103: My Best Friend's Mistake w/ Bill Lawrence

The will they/ won't they that is JD and Elliot begins to simmer in episode three as Scrubs tackles "the friend zone." In the real world, Zach and Donald talk to show creator Bill Lawrence about the first days of the series.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Donald Countison. One two, No, Donald down, donalds go down.
That's not what I meant.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Three two, Well, then that's you gotta say. You said
count us in. I thought you were like Donald, count
us down. There we go because counting us in is
you know, like the song.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Is like seven eight right exactly, your song count us
into our song?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Donald, I really don't want to anymore.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Five six, seven eight. You want fame, well, fame costs,
and right here is where you start paying in sweat,
Debbie Allen Fame the TV show Thank You.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Here's some stories that show we made about a bunch
of docs and nurses, and I said, here's the story
nets so here yead.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
All right, listen, we have Donald one of our first
We have our first real guest.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yes we do. And I'm really excited about this.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
I don't think there could be a more appropriate guest.
Because he's the reason that we're here. He's the reason
we're friends. He's the reason that this show happened, that
so many people across the world love, and it all
came from his brain.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
He's the reason why I'm in my why I have
a closet that I can stay in right now.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
He's the reason I have a desk. He's the reason
I have a desk. He's the reason I have this
water bottle. I always say that to our next guest
jokingly but also seriously whenever I buy myself, even like
occasionally I buy him dinner and he's so grateful, and
I say, are you kidding? I can only buy you
this dinner because of you, ladies and gentlemen. The creator
of Scrubs, mister Bill Lawrence.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, I pretended to not even be in the frame,
even though this is not a video thing.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Hey, guys, I know I wish we were recording so
people could see that.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
I want people. I want people at home to know
that even though we're not recording the video, Bill hid
on on the Zoom app and made an appearance.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Hey, that was too nice and of an introduction, because
you guys would have both done fine without me. I
like that. I can claim credit for your success and
well being, but you would have found your way regardless.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Well that's nice of you to say, but you definitely
changed both of our lives a lot and a big way,
and also made something that very rarely happens. I'm finding
as I attempt to make TV shows and produce them,
and something that went nine years, and something that is
a global success. And I guess the first logical question

(02:32):
I wrote down in my notes is how did Because
I was listening to this, I want to know how
you came up with the idea? How did it? How
did the seed come to you in the first place?

Speaker 4 (02:41):
You guys both know there was a medical advisor on
the show named j D, and he's the real JD,
and he's my best friend in college.

Speaker 5 (02:50):
He was a fuck up and a curse on.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
You, curse away, Bill, go nuts, let loose.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
He was.

Speaker 5 (02:57):
He was a screw up.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
I went the other way, and.

Speaker 5 (03:02):
I used to joke with him because he was such
a bad.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Student that he went back to college to go to
med school a second time.

Speaker 5 (03:08):
I mean to pre med a second time.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
So we'll getting to med school. I said, my biggest
nightmare would be waking up in an emergency room and
having you standing over me and going, hey, you're.

Speaker 5 (03:15):
Gonna be fine.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
And I just thought that would be a good TV
show because we used to drink beers and used to
talk about how all these stories, especially the early ones,
are ones straight from his life, you know, worrying that
his friend sowed a piece of gauze up into somebody
falling in love with a different girl in his residency program,
and he's now married to He's a real guy. It's
more relevant than ever because he has become the Kelso

(03:38):
at a Kaiser hospital Wells Peelis, and he's there running
their COVID virus command center today as we speak.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, I saw that you tweeted something about that, So
tell us, like, because you're in you must be. You're
still best friends, so you must be in contact with
him as he's dealing with all this COVID insanity.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
Right, Yeah, he's superpals. He he's a heart surgeon and
a cardiologist. He he still just speaking and gay sometimes
the real JD. But he goes by John so you know,
he put out a tweet the other day saying, hey
to all the doctors and nurses you know that work
with me.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
I'm really proud, and I said, hey, is the real JD.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
He married the real Elliott and he's out there fighting
the fight and it became viral on a news story
and stuff in our basketball game that Donald has played
in before, and in this episode you can see that
Donald can play ball JD played in that game and
he tore his rotator cuff, so he can't be a
heart surgeon as much because it, you know, aggravates his injury.
So he took the Kelso job the same way. Doctor

(04:33):
Cox took the Kelso job late in life, and he
runs the whole hospital on in those fields.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
That said game you speak of is probably the roughest
game I've ever played in in my life. Jaws being broke,
noses broke, its quested.

Speaker 5 (04:47):
It's a bunch of dumb comedy writers too.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Man, Oh my gosh, it's violent. It's so violent. It's violent, dude,
it's violent.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
It's a lot older now, Donald, we're all, I mean,
we're the old guys. Now, there's a wave of young guy.
My son plays Will and I sent Zach a video
of Will dunking the other day and I was so
excited about it.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, Bill, send me a video Will dunky. He's like,
you have no idea how proud this makes me?

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Donald Donald, Zach doesn't understand, as you know, like to
see somebody dunk. I didn't even get a response. So
Zach's like, oh, yeah, he's thrown that round ball into
the hoop without.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
If you if you had sent me that kid singing
bring him Home from lim Is, I would have cried.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
You would have lost your mind. You would have lost
your mind. Oh, by the way, Zach, I am so
proud of Will. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
I would have had it on repeat. I literally would
have just been playing Will singing bring him Home?

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Bill. When you were younger, could you dunk? Did you not?
You cannot dunk? When I was younger, I could. But
when I was a lot younger, yeah, a lot.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Donald Will does it? Will does it now aggressively. It's
pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
That's awesome. Like on the Spin move on to Break.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
You can do it off the dribble, and he can
do it off an hour you he's has troubles, still gripping.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Why are you guys speaking Latin right now? I have
no idea.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
He tries, he tries.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
I wanted to go back to JD for the real
JD for a second, because I remember back in when
we first started, he had a pager and and they
would literally he'd be at the hospital advising us. So,
just for those of you who don't know, a medical
advisor on the show is obviously showing us everyone. The
extra is Donald and I all the doctors how to
look like we know what we're doing and this is

(06:26):
how you do this, and this is what you'd be
doing in this particular situation. And this was still in
the era of the fax machine, and I remember JD
would he'd be talking to us and saying, yeah, hold
it like that, do that, and then he'd get a
page and then he'd go receive a fax and he'd
look down at the facts of someone's EKG and he'd
be like, uh, I should probably get goo and.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah. You know. He used to joke about that that
he liked the gig with us so much more than
his real gig, you know, because he was a grunt.
You know, he was still I mean it was out
of residency, but you know he was a slaven a
way back then to pay off med school loans and
kind of being around Hollywood. He loved it.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
You know. His wife would also uh cover for him
when he was when he couldn't be there, she'd come
by and you know, we'd run things by her. Speaking
of this episode, it starts off in the O R
and I remember thinking, Oh, this is gonna be awesome.
I get to show my dramatic face in the middle
of surgery. It'll be just like all the doctor shows

(07:25):
that are on right now, you know what I mean.
And then we get there and you're like, no, put
the mask on. What we put the mask on? You're like, no,
you guys, we we have to wear the masks. And
I was like, wait, but we're supposed to be acting.
This is nearly and you were like no, no, no, no,
no no, put the masks on.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
Put the mask with your eyes and do it with
your eyes.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
And I remember being, okay, this could this is gonna be.
This is okay looking back at it now, we were
other than mash. I think the first show is really
to do that. All of these other shows were doing
surgery without the masks on.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
And Donald it's a great point because you know, JD
is most proud of even though we took so many
liberties and ragofy and stuff. It's been often said that
this for at least medical professionals, that this was the
most realistic medical show, you know, just on what it
was like.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
I get that all the time, Bill and people on
my social media and everything will say and even I
think the American Medical Association said that, so so tell
us about that when you when you started, did you
I've always said and correct me if I'm wrong, that
you because the show is going to be silly and
go off in crazy tangents. That you said to your
writers and obviously a mantra to yourself that no, I

(08:33):
want the medicine to always be as accurate as possible.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
We had to they, you know, they initially even before
I get cast, you guys talked to about making that
show on a sound stage, and I'm like, man, this
show's gonna be so silly in so many ways. If
it's not in a real hospital, people are going to
tell it's fake. And so we used to have this
board of you know, we do all the funny fantasies
and jokes and silly shit, and then we had this

(08:58):
board of ways to make it real, you know, and
one of them. Donald was talking about. One of them
the masks. But you guys need to look competent, people
needing to die, the rooms to be grungy, and to
not have as saturated a look color wise. You know,
we just wanted we thought like we made everything that
wasn't funny real, that maybe it would work.

