.
She was like, yeah, all the med students know it. Scrubs.
What kind of what kind of doctor do you want to be stuff?
I'm leaning towards surgery, but we'll see opened anything.
I think it's really really neat. You know that you're doing that, and uh, it's a gig that's of service. It's like being a teacher. It's awesome and the most important jobs to be of service. I think like teacher, soldier, a physician, and of course comedy writer.
I would think right not at all.
All right, Steph, thank you so much. That was something amazing questions and also really inspired us. I mean you made us all feel like we we may have inspired we you know, we inspired at least one person in medicine a lot, a lot.
Let me.
Yeah, you guys have a huge medical fan base.
Well, good luck with that.
Promise me that you'll dress up and you'll dress up as Elliott for at least one Halloween.
Oh yeah, every Halloween.
Whoever, if you have friends that go as Turk for Halloween, tell them please no black face.
Make sure they're really black because Donald I cringe.
No, they don't even have to be black if you just don't paint your.
Face right, Okay, but Donald and I cringe every Halloween when people tag us on Instagram like excitedly like Turk and JD for Halloween. And still in twenty twenty, there's still people painting their faces brown and black and it's horrible.
Although we did it a lot on Scrubs.
Yeah, by the way, one of the many things that doesn't hold up in retrospect on the show, the a stuff.
Good luck with all this stuff.
And hi, Vic and Hayden, hope you guys are jealous.
Turn it off. Turn it off off, you, guys, turn it off. Steph thought she was just gonna sneak into Vic and Hayden a quick thing. But I think we should just keep talking about Vic and Hayden. I like Vic, but I don't like Hayden.
I don't like it at all.
I want their shout out to go awry.
Vick and Hayden shout out. Now, yeah, I want let's uh, let's do a Vick and Hayden episode.
Okay, we should so at four forty four, guys, what's happening four? At four forty four, what's happening is cow?
We haven't talked about this episode at all.
I know.
Oh yeah, here's what I like. We've talked about the Sarah story both with Steph and.
We jumped around.
We jumped around, and we talked about the Neil, but we haven't talked about the Judy and Zach story.
We're gonna get into it, and we're gonna get into it, and you know, but listen, Donald Bill Llaurin's episodes are always going to be long because he brings a lot to the table and he's.
No, I'm not complaining I'm not complaining about the length of the episode. I'm just saying some people, some people want to listen to a rewatch podcast and actually rewatch the show, well.
Then they should listen to a different show. We happened to we happened to Meander. At four forty four, what's Happening is mentioned for the first time.
Okay, you don't need to start banging.
I did I bang the table? I banged the table on that.
I'm sorry?
Why am I yelling?
What happens?
At four forty four, what's Happening is mentioned for the very first time on Scrubs.
Oh yeah, you guys did the dance and we don't even idea it really, She says, it's not that great a show.
You just expected people to know what we were talking about. And that's such an old reference.
I know, And nowadays kids don't even know the glory of what's happening unless you're our age.
Hey, hey, the glory of what's happening or what's happening now?
I know?
Do you remember now what's happening? Now? Surely owned the restaurant.
They all grew up and now d is not just a small character. She's like the star.
No, she was the star. I think because she was the star, everybody came back. I didn't like what's happening now as much as what's happening.
What's happening is.
I just liked he runs dance, and I liked the moment you guys did for me, which is forever. I liked, hey, hey, hey.
What's happening?
Hey hey hey.
Do you remember in the opening credits when they made they left rerun and he's driving the street and then reruns just running after the pickup truck.
That's rude that they did that.
I know they were making they were making fun of.
The heavy said guy, making fun of the heavy set guy.
But watching me run chase after that truck was funny.
Come on, this sure was because he had suspenders on.
Yeah, well that that and the hat and the and the same red his outfit never changed.
Do you remember the episode where Roger decided he was going to be a nude model.
My favorite thing that's happening right now is you guys said, we haven't talked about the show yet, and then you're going, do you remember the episode.
Of What's Happening?
By the way, And if I was like if I was like at ten fifteen and that What's Happening episode.
That's the first time that surely says.
I just remember. I'm just well, you can go back to the show, but I just remember that there was an episode where Roger was doing nude modeling for artists, you know, when they like paint the nude model. And I remember thinking as a child, like this is scandalous. Roger's gonna take off his clothes, like that's crazy.
Okay, let's get back into the show. Okay, So let's talk about the JD and Carla storyline, which is a very interesting storyline because at the beginning of the show, you guys are really clicking and grooving. One reason because your best friend and his now girlfriend are always you know, we live together, or your roommate and his girlfriend always around, and so you guys have developed a relationship and because.