Speaker 5 (09:20):
Going back and forth, between serious and goofy tone.

Speaker 4 (09:22):
You know, I heard Donald talking about that in your
other episode, about how the colors didn't pop and everything
looked kind of dank and you know, and disgusting intentionally.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
When you came up, you were coming off of Spin
City for those of you who don't know.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
But I was going to ask, should we go through
I mean, not that you want to sit here and
discuss your resume or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, he would, he'd love to.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
We gave a little story about what we were doing
before Scrubs and how our life changed before Scrubs. I
imagine your life changed. I remember the table read. I'm
just saying I would love to hear.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Yeah, we never heard like how I mean, you were
already successfully You're coming off Spin City, but how you know,
Donald and I went on and on about how it
was such a shock to our lives. I mean, this
was your first hit show on your own. I mean,
was that a big change in your life?

Speaker 4 (10:07):
Yeah? You know what I had had such a weird
experience on Spin City that I was partnered up with
an iconic star from my generation. You know, you guys
were so kind of Mike Fox when he came and
guested on the show. But that was such a surreal
experience for me writing for Mike. You know, it's like
the back to the guy that I grew up with,

(10:27):
this particular experience. Even before I met you guys, I
was like, all right, you can't have any expectations.

Speaker 5 (10:33):
There's no huge movie star doing this. You guys have
probably heard me say before.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
I decided to treat this whole thing like, all right,
I wrote the script.

Speaker 5 (10:41):
No one's ever gonna make it. They're gonna let me
shoot the pilot.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
It'll never be on. The show's going to be on.
It'll never last a whole season, So I'll make the
janitor an imaginary character, you know what I mean. Oh,
it lasted the whole season. It'll never be on a
season two. And so to me, that kind of protected me.
You know.

Speaker 5 (11:02):
I thought that I was making something like Freaks and.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
Geeks, you know, that would be people go hey, that
was really good. And it got canceled after four episodes,
and it was surreal to me that it kept working.
That makes sense to you, guys.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
So I was really into the art of it all.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
Like at a table read, I remember just being so
happy that everyone top to bottom was so good, you know,
and from what I had done, not necessarily popping you know,
jokes in a sitcom style and playing it real. And
I'm like, oh, this is a show that I'd watch
even though no one else will. So yeah, I was
resigned very early to the show not being successful.

Speaker 5 (11:38):
It was very weird.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
I never asked you this question, but be coming off
of Spin City and this was kind of the beginning
of a big single camera comedy craze for those of
you who don't know the difference being a sitcom traditionally
a set in front of a live audience and then
a single camera we shoot like a movie. Was there
any pressure on you to make this idea you had
a sitcom and did you have to affg yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
They The best thing that Spin City bought me was
the financial and professional security to what happens in television
often is you'll create a show. Hey, I'm going to
do a show about a young married couple and what
it's really like and I'm not going to compromise it
at all, and then you'll go sell it to a
network and when you come out, you're like, all right,

(12:19):
it's the same show. I mean, we have a kid
that's six that speaks like a thirty year old and
I do have superpowers now, but otherwise otherwise it is
like the exact same, right, And so with this show,
when I said, I was so convinced to be a failure,
because like early on ABC, we're like, hey, that show
is interesting. Maybe the doctor Cox character should be married,

(12:41):
and we'll just it's a sitcom.

Speaker 5 (12:43):
We see him at home, we see.

Speaker 4 (12:44):
Him at work. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to
do that. And it was never really an issue for
me because I was so convinced that this would never
work anyways. I just wanted to stick with what I
thought would be cool, you know, and what would work.
So there was a lot of pressure. The only thing
that this episode sode resonates in a huge way because
the president of NBC at the time was convinced that

(13:04):
single camera comedy shows weren't funny, and uh so I'm like,
I'm going to keep this show on by decorating it
with every bell and whistle I can. So this is
one of the last I think there's only a couple
more episodes after this that still have sound effects.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, that's something I wanted to talk about is we
start going through the show.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Just so we're clear, though, who was the president of
the network? Was the president? What was Sassa? What was Sassa?

Speaker 4 (13:34):
Scott Sassa was very sassified.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
All right, So, uh, this is Bill Bill in an
episode that will have aired by the time this airs,
because in episode two we talk about the infamous time
that Donald gave a nouggie to Jeff Zucker and he said,
please Donald, no, And but my I.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Was I always thought at the time, I thought that
Jeff Zucker was Scott Sass's assistant.

Speaker 4 (13:58):
No, he was, he was. Scott Sasa got shuffled out
right as Jeff Zucker came in. Jeff Zucker now run CNA.
He's one of the most powerful guys you know in
the news world. Scott Sasa is claimed to fame with
me because there's always a disconnect with executives that really
didn't know how this worked.

Speaker 5 (14:15):
And what's really interesting is if you.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
Look at the credits of Scrubs, the only title in
the writers that has writer next to it is staff writer,
which is the lowest rank on the totem pole. And
then the other writers on the show, our story editor,
co producer, things.

Speaker 5 (14:31):
That don't necessarily say writer.

Speaker 4 (14:33):
And when I handed in the first three scripts, you know,
a showrunner always rewrites everything on any show.

Speaker 5 (14:39):
We had a great writing staff, but I was still
doing that. A Scott Sasa called me up.

Speaker 4 (14:43):
He's like, I read the first three scripts and I
got to say, those three staff writers you hired, because
he thought that was the whole writing staff was three people.
Those three straft writers you hired really nailed it and
really captured your voice from the pilot. I wanted to
be like, well, first of all, they didn't because I
wrote the and secondly, secondly, those three staff writers are

(15:03):
all like twenty one and they've never worked on a
show before.

Speaker 5 (15:07):
So crazy man.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
And then he shockingly got fired and uh, Jeff Sucker
replaced him right before Donald kissed his head.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Right kiss his head.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (15:19):
By the way, you know what, we missed a good
bit of scrubs trivia. I got to say it. I
forget it. Do you guys remember Real j D's wife's name,
She's Elliott and real do you know her last name?
The maid last name? No, her maiden last name was
is Dolly Clock. I'm horrible at naming characters. Do you
remember a character on our show named Molly Clock.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
That was Heather Graham.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
Yes, wow you John. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
By the way, a lot of our fans Bill On
when we put the first episode out, we asked the question.
I asked a random question saying I don't even know
what sitcom set that was, and like my whole Twitter
feed was like answering that it was the Damon Wayne's show,
Kids Kids. There you go, So everyone probably Donald question
before right away?

Speaker 2 (16:06):
You know my favorite, my favorite part of this show
and it's not even the a storyline in this episode
is the clock, the countdown. You could have made the
whole show about that. That was That could have been
the whole show.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
That's that's a good writer trick. You put an imaginary
ticking clock on something and everybody invests in it.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, that was clever. Wait before we get to the show,
I just want to ask another trivia thing of Bill.
I got so geeked out. I really did my homework
this week.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
And like, before you go, I want to tell Donald
because he can look him up. There's a picture of
Donald and the surgeon he was based on. Donald would
be named John Turk because that's the surgeon's name. But
j D was already John, so he became Chris Turk.
There's a picture of you with your arm around John
Turk when he visited set once, and I'm not even

(16:52):
sure who he was.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
I remember when he came and visited. He was like,
I'm Turk, and I remember him being white and me
being like, oh snap, but you're.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Donald was like, you're not. I'm I want to just
want to do one other bit of trivia, that is
that ABC passed on the show. Yeah, so for those
of you who don't know, the show is produced by
ABC Studios, and ABC the network gets first crack at

(17:25):
things if the studios produces it. And our show ended
up on NBC. So tell us how that happened.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
The dude is a true story.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
And I'm not even going to out him because hes
a nice man. When I pitched this show to the
people that ran the ABC network, Uh, one of the
dudes had a chair that you know, kind of blocked
you could wean back into that blocked the view of
his head. And about midway through the pitch, like a guy,
like a bad guy in a movie, and midway through
the pitch we all heard audible snoring.

Speaker 5 (17:54):
You had a night I think before.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
B b B B b b B.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
And I was literally like, I don't think this pitch
is going that well. Guys like, I'm not sure this
is what you would call a sale in the room
because that the dude that the dude that buys is snoozing.
So they didn't buy it, and the guy that ran
ABC Studios said, you got to wait five months. But

(18:21):
then since they hated it, I'll say, hey, can I
have permission to go sell this somewhere else? And they'll
think it'll never sell, so they'll say okay, And then
I went and sold TENBC.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
But it was why the life of our show was
so weird.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
We were one of the only shows on NBC completely
owned by ABC, which is why time slot would be
moved around and not always protected and stuff.

Speaker 5 (18:43):
So it was it was a weird business arrangement.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
I always wonder how that goes in the TV landscape
when like, you know, you hear these stories of oh,
every like everybody passed on Breaking Bad, you know, and
the guy at ABC who passed on scrubs, Like I
just wonder if they if they fuck with each other
in the hallways, like good job, Tim, you know, the.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
Moment I had. There is a great guy at ABC
who ran it for a while and is now a
producer named Stu Bloomberg. And he ran into me after
our first year and he goes, you know, I didn't
he heard that pitch. He was there.

Speaker 5 (19:12):
He's like, I heard that pitch and I didn't get it.
Now I get it. I feel like an idiot. And
I thought, oh, that's really cool.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
So it was. He was very nice about it.

Speaker 5 (19:18):
At least he was not the one that fell asleep.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, will you tell us about casting Turk?

Speaker 2 (19:23):
And Wow, you're just going to get right into it.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Well, I literally have like hours of questions for Bill,
but I know we want to also do the episode,
But tell tell us about just you know about We
obviously want to know from your experience because we shared
our experience in the in the first episode, but your
experience of of finding Donald.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (19:41):
I was a Donald fan already.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
I'd seen Klulis, you know, and uh, I just thought
he was really funny and and and he killed all
his auditions and uh in the test part of it.
You know, it's really interesting because I feel like I
both hurt and then saved Donald in a way. To
make myself look like a hero feel pretty cool about it,

(20:04):
which is, you know, the one thing I tell people
that don't understand what network tests used to be. It
literally used to be that you would come as an
actor and actress and stand in the head of casting's
office while twenty people were in the back sitting or
you know, leaning against the window judging you, and you'd

(20:26):
have one chance. If you're actually shooting the show, you'd
have twenty chances, but you'd have one chance to do
it not mess up, you know, and also somehow make
a room of people that all feel weird to be
standing in someone's office anyways. Laugh.

Speaker 5 (20:41):
So I used to tell everybody.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
You know, the biggest curse in the world is low energy.
You know what I mean, because if you come into
those low energy everybody's going to be like, oh, this
is horrible. And the one mistake I made with Donald
is if you tell Donald, once you dial up that
energy to eleven, I know where this is show, why

(21:03):
don't you make sure you dial that energy up to eleven?

Speaker 5 (21:05):
Everybody, Donald, I mean Donald's like, hello Los Angeles. And
he came in and he did he did his audition.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
And the truth is he did crush all the comedy
about when he left. They're like that guy's energy was
fantastic and he's really funny, but he very obviously can't
do any of the sincere or dramatic moments because he's
an insane person. And and I'm like, no, no, no,
you can that's me.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
That's me.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
And they never do this.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
But I had luckily been through the process before in
a different show, and so I went out to Donald
and tried to make it very grave because I wanted
him to come in then and just play the drama
of everything, you know, because I'm like, I told all
of them, I'm like, look, that's my note. And if
he comes back and does it the other way, you'll
see you can do whatever we want.

Speaker 5 (21:58):
It's a single camera show, you know.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
And I went back to Donald and I'm like, I
think I said something like all right, they thought you
suck shit. Yeah, things, I thought.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
You would come to tell me, all right, you got
the part. You were like, so I'm walking out. I
remember skipping into the room like here we go, Here
we fucking go, And you were like so that really
was horrible.

Speaker 5 (22:21):
For them. For them, that was too much.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
I think much is the word no, but the uh
but then I just we talked for a while and
I'm just like, just dial it down and now play
it like it's not a comedy and play the drama
of it.

Speaker 5 (22:33):
Donald came back in, and this is.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
A compliment to his acting ability. He came back in
and then he did it as if he wasn't looking
for any laughs or energy, and he walked out. I'm
sure shook by doing it again. And the second he
walked out, the head of NBC casting gout named Mark Hirschfeld,
was like, Oh, I see it totally. He's got it.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, thank you, well, thank you well. First of all,
thank you very much for being a hero. And ste
I'm not a here.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
I don't have the best bedside manner.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
You guys know that.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah, but it doesn't matter though. Man, you got the
point across. And look, dude, twenty something years later, I
owe you a lot. Bro.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well, I remember it's so intimidating, I almost I think
that may have been the first time I ever made
it to a network test and it was down to
four of us and literally everyone there must have been
thirty people crammed into a small office. It was the
most awkward environment to ever try and do a good job.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
What was this for?

Speaker 1 (23:26):
This was for Scrubs?

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Really?

Speaker 1 (23:28):
It was that guy Mark, wasn't it bill Mark Hirsche Show. Yeah.
Everyone was crammed into his office and I was very nervous,
and Sarah was there to read with me for her scenes.
But I remember feeling my adrenaline come up, like I
was almost going to have a panic attack, and I
was like, not today.

Speaker 4 (23:47):
Well, you know, you know, I cheated. Everybody cheats. I
cheated for the people I wanted to get the part.
So you guys both had extra lines and jokes and
moments that we had all come up with and found
together that other apps actors weren't doing right. And then
when I at the beginning, when I go in and
talk to everybody, I'm like, hey, I'm really into everybody
bringing their own flavor. And so some of these actors

(24:08):
and actresses have stuff that they've brought on their own
and I let them do it. But it's not true,
you know what I mean. It's just you two and
Sarah had stuff that you brought on your own that
we let you do.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Well, I didn't.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
I remember the time thinking that's so awesome. He feels
like he's rooting for me, but is he doing that
with everyone? Like I didn't you know that? No, I knew.
I knew since then you've told me that. But at
the time I'm thinking, like I think I think I
might be his favorite, Like I'm getting the extra jokes.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
The you know, the only one that it's great trivia,
the only one that we didn't know what was going
to happen, and we shifted gears a little bit of
like what are we going to do if this doesn't happen?
It's fascinating And when you have him on the guest
as a guest, I'll tell you I wrote in the
script like we were looking for a John c McGinley
type for doctor Cox. And John came in and read

(24:56):
it and was fucking he was amazing. And then at
the studio he did something completely different and high energy
John and his intensity dial had been dialed up like
ten notches, and the reaction of the studio was like, whoa,
that is way too And unlike with you guys, I

(25:17):
wasn't even confident enough to bring John back in and go, hey,
you did that wrong, because I feel like what would
follow would be a hard blow to the face, you know,
Oh my god, get off my neck, Get off my
neck and uh.

Speaker 5 (25:33):
And so we had this giant level. Me and the
casting directors, you know, bretton Debbie.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
Were like, uh, oh man, who's it going to be
if it? Because for us it was John McGinley, And
we went into the network and just said just cross
your fingers. And he came into the network and did
it completely different without anybody having spoken to him. And
this the Johnny C dialed down ten notches and literally
walked out of there as if with the thought. He
almost said I got this as he left. It was

(26:00):
just so johnny C. He was older, he did it.
And then I'm like, you feel good? He's like, cash,
see you.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Johnny C had so many expressions that he would always say.
We were talking about five good ones and and cash
and and how he's better now?

Speaker 4 (26:19):
How you doing better now?

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Better now?

Speaker 1 (26:21):
How are you doing? Here's five good ones for you.
How you doing better now? And then how he'd say
to the editor. We'd finish a scene and our editor's
name was John Michelle, and he goes, well, we gave
John Michelle some momo.

Speaker 4 (26:35):
Some ammo. I love that dude, man, that's funny.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Speaking that you went out for like a Johnny c
type and everything like that. I find it so funny
that when that's almost like a gift and a curse
when they when they say that we talked about this
in the last podcast, you know what I mean When
they say we're looking for a Zach Brafft type, they're
not looking for Zach braff though. They're looking for a Zach.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Braff They want Zach braff Ish.

Speaker 4 (26:59):
You know what, Although I think I thought it's different
if like and this is a compliment, like right now,
both of you guys, you say Zach Brafford, Donald Faizon,
they're going TV star. When I said John C McGinley type,
at the time, it just meant a character actor, you know,
with kind of an intensity thing. It wasn't like he
was a household name, you know what I mean. So
I don't think it cursed him as much because there's

(27:23):
no insult to him. Seven out of ten people that
read the script or like, no, no, no, cool, who's
John C McGinley, you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (27:29):
And so he didn't.