Of that, you're a dynamic duo of your own. You know what I mean. She doesn't work, drink up, she doesn't work for you.
But you guys are a team that is very very very cohesive, and you go along and you fuck it up by becoming judgmental.
Right, Well, I'm feeling every one is being condescending to me and I and I'm starting to become a good doctor. I'm starting to get my groove. I'm starting to know what's happening and h and also okay, go on and and and I just you know, like like someone does you lose he loses his temper, and of course he loses his temper at the worst person possible, his teammate. Uh, Carlo.
Yeah, this was also a product the reason I wrote this is is interesting, the product of two things. One, all the nurses that were nice enough to give us interviews.
You know.
One of the stories that you saw was the nurses are essentially the last line of training, you know, for a lot of these medical students and residents and interns and stuff, because when you first show up, you know more than they do even say it in the show, than the training kicks in and the dynamics ships, and you.
Know, so many of them ultimately.
Told us that it's so interesting how to navigate that, because you know, there is an air of superiority to some doctors, you know, when they get to that point, and it messes up that dynamic, you know, And I wanted to combine that in my personal life, my mom's family. My mom and then me were the first two in her side of family to go to college, you know, and then you always kind of enter these dynamics of like, oh, you know, you think you're smarter than me because you actually went on to secondary education and did that stuff. And you know, as you get older, you realize that doesn't have anything to do with anything. You know, At this point in my life, I know tons of geniuses that didn't finish high school and tons of you know, grad school graduates.
They are the dumbest people alive, do you know what I mean? But around youthful things that kind of carries there.
And my favorite part of that stuff was her challenging you to admit it and you actually admitting it, you know what I mean.
And that was what enabled you guys still to be friends.
In that scene was really I mean, Judy's I'm just you know, the straight man in that scene. Her her performance in that rain outside the bus I thought was just incredible. She did such a beautiful job and it was heartbreaking. Still to this day, I'm watching it and was so moved by by by by how heartfelt and open she was.
Uh, And I wrote down because this is what we wanted to do that people didn't understand it comedy of comedy at the time, and why Judy Rays was so perfect, you know, because there weren't a lot of dramedies on. And one of my favorite jokes in this episode was when before you get off the bus, she's leaving and she's like, I'm so mad at you and you said you.
Can't you forgave me.
You can't just change your mind, And without selling it as a joke, she's like, have you never met a woman before?
And she walks out into the rain, you know what I mean.
And it wasn't read like a punchline. It was read like, yeah, you can still be funny in drama and amongst pathos when you're feeling bad. And that was like the tonal stuff. That's why she's so good man, because she's always so real, very very very good actors.
Yeah, I look back at it like I had no clue how much of a power how she was or or is I should say, And when I watched these episodes, you know, I said it in our first podcast, her and Ken, Wow, really they're really MVPs of our show, you know what I mean?
Drink up.
They can just don't get actor.
You don't have to tell people to drink when you say, you know what I'm just I know they're just gonna do it.
What I'm bringing, I'm bringing it to my attention that I said it.
This is the most you've ever done, by the way you went from the previous episode being conscious of it and doing none to this one doing like thirty I you know what I mean.
I probably said it several times in the last episode. Also, this episode is also about how how important your name is, regardless of if it's Bambi or JD or your reputation or Scooter, whatever it is you have. Reputation is very important and you only get one chance to make a first impression, and after that people will have judgments of who they think you are.
And this episode really touches on that.
Here's the thing I screwed up in this episode off what Donald and Sam bothers me. What doctor Cox's character does to JD, you know, of shaming him was so bad that it bummed me out that he never got his comeuppance for that, you know what I mean, because you didn't tell her to go protect you. And then he makes everybody stop and goes, we're all to be super special to this little flower, you know.
And I thought that was so egregiously mean, you know what I mean. But his character, I guess was flawed. But we should have gotten him, have him make amends for that or get thumped for that.
Mm hmm.
But Boxing Fantasy was pretty funny. Though Johnny oiled.
I'm not to say, holy cowl did he have on?
There was a lot of oil. I remember, there was a lot of crystal.
I watched it with Christa, who had to do all her romance scenes with Johnny c and uh and she will eventually, you know, be on.
Your You're so nice about her too.
He came he came on as a punching bag, and she was half asleep through upstairs in the room and she goes, uh, half drowsy.
Here comes old up.
That he is just just glistening with Johnny has a full bottle of criscal oil.