Speaker 4 (27:33):
Yes, you guy, you mean off the space, but that's
a different guy. No, it's the same guy.

Speaker 5 (27:41):
No, that's not the same guy.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
So uh now if you say John c McGinley type,
people are like, oh yeah, arms crossed, super intense, you know,
but that scary, scary, intimidating.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
And then we were we were afraid of Bill in
the beginning, but then when we got like more friends.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Said that, well, you know, I did say one thing.
I did say one thing, and because of it, because
of it, it stuck with me for the rest of
the fucking show. And I said one time, I was like,
you know, Bill said to everybody, He was like, look,
I'm going to write for all of you whatever you do,
just don't come in my fucking office and say, how
come I'm not in the show this week. And so

(28:22):
as a joke, I went into his office. I was like, dude,
I'm fucking barely in the show this week. And he
was like, oh, yeah, you got Faison And that stuck
with me. But do you remember phase on dude, Oh.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
My goodness, I totally forgot about that. So Donald did that.
And then for the rest of the show, when you
were when you were late, when you barely had anything
to do in the episode, people like, oh man, I
got faison, I gotason. I remember.

Speaker 5 (28:47):
There's only two things I remember like that.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
I remember fasoned, and I remember even saying to guest actors,
see if you guys remember this. A guest actor would
be like, I still don't think I nailed that line.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
I'm like, dude, I don't have time for you to
Sarah one Morsey.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
Because there's a song one Sarah one more. She wants
one more when she's had seven. Because Sarah, no matter
how many takes she did like, she'd be like the
director would always be like, Okay, Sarah, you good. Can
we move on? One more?

Speaker 5 (29:21):
One more?

Speaker 4 (29:22):
And I'll be like, there's something so good about a
confused guest actor's face when I'm like, dude, I don't
have time to Sarah one Morsey right now?

Speaker 5 (29:29):
Thought I was speaking like kling On.

Speaker 4 (29:30):
It is gibberish.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
That song had like a nice hook to it. She
wants one more when she's had five.

Speaker 4 (29:36):
So hey, you know what's interesting? I can I remember
something donald about someone choosing to take in this episode.
I wish I could remember who said. It might have
been Neil Goldman because he was up on set, but
it's in the cut, and I didn't have it in
the initial cut, and he said there's one take where
Donald comes in and says, uh, does has anybody seen

(29:59):
my keys? How about my wallet? And he says, hell
about my wallet? Like Chris Rock about. I literally went
back to the cut and I went back to the cut,
watched that master and You're like, how about my wallet?

Speaker 1 (30:13):
Donald? Was that Chris Rock inspired?

Speaker 2 (30:14):
I wanted to ask you, now, that's probably Eddie Murphy inspired. Obviously, Yeah,
but it was there. How well, there's there's that one
and the one that we used to laugh at all
the time from this episode is I tried to discover something.

(30:36):
I remember we laughed for days about that.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
You're really funny in this episode.

Speaker 4 (30:40):
I wanted to say, yes, you are.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Now that we're talking about the episode, I.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Was going to say that we can segue to these
This is.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Episode three, uh, my best Friend's Mistake, and first of all,
as a show, caught our stride. I feel like in
this episode. Now, the next episode that's after this is
My Old Lady and I think that's the third episode
we shot, but this episode aired before My Old Lady Whip.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
I'm correct, Bill, Why why were Donald and I? You'll
have the answer to this. Both Donald and I forever
have always said, oh, one of three was the episode
where we lose three patients, and it was kind of
like a good hitting our stride moment. And then both
of us this morning went to go rewatch the show
and we're like, oh, one of three is not that?
Did they twitch around?

Speaker 5 (31:30):
I'm almost positive, but I gotta go look.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
The pilot and the next one or two were directed
by Adam Bernstein.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah, I can help you out because Joelle, our amazing producer,
made a note here that she said, I read this
was originally supposed to be episode two, this one.

Speaker 4 (31:48):
It wasn't that as much as because we fixed that
in scripting stage. They wanted me to repilot and I
wrote episode two that you guys talked about. And then
Adam didn't want to go away for a week and
come back, so he was directing two episodes in a row.
I think we crossboarded even a little bit. I can't remember,
off to check. And then Mark Bucklin directed The Mild Lady.

(32:11):
After this, even though it was the third episode, we
were going to split them up, okay, because Adam was
it coming from New York and even though we were
going to go, you're going to direct the first episode.
In the third episode, he's like, yeah, I'm not flying
home and coming back. I'll do all the prep before
do him, you know, because he's a quirky character.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
So then we slipped New York. Still this day, I've
tried to get him to come do with other things
in the years since, and he's like, I don't really
like to leave New York.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
Donald smart because we did catch our stride with two things,
and I'll see if you guys that we used to
have this big wall of things that we were trying
to establish as motifs for the show, and this one
was we had a super long discussion. The reason we
did that runner about how important music was going to
be in this show. And so we're like, we're even

(32:56):
going to make a song travel around the show like
a virus, and you know that'll be the start of
how queuing people in that music isn't just background on
this show. It has huge importance. You know. The song
that we chose, I'm So in Love with You, you know,
just gonna be able to it was it was specifically
about what was going on in those scenes. It wasn't

(33:17):
just a viral song, and we were trying to train
people to go, oh, I'm supposed to listen to the
words of the song too, because they're about what we're
actually doing. And the second thing, which is why it
was important that Bernstein was there, was when we first
discussed that the camera is a character.

Speaker 5 (33:33):
And it's the first time we did a cowboy switch.

Speaker 4 (33:36):
When Zach's running to meet Elliott, that a stuntman dives
and takes a face plant and the camera doesn't just cut,
It goes around looking for him like it's like it's
an actual charity too, you know.

Speaker 5 (33:48):
And then Zach puts up like this, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
So if there was a thought bubble, you could have
almost looped in the camera going where'd you go? And
and so those two things kind of set a creatative
course for the show in ways that you know, we
kind of ran with after this.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, I didn't remember this one so much. And then
as I was watching and I was going, wow, there
was there's a lot in this episode that are little
moments that stuck with me forever, like the friend zone
and and the timer and the creative timer clock thing.
Every time I see Sarah and and Donald, uh, you know,
There's a lot of things that were that were used
throughout the show too, that that are established here, Like

(34:27):
it's the first time we see Donald playing basketball, and
you look very good now and you look very fit.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
I wish I could get back into that shape.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
You can do so they eat too much shit.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Well, twenty six years old body compared to a forty
six year old body is a big, big, big, big difference. Man.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Well, I I really I took notice that you looked fire.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Well. I accept and receive that, and so did Rob.

Speaker 5 (34:52):
Mashioh Rob Roy any of black hair? U?

Speaker 4 (35:00):
I got to tell you, man.

Speaker 5 (35:01):
So this is one of the things I get mocked for.

Speaker 4 (35:03):
Why this episode stuck in my head was we all
have those things, like remember when you you share something
with friends that you wish you hadn't or or you're
drunk and you say something to it's a shiver story.
When you think back, you're like, oh.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yes, Donald getting a nugge to Jef Zucker.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
Yes, so one of mine. And in writer's rooms you
tell personal stories. Was in a fraternity? Really? I was
in a fraternity? Yeah no, I was?

Speaker 2 (35:29):
And uh uh you were in a fraternity?

Speaker 4 (35:31):
Yeah no, I swear Okay. In college, we were all
drinking and hanging out and I was a little buzzy,
and I had a hometown girlfriend, and you really think
you can go and you care that much about her,
and I said, and it haunted me for the rest
of the year. They tortured me. I said, dude, I

(35:52):
miss her so much it hurts sometimes. And that became
one of the memes from this show because the mental.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
I gotta tell you of all the memes and and
anything I get, gifts I get sent I miss you
so much it hurts sometimes, is one of the most common.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
And it's also, by the way, the core of how
to use you know. I said, Look, voiceover can be
a crutch comedically because it's so easy. And when I teach,
like the Writers Guild, they're like, what do you mean how,
I'm like, well, the easiest way is to state a
premise in your voiceover and then do the opposite. An

(36:33):
example is just tell Turk how you feel without sounding
like you know a girl for once. I miss you
so much it hurts sometimes, you know. Another one was
when Elliott had the voiceover, or is when Kelso spilled
stuff on his face. Whatever you do, do not say
the word splotchy, and I think, j D, I think
you just said good splotchy, doctor splotch instead of why

(36:58):
would you even say good splot that's not even a work.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Good splotsheet splotsheet anyways, all right, So I wanted to
say at forty nine seconds in is my first Muppet
exit that I ever did in the show Scrubs, which
which which I always thought of, was when I when
I would just turn my head. I always I always
laughed at how Kermit the Frog and all the Muppets
Sesame Street characters would always turn and then and then

(37:21):
walk out. Yeah, so I h when I when I
leave the viewing room here, I sort of do a
side turn and I just kind of laughed. I think
that was the first time I tried out my successful
Muppet exit.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
You used also ever got yeah became.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Well it was it was a go to bill at
one eleven. There's an exterior shot of the hospital that
has never ever seen again, I don't think. And I
noticed that it says something about women's on the top
of it.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
Yeah, I didn't.

Speaker 5 (37:47):
I didn't paint it out.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
We didn't have the budget at the time to be
painting or no to be painting things out. But it's
funny watching the early episodes, there's like, it looks like
you guys were it looks like someone was like, do
we have an exterior shot at the hospital? Nah? How
about that one? All right?

Speaker 4 (38:01):
Well, we went and shot a bunch of stuff that
we used in the pilot, and then once we ran
out of that stuff, we just started shooting into our
own building.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
Right. But this one was this This was not because
it says women's something at the top.

Speaker 4 (38:14):
Yeah, No, it was particularly bad. There's a lot of
bad stuff in here, guys. You know.

Speaker 5 (38:18):
I always get shipped.

Speaker 4 (38:18):
For that because I'm always like you guys, remember my
favorite thing to say when we're so busy is I'll
take all I'll take all the mail on that, Okay,
So someone like an editor would come up and go,
that says women's Like when the letters come and there
are thousands of them are going to come.

Speaker 5 (38:34):
Deer Scrubs used to be a huge fan.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
But that hospital exterior said women's on it. You can
send all those letters to me, I'll take all the mail.
And it was such an arrogant, dicky thing to say,
but I just never got caught up.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
No, but it's true because if they're looking at stuff
like that, they're not really watching the show, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
Bill would always said that when when we were like,
when we were all holding up for something like you're
in the wrong you're wearing the wrong watch, Bill would
be like, guys, I'll take all the mail on the
wrong Watch's.

Speaker 4 (39:02):
That? And then the neatest thing that you could say
is to say it to John Inwood all the time
was he would make you, guys wait while he went
and fixed a light, you know, way in the background,
to take you ten minutes.

Speaker 5 (39:11):
And when he finally got back to camera, I was.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
Go, Showsaver, sure.

Speaker 5 (39:18):
You know we were in real.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
Trouble and you fixed it with that light that's one
hundred yards in the background.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Yeah. Well, the man was passionate. He wanted to get
it just perfect, Zach.

Speaker 4 (39:26):
That was also the episode was also not only your
first muppet exit. I wish I had a wider frame,
but the first time that when you got up from
following that you shook out your shoulders.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Oh really, I'm frozen in a frame. Here at two
minutes of me in a threesome fantasy with Sarah Chaw
and another beautiful model and we're all sweaty, And the
first thing that came in my head was, could you
even do that today on a half hour single camera
network comedy.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
Not that cause it was pretty.

Speaker 5 (39:55):
Uh suggestive and graphic risque.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Sure, that was so awesome, by the way, like holy count.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
My job right right.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Well, first of all, it was so awesome because that's
everybody's fantasy to get married and for your wife to
be like, yeah, we could do this, it's going.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
To be It's also one of it's one of the
best outtakes ever. Do you remember that one outtake where
Zach was like, yeah, keep kissing when the don't stop.

Speaker 5 (40:20):
You remember that.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
I remember something being like I was like, I know,
I think I was like keep rolling.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
Yeah. Look, I've had this discussion a lot. There's tons
of things on our show you couldn't do now, correctly
or incorrectly, Like the Todd is an interesting one, oh
you know, And we used to say, like the Todd
started in a way.

Speaker 5 (40:42):
I don't know if you remember.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
It was always in a banana hammock because I said,
if we're gonna do a young man's fantasies and see
women's scantily clad. I think we have to see as much,
if not more, ridiculous male nudity, and so Todd would
just always be in a banana hammick end he was
representative of somebody intentionally so crass, are so ludicrous that

(41:06):
he's to be laughed at and not with. But unfortunately
I think he was laughed with a lot. Uh So
I don't know if you could do him now. The
one things I always get busted on or two storylines.
One is when the janitor turned JD into a racist,
and one is when I put Donald's picture on the
cover of his college magazine twice. Do you remember when

(41:29):
I said, like, your college was so happy to have
an accomplished, great black guy that you know in their
lily white school that on their brochure, your your pictures
there twice. Yeah, they photoshopped you in twice just to
look like a PC college. You know.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Well, I noticed that. I noticed that There are a
lot of things and this is just how how time
has gone. First, of all the shows about sexual harassment,
which is very uh being too dominant right now, one
of Hollywood's biggest movie makers is now in jail for
doing horrible horrible, horrible things, right, but we're touching things

(42:09):
like that that are kind of untouched, Like you can't
touch these things now, these things that we were doing
in the show back in the day, some of these things,
networks will be like no, no, no, no, no no, let's
stay away from that, Let's stay away.

Speaker 4 (42:19):
Oh, they'd be so careful.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
I think, as Bill said, for some for better, we've
evolved and we probably wouldn't make some of those jokes today,
and in some I wonder if, in this example, with
the sort of sexual sweaty threesome fantasy, I'm just surprised
Bill that you got it. I mean, I knew you
wanted to push the envelope of what the show could be.
I'm just I just wondered, like, even now in twenty twenty,

(42:41):
if in a primetime network comedy, if you could do
a sweaty sex threesome joke.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
No.

Speaker 4 (42:47):
Look, I want to answer two things. Because what Donald
was saying, you know, is interesting. We talked about it
a lot because I don't know if you remember in
this episode the resolve is that would have been a
completely different story if doctor Cox or younger male was
calling Sarah sweetheart and the boys sport, but we were

(43:10):
kind of anticipating something. We talked about it. Kelso was
of a different generation. He was older than all you guys.
He called you is definitely an old school dude. You
can never say these things are innocuous. But it was
a time in which at the end John c McGinley
talks to Sarah and goes, if you're going to get
mad about some quasi term of endearment, you know from

(43:34):
an old out of touch dude, you know your life
here is going to be a lot more complicated than
it has to be. And she took the lesson of
picking my battles, you know. So to Donald's answer, I
think it's a story you can maybe still do if
you're talking. Although we've now moved twenty years away from that.
At that time we were going like, hey, here's a
guy in his mid to late sixties. You know that

(43:57):
is without a doubt, of a generation. I got so
much trouble when he Kelso said to a male nurse,
you know, oh, you're wondering why you don't get respected,
It's because you're doing a woman's job. And our intent
was that Kelso is so out of touch that he
would say that, you know what I mean. And then
the complaints I got from Nurses Association, got letters and stuff, true,

(44:20):
were how could you have a character saying that when
it's such a problem that characters that people out there,
especially from that generation, believe that and say that. I'm like, right,
it's real. He's the bad guy on the show.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
And there's a nursing shortage, so like, don't discourage people.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
Yeah, he's the bad guy on the show. He has
those thoughts, and in a good way. I think Kelso
evolved and into Zach's question. It comes all under the
heading and it's not just with those two girls, which
was a joke and obviously a joke about some you know,
young male fantasy, but this is for both of you,
and for Sarah and for Judy.

Speaker 5 (44:56):
When I said the show has to.

Speaker 4 (44:57):
Be real, beyond the goofiness, what we thought about more
than jokes was about when we would have sex scenes,
you know, and it was really important to me, not
no ascibious way that they seemed. They didn't seem like
a TV sitcom kiss where everybody goes and some of
the romance scenes between Zach and Sarah and Donald and

(45:19):
Judy and even Johnny C and my wife, which still
turns my stomach a little bit because I had to
see it.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
You did, you did?

Speaker 1 (45:27):
I had to kiss Christa so early and I was
still in the terrified of Bill phase, and it was
an early episode I don't know what, probably five or something,
and I had to make out with Christa and I
remember being like, this is the craziest job. I'm about
to make out with my boss's wife for him.

Speaker 4 (45:47):
I still have that on a loop at my house.
It's awesome hard soon No, Yeah, I mean he's super sexy.

Speaker 5 (45:53):
I'm really grateful.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Oh my gosh, it is did you did?