Let's be honest. Though he's ripped, he looks amazing.
I think it's drawn on.
Oh you know what I wanted to say, and I wanted to tell me if you guys thought this in real life.
When I say that is what I wrote.
The last thing I wrote down about Judy, would I say, like, when you get really lucky, it's not the.
Writing or anything else, it's all.
It's everything, and the casting people have to really nail, you know, these characters and be who they are. And the amazing thing watching Judy back then, you guys, Zach and Donald were such kids, and Sarah Sarah's character, and Sarah felt like a kid and Judy.
And this is one of the reasons I think the show works.
She was not significantly, She's essentially the same age as all you guys, but she seems like such a grown up even.
From the start, definitely way more mature than we were, you.
Know, and seemed like such an adult that it made the show work.
Of like, oh, one of these four is you know, old for her years and an adult already, whereas Judy is, you know, she could have easily on a different show been Elliott or been you know, the little kid, you know, And.
So it was was she like that in real life or she good matter?
In real life? Judy was way more mature than the three of us I think we were. We were just as silly and goofy as our characters and you know, Judy was funny and would play along with us, but I think she was definitely more mature than us.
Absolutely.
By the way, there's a really funny there's a really funny fuck up bill at twelve oh three. When Donald runs into the room that Kelso's lured him to, you can totally see a hand that's all come in and it's on the floor and it's holding the door open. And it made me think, now we shit like that out. I know, I know nowadays we just you know, painted out, but it made me think it was probably Patrick Bolton or something lying on.
The floe or Patrick shout out Patrick Bolton.
Patrick Bolton was the on set track.
It has wheels, that thing will be on set.
I enjoyed after hearing the interesting thing you guys, Bost said about eating.
I think I've never seen the two of you do more eating in an episode. Zach having a jam a cupcake in your mouth, Donald just wolf and sandwich. Did you guys really eat that stuff or were you just spitting it out as soon as they said cut I.
Do love a sandwich. I'm not gonna lie.
A cupcake doesn't count. But if someone says we need you to jam this cupcake in your mouth. You're gonna do it. I mean, that's your excuse. But also is that it was that cheap cupcake. What are those called hostess cupcakes? That was a dang.
Listen, I'll tell you something right now. You put some cold cuts, some cheese in between, some herod. That sounds delicious to you. Could put some lettuce tomato on it. I'll eat that shit.
And another another strike at the janitor not speaking to anyone in season one, Bill, is that he clearly has told doctor Cox to call me Scooter at the end.
I don't know what you're talking about. He never ever spoke to anybody except JD.
AND's not and I have been going through like detectives going so we're trying to keep the janitor Laura alive for season one. But the facts, the facts are problematic. The facts are problematic.
Bill doesn't We've done all.
The work, just like Turkleton, there was just okay. So in your mind, Bill, hit your rationalization button. How does Cox know to call me Scooter?
It's just a random coincidence. The nickname.
I love it. I really want this to be a running gag that Donald and I do the detective work to see how the janitor talks to other people.
The only one I think you've ever seen him speak to is Elliott and that thing when they're all walking up to each other.
Mad, Yes, yes, well she speaks to him. He doesn't necessarily speak to her.
The exactly that might not have even been a janitor. She made Mad. This is just a J's lens.
The last thing I wanted to last thing I rever you know what, And you're absolutely right.
Actually, the very next person at the janitor, the very next person that's attacked after Elliott, uh does that to the janitor is JD.
So it could be it.
Could be that that one's that one's imaginary and Elliott was talking to an intern or an order or something or.
No, that's a possibility, or she's just not even talking to anyone. There's no one there and she's just saying it.
Yeah, it's very fight clubby when.
The last thing I want to say is this, they went overboard with the filters on Sarah in the bathtub because it's like Barbara Walters, you can barely see her through filters, and and she's in like this most enormous fucking bathroom and I was thinking, like, why does Elliott, But then I remember it is doesn't Elliot suposed to have money from her parents.
Her parents are paid Elliott's in like.
The bathroom of a millionaire's house.
It was subtext that we had planned for and a lot of it got cut, but it eventually pays off. When she tells her dad she doesn't want to go into a female specialty and he stops paying.
For her life, so she has to move in with you. She loses her whole apartment. She works at that apartment. She's like, this place is big.
She works at the clinic, she starts working at the clinic.
All of that stuff I remember, Well, thank you, sorry, audience, we don't Yeah, audience, we went all over the place today, but we're so excited.
Show.
We made about a bunch.
Of talks and nurses.
Said he's a stormy so YadA
Yeah m