Speaker 4 (46:00):
You guys think you were doing fairly racy sex scenes.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
The time.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Throughout the whole show. I mean, I can't that big
famous one that Sarah I did with the pizza. I
remember that being like, I can't believe they're gonna put
put this on TV. This is gonna be censored. And
all my stuff with Amy Smart, I remember being like,
they're gonna air this.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
I was really excited about and not in that way,
but like when Judy and I would do scenes together,
I was it really felt like we were a couple
when watched when I watched it, you know what I mean,
because that's how I don't know that there was just
something that was really uh uh uh. She and I
had great chemistry, I feel like, and because of that,

(46:44):
and because of that, I uh you know when I
watched her stuff. That's that's what everybody hopes for when
they do romantic stuff, that the audience believes it. And
if the audience doesn't believe it, well hopefully I believe it,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (46:57):
And much I liked you guys.

Speaker 4 (46:59):
I like you guys. There's no offense because I love
Zach and Sarah. But my favorite couple on the show,
Donald and Judy because as a writer's room in a
glassman the writer's room. One of the things we put
on those boards in the first couple of weeks was
we're gonna get Turk and Carla together and never break
them up and never threaten them. And you know, because

(47:20):
we're gonna do will there won't they with the other
characters and how cool is it to see a couple
that finds each other and works right? And the only
reason we ever even had you guys have a little
dip here there as a couple was because we never
expected the show to last nine years, and we had
to be like, we should probably throw a couple of
curve balls their way.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Man, looking back at it now, it's the it's perfect
as a young man doing you know who's on a
television show? Like I used to be like, and we're
gonna have Holly Berry on the show as my love interest,
and we and those things that never ever happened.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Were you bummed out? Not not that it was Judy
because she's a knockout, but were you my love I know,
but were you like where are all my love interests?

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah? Absolutely, man, But when you look back at the storytelling,
when you look back at at at the relationship that
those two have, Like I can't post pictures of my
wife and I because people are like, that's not Carlo.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Yeah, I get it. By the way, post pictures of
me hugging anyone because they're like, why aren't you hugging turk?

Speaker 4 (48:22):
Right?

Speaker 2 (48:22):
That's that's the other one that comes up. I'll be like,
here's a lovely picture of me and my family, and
I'd be like, that's not where's JD? Where's that graph? People?

Speaker 4 (48:30):
People hit me all the time too with how and
we tried to do it. You and Judy react to
you know, TV is a world in which a wife
has her hands on her hips and is frustrated with
a husband or the husband's like, you know, you're crazy.
And even when we sent you guys in crazy stories.
One of my favorite scenes was in a later episode,
but when you guys find out Judy's pregnant before she does,

(48:53):
and you're gonna tell her and uh, everybody knows but her,
And know the cool thing about your characters is that
you when when it comes to a comedic peak and
we did this a lot, you admit fault and then she,
instead of punishing you for it, says, who gives a ship?

Speaker 5 (49:14):
We're having a baby, you know what I mean. And
that's not often how real couples work. So it was
a couple to aspire.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
To, right, I thought, Looking back at it now, I
love it, like just the even the courtship, even how
the show starts and how these guys start offs. You
know they're not together, but if you didn't watch the
show from the beginning, you would imagine that when the
show was introduced, these characters started off to you know
what I mean, Like you watch family Guy and you

(49:40):
and you say, okay, so Peter's married to and this
is his family and this is and you accept that
the whole way through. There's no need for an origin
story or anything like that. And that's how I feel
it is with Carla and Turk. There's no need for
an origin story. They're just a TV couple that works,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (49:56):
Yeah, I was looking. I was thinking about this because
is get taking it back to the episode, like the
way Zach was doing cool things and freezing frames. I
was trying to remember minutia for you guys, and the
only the Turk and Carla Manusha I remember was the
scene in which you two are going to hang out
and watch Fletch and then Donald leaves. It was very

(50:19):
subtle we had. It's one of those discussions you have
in the writer's room. It's like Donald's liked to watch
Fletch and Carla says, do you want to go hang
out in your room? We don't want just Carla to
go do you want to go? Fuck? Because that makes
her seem like a bimbo.

Speaker 5 (50:34):
And we don't want Turk to just you know, be
like I'll drop JD in an instant.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
So like the dumb things you argue about in writer's room,
you won't even notice unless you watch it again. Did
you see that Carlo was holding two beers? So like
when she goes to you go look at that gainst
she goes, you're watching Fletch. You know it's funny when
we do all the lines. She goes, hey, you want
to go hang out in your room? And she's got
so it's not the women in the writing staff. I
right wanted to make it. Oh, we're not just going
to go fuck. I mean we will eventually, but she's

(51:02):
got two beers. So it's like, do you want to
go out your room, we both have a beer, we'll
shoot the ship and then we'll hook up. And that
fine line I think people is me being a nerd.
I think people, even if they don't notice that it's
subtext that they if you do a ton of it,
they gradually notice that it's more than just physical. Right,
that scene also, Zach had and you can and I'll hand.

Speaker 5 (51:22):
It back to you, but you had.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
One of our other first arguments was we constantly fought
in the writer's room. I made huge mistakes as we
went along about things that should be a fantasy and shouldn't.
And this was one of the first arguments because when
Carlos's do you want to go.

Speaker 5 (51:39):
Hang out in my room? We look to you and
when we.

Speaker 4 (51:41):
Look back, the remote control is still hovering in the air. Yeah,
and it drops at It's very bugs bunny. And it
was not done as a fantasy, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (51:49):
And you already did you always this early have the
sort of white flash to a fantasy always, I forget.

Speaker 4 (51:55):
Yeah, we were, we were making the rules still, but
we hadn't done the sound effects because we were just
starting to obsess about the difference between fantasies and flashbacks.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Well, you know, one of the funniest things I think
in throughout nine years of Scrubs is that Bill was
always dancing around what is so broad that's that it's
a fantasy, or what could exist in this world? And
there's a There's two that come to mind as my
favorites that he put in the real world, but we're
probably supposed to be fantasies. One one is when when

(52:26):
Donald packs me into the bag, it was literally it
was literally the size of a fucking bowling bag. It
was a backpack, and I was like, and if you
remember my like arm and leg were sticking up like
my body would never fake.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
I had a fake foot by your head and then
so when he scratched your nose, your foot went h.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
That was real and in the real world. And the
other one is that the janitor builds a full size
house out of sand in the parking lot, and that
was in the real world.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
That all right.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
The sand castle is not my fault because the sand castle,
the gag, you know, it was written like it was
real in the script, and we thought it would be
a sand castle like the size of like you ever
see a kid's playhouse like outside, something you could actually build,
right and are when I showed up, I drove, I
tried to drive to my parking spot that morning, and

(53:19):
the parking lot was closed. I better gone uh oh
the corner and there was like a final tap, there
was a sand castle as big as my home. I'm like, oh, no,
well that's and we can't say it's a fantasy, because
I think he lived there. For most of the episode.

Speaker 5 (53:38):
He kept yelling at people.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Those are the two that always stuck out of my
mind as one, and I'm sure as we go through
the series we'll find other ones. But I remember thinking like,
oh my god, that one in the bag was in
the sand castle.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
Yeah, they're a mistake.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
So listen to twenty five. We were talking about how
you phased out In this episode you went nuts with
sound effects and there's there's literally a horn noise when Johnny.

Speaker 4 (54:10):
For fucking.

Speaker 5 (54:12):
When you and Jad eventually.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Do Yeah, I mean this episode is this This might
have been your peak sound effects moment as you're figuring out.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Oh no, there's another one coming. I know there's another
one coming.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
But this one has this one has the ear flick
noise and also pretty much like anytime Johnny c moved.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
Just you guys did the trivia question of Jeff's you
know the Powers that Be And you know it's hard
to screen rough cuts of single camera shows because they
wouldn't hear the laughs of all their friends and Will
and Grace.

Speaker 5 (54:44):
Is this funny? And I thought it was funny. I
hated those sound effects so much.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
Did you guys do the trivia question of the one
sound effect that stayed all nine years?

Speaker 2 (54:52):
It's got to be the wish to go away into fantasy?

Speaker 4 (54:56):
Yeah, no wish to fantasies? Though, is not a sign
effect with an actor. There's an actor.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Oh oh, Todd high five?

Speaker 4 (55:02):
Whoops, there you go, Todd's high five being amplified times
nine thousand.

Speaker 5 (55:07):
I think it's I think that's the.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
Sound of like a rubber matt being slapped on the ground,
you know, And we kept that one forever.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
That's funny. They really hurt, by the way. I mean, John,
I'm not being a whimp. They genuinely hurt.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
No one's calling you a wimp. But come on, he.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
Still passes out five's, you know on the line to people.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
I know you can. You can go on Cameo. By
the way, We'll give Rob a shout out. You can
go on Cameo and Rob Maschio will send you a
message and high five you virtually, and go hire Rob
to give your friends a virtual high five on came
I kind of want to get one for Donald.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
I'll accept and receive it, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Three twenty six, The janitor says one of my favorite
lines of the first season. You see him unhappy.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
I like that.

Speaker 5 (55:58):
I had forgotten that he locked you outside.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
And was talking about Neil for his second bill because
we told we shared with the with the listeners the
story about how you know he wasn't intended to be
in your mind as big a role as he was,
or and then and of course everyone always discusses that
he may have been a figment of my imagination if
if the show only went one season, But just talk
about Neil and how you kept expanding his part because

(56:20):
he was just so friggin funny.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
I have a question, did he have to audition? Also,
that's the other question. He did not happen.

Speaker 4 (56:26):
Here's what here's here's what happened is Neil does the
stand up bit when he's interviewed, because he's a really
good actor. I don't know if you guys have ever
seen him any of his dramatic stuff. In the middle,
he was so and he's so good. Yeah, and he
came in and read for John mcf doctor Cox and
he was really good. But literally there, because we were
old buddies, I'm like, you're going to be the janitor

(56:47):
and uh. And so when he talks about it, he's like,
so I really prepared and I came in and then
Bill's not gonna be the janet. And when Neil does
the bit, Neil's like, well, I still carry around like
a clipboard and a step mop, carry around a mop.

Speaker 5 (57:03):
Well I get to wear one of those cool lab jumpsuit.
Gray jumpsuit.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Oh, he would get so mad. Neil would that it
wasn't a jumpsuit. He goes, it's a gray shirt and pants.
It's not a jumpsuit.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
I'm sorry. I always thought that his character was like
the worst janitor in the world, But when you watch
the show, he's always working and he's always doing his job.
He was never lazy, you know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (57:28):
He was drunk most of the time.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
That was one of my favorite lines ever's have you
been drinking?

Speaker 5 (57:33):
I'm not drunk? Na, So look JD, the real JD told.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
Me often when he was talking about it, there would
always be somebody, as there is any group dynamic when
he was a resident, would just plague him. You know,
it wasn't always a janitor whatever. So I wanted to
come up with that character for you, and I thought
it would be a line here or there. But Neil
was so funny man and such a gift just to
have around. And he's you know me, whenever I take

(58:03):
someone's funny in their buddy, I put him or hurry
in as much as I possibly can, so he became
more and more of a character in ways I never thought.
And part of the joy for me of going back
and look at these episodes not only seeing moments like
that Zach that I know Neil made up. You know,
like even in this episode, you're screaming and the line

(58:24):
in the script is la la la, I can't hear you.
But then I kept it in because like, that's one
of the first times that I looked into editing.

Speaker 5 (58:29):
And then there was Neil going, what you love who?
You know what I mean? They just playing around with you,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (58:36):
I remember the scenes with Neil would always be so
fun because you know, we'd all riffer around, but Neil
was the best at it, and and you just never
knew what he was going to say. And I just
remember I always knew I was gonna laugh extra hard
because he would just come up with the craziest shit ever.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
I was randomly down the wormhole of getting ready to
talk to you. To you guy, by the way, the
end of my other sentence was one of the gifts
for me as I to show go on and evolved,
some stuff got worse as a writer, you know, like
when you say I torture myself when I got too
broad and stuff like that. But then some stuff got better,
characters got richer, and last night, randomly, I was watching
Neil interact with Donald, you know, I mean, I don't

(59:14):
know if you remember when he had a sock puppet.
He's like, he pretended to hit you with the days
and your dynamic with him was so funny as well.
You know, it was cool to see him start to
interact with other characters. But the wormhole I ended up
putting last night and everybody should go look for it.

(59:34):
There's a scene with Sam Lloyd who plays Ted, and
Zach and Neil and you guys are trying to help
Neil with a girlfriend. You know, he's trying to the
girl that played the ukulele Kate mccoucheoch. You're trying to
get him to go for it with her. And I
told Neil, I'm like, you got to make up something
of what you did with your girlfriend. And Neil, Zach,

(59:56):
we used your real reactions. He made up a monologue
about killing a dust for her. It's not in the script,
and I watched it last night. He goes, he starts
and he goes, he goes, look, you should give her
a present, like something personal, something you made. Like when
I first started dating lady, I gave her a duck
that I killed already already a weird premise, right, And

(01:00:18):
then he said, I know what you're asking. Wouldn't it
have been more personal to kill her in front of her?
And yes, it would have, which is also made up.
And then he goes, but the duck and I were
driving over and and he goes, he goes, maybe I
was having a bad day, maybe he was.

Speaker 5 (01:00:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
But next thing you know, we're pulled over on the
side of the road, shirts off, which meant.

Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
The duck was wearing your shirt.

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
He goes, next thing you know, we're pulled over on
the side of the road, shirts off, you know, seeing
what's what? So Neil described a scene that he beat
a duck to down on the side of the freeway. Yes,
and I'm like, that's why that guy's in the show
so much.

Speaker 5 (01:00:59):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
I said, hey, come up with something that you did
for your girlfriend, And he's like, what he's probably looking
for is that I beat a duck to death for
her and then brought it over so she could cook it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
He would also just come up with the craziest ship
and to the point where in later episodes, in later
seasons Bill sometimes it would just say in the script,
it just and then Neil makes up something.

Speaker 4 (01:01:22):
Yeah, Neil, please say something funny. It's late one script.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
I guess it was late night in the writer's room, Bill,
and you're like, we're not gonna do that. Just put
Neil says something funny.

Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
Yeah, dude, I wrote that in the script. At the
first time, I'm like, Neil, it's two in the morning,
just say something funny. And the next day he did.
You know, I liked it the most when I got
to see him with you guys or with Sarah actually
having a real moment, you know, because it was so
cool that he could actually deliver. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
That's the interesting thing as we you know, as a
show goes on, you start to see people's first one
on one scenes together. And so in this episode, John
c McGinley and Sarah have their first real one on
one scene where she's asking him for advice. And at
this point, we as an audios, as an audience member,

(01:02:12):
we think that JD and John c McGinley are the
only ones that you know, that's the only dad son relationship,
but he was actually a dad to all of us
in this show as far as you know what I mean.
And this was the first episode where we see Sarah
and him, uh and and actually him mess with Sarah
in a way that could have gotten her fired, you

(01:02:33):
know what I mean. I just thought that's I thought
that was very interesting because eventually you have to introduce everybody,
even though it took you know, a whole season for
everybody to meet the janitor, for the janitor to do
other scenes with, for Neil to do other scenes with
everyone other than Zach. It was just it's just interesting
because when the show starts off, it seems like the
bubble is so small, you know what I mean. And

(01:02:54):
it starts with j D's relationship with everybody, but then
as it goes on, the bubble just kept getting bigger
and bigger and bigger. It's a great metaphor, and by
the end of it, we're all in the same universe together.
And this is also the first episode where the hospital
gets really wacky all of a sudden, you know what
I mean, Like we weren't whacky before that. Before this,
we were you know, even though it's episode three, we started.

(01:03:16):
This is where we're starting to do things that later
on I think, you know, I love it when you
jump from episode one or two and you jump all
the way to episode you know, season three, episode five,
because the growth of the show is so different, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:03:32):
I think about it in terms of characters, Like, what's
one of the things that's hard for me to watch
about the early episodes is Ken Jenkins is such a
good actor, and he was the bad guy on this show,
and I had not yet realized how deliciously silly and
funny that guy could be. You know, that guy is

(01:03:53):
a comedy assassin. But he was so good at being
a guy that you just hated, you know what I mean,
And and we leaned into that, and he didn't have
any other levels. So it's so cool when he expands,
you know what I mean, to see that you know
that he's silly and funny, that Johnny c can be
kind here or there, that Donald and the janitor can

(01:04:14):
go back and forth at each other but be on
different playing fields because Donald's not threatened. I mean, it's
it's weird to see you guys all at the beginning
because I did like the rich characters that you all
became very much.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
You know, I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Bill. We take a caller here on our show, and
it looks like, by the.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
Way, I just thought it was a super villain because
it is us a as a gentleman. That is.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
For you guys listening at home. His picture came up
on zoom and he's petting a cat, like like the
evil genius.

Speaker 4 (01:04:54):
You all are enjoying talking about your show. Well, I
have bad news.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
That's all right, Well, go ahead and introduce him.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Yes, Hi, Mike, thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
Hi everyone, how are you? Can you hear me?

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
We can you just fine, Martin.

Speaker 6 (01:05:09):
It's my first ever zoom meeting. I've never done this.
I'm glad it's working.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
I'm glad you're here.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Well, Mark, you picked a good episode, uh to beyond
because you have the creator of the whole show, Bill Lawrence.
So if you have a question for any of us,
go ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:05:23):
Oh well, hello Bill Lawrence, and hello all of you.

Speaker 5 (01:05:25):
That's awesome. I'm so glad.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
To be Where do you live, by the way, I
live in Chicago.

Speaker 6 (01:05:30):
I'm on the northwest side Chicago, up in Avondale, Old
Irving Park area.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Shotaw, stand up, we.

Speaker 4 (01:05:37):
Were just talking about Neil Flynn.

Speaker 5 (01:05:38):
That's where that's the area of the world that he
is from.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
My friend really Oh, but not your specific area. But
he's from Chicago. No, but he was like downstairs right now,
right now?

Speaker 4 (01:05:47):
No no, no, no, I mean he could be all right,
go ahead, Mark, all right.

Speaker 6 (01:05:51):
Even from the earliest episodes, Scrubs wasn't afraid to raise
social issues and took a clear stance that I thought
prioritized like well being of people over the economics and
insurance bureaucracy. I felt like this helped a lot of
young people, myself included, start thinking about the human side
of healthcare and healthcare like as a human right for
the first time, and sort of some of those more

(01:06:11):
serious issues. So I was just wondering if you guys
recalled any specific moments from production episodes or moments on
set that might have changed your influence the way you
guys have you the sort of work done by your characters,
or just sort of the healthcare system as a whole.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
Wow, that's Donald and Zach answer this for the show.
I will tell you I've been thinking about this a
lot lately. Mark because the real JD and my pal
we were both kind of screw ups with a lot
with very little direction as young guys. And I remember
asking him what the hell he was doing going back
to pre med, and he talked about wanting to be

(01:06:48):
of service, you know, and his viewpoint right now.

Speaker 5 (01:06:52):
You know, not to make this two poignant.

Speaker 4 (01:06:55):
I FaceTime with him every night when he gets off
work because he's run of the COVID command centers on
the whole ICU for this hospitals we spoke about, and
it helps him decompress and not take that stuff into
his family. And he as a caregiver cares so much
more about the humanistic side than any of this other bullshit.
And he instilled that upon me, and he said we

(01:07:16):
could steal all of his stories, but we could never
have a callousness. He said, he was only interested in
me stealing his stories in his life and his name
if The undercurrent of the show was that it was
about a bunch of people flaws and all that cared
most about helping and taking care of other people. So

(01:07:37):
that was part of the series. And I'll weave the
rest to Donald and Zach. That's cool that you asked
that because I think about him every day. He's out
there doing stuff much.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
More important, of course, And and and it's the perfect
question for this era, Mark because these these these medical
professionals and everyone who's working in the industry, whether you're
a doctor, a nurse, or a janitor, a medic, everyone
who in this environment is as the world is finally
seeing in the spotlight how heroic these people are. And

(01:08:08):
I think I always felt when we were making the
show that Bill was really shining a light on how
dedicated these folks were and how they had to deal
with life and death every single day. One thing that
really stood out for me when you asked your question
was the I remember learning that the nurses really run
the show. I hadn't spent much time in a hospital

(01:08:28):
when we started making Scrubs, and I learned that the
doctors can't do it without the nurses, and the nurses
are the ones who are on the front lines, and
the doctors have to be rotating, and they can't do
anything without the help of amazing nurses. It wasn't until
I spent more time in hospitals with both my father
and my sister getting sick, that I really this was

(01:08:51):
after Scrubs, but I remember being like, wow, this is
everything we were doing is so real. I'm witnessing it
on the front lines that we see that doctor like
every now and then, But man, these nurses and when
we have a good one, it is such a difference,
and me puts a smile on my sick father's face,
and when we have one that's a little bit aloof
it just drives you crazy. And I just really it

(01:09:12):
really came home to me everything we have been doing
on the show, how crucial and how important the people
on the front lines, particularly in this anecdote I'm telling
the nursing staff of hospitals were to me.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
The one thing that really sticks out for me is
to piggyback on what Bill said, is you know, for
some hospitals, if you don't have insurance, you can't get treated.
And the one thing that Scrubs did which I thought
was amazing was we had a bunch of the doctors
on the show were a bunch of rule breakers, benders,
especially when it came to something like that, you know

(01:09:45):
what I mean. That was always special for me because
you know, a lot of people don't have great insurance,
especially right now a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Don't have it and or any insurance at all.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
And Test Church at all, thank you, Zach. And Test
costs a lot of money, you know what I mean.
And if there are rule breakers and rule benders out
there that can save lives in that way, I'm all
for that, you know what I mean. And I love
that we had people on the show, like doctor Cox.
When Kelso's trying to get this person out of the hospital,
Cox comes up with so many different ways to get

(01:10:21):
this guy a bed, and I thought that was just amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:10:24):
Hey, Mark, we obsessed so much about your question. All
in terms of the character doctor Kelso. There's an episode
you guys might remember.

Speaker 5 (01:10:33):
I remember the song.

Speaker 4 (01:10:34):
And the scenes that because the real JD he runs
a hospital now and he's like and you're forced with
having to make these decisions for the greater good. And
there's an episode in which doctor Kelso you know, has
to punt a guy you know, from treatment that they've
done avasurance to have money in an effort to still
build other stuff and to have money to save other people.

Speaker 5 (01:10:56):
And we made this joke about.

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
How every time doctor Kelson's foot hits the bottom of
the stairs when he leaves the hospital, he starts whistling
as if the day doesn't even affect him.

Speaker 5 (01:11:06):
And at the end of that episode, even he because he.

Speaker 4 (01:11:09):
Knew he was directly responsible for his guy not getting care,
his foot hits and he has a moment you can
see it's really hard for him to start whistling again.
As a citizen Cope song called Sideways playing, and so
we just wanted to make sure that the people weren't
the villains and that the system was So yeah, I'm
really grateful that you noticed that and asked about it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
Awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:11:28):
Thank you guys for giving such detailed, great responses.

Speaker 4 (01:11:31):
Sure, I think it just speaks to how much you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
Guys feel for the show and put into the show.

Speaker 6 (01:11:36):
It really comes across, and I think that's why I've
been such a big fan for so long.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
So thank you, Thank you, Mark, Thanks so much for
asking your question.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
Do you want to ask another question? Oh? Sure, all right,
you get one more? All right?

Speaker 6 (01:11:48):
So, this episode, episode three, and the show as a whole,
I think has a lot of moments that exemplify really healthy,
often sensitive male relationships.

Speaker 4 (01:12:00):
Your guys's Turk and JD and JD and doctor.

Speaker 6 (01:12:03):
Cox and other ones, and I was just wondering if
you guys could maybe talk a little bit about what
was important to you guys to have positive sort of
emotional moments between rose.

Speaker 4 (01:12:13):
And how that might have affected your real life.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
I think that's a great question. I'm glad you asked
it with Bill on the show, because for me, I
really felt in a positive way. Granted we joked about
it a lot, but I thought in a positive way
we were showing, you know, when we were growing up.
I mean when Donald, Bill's a smidge and older than us,
but when Donald and I were growing up, you know,
anything you did that was a motive towards the guy

(01:12:37):
you were called gay and it was derogatory and it
was negative, and it was just an adjective in high
school and junior high, in middle school and everything was
And I always as someone who was it's no surprise
I'm similar in a lot of ways to JD. I
always felt like, but this is who I am. I
am a guy who is a hugger and who's emotional
and where's his hardness sleeve and loves musicals who happens

(01:12:59):
to be a heterosexual. And I felt like Bill wrote
a character a friendship that was like, well, we're gonna
show that that's okay to men in a way, because
I've noticed it in my life, you know, the fact
that Donald and I would hug and stuff. You know,
I did a Broadway show and Scrubs fans would come
to the to the stage door and they'd be like, JD,
can I have a hug? And I would always kind

(01:13:21):
of laugh. It was almost like the show was giving
a certain community of men telling them that it was
okay to You're not gonna no matter what your sexuality is,
who cares, It's not gonna be threatened by being like JD,
just being who you truly are. And I always thought
that that was a really positive thing that Bill put

(01:13:41):
out there.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
Yeah, I love that. I love the fact that the
two of them were so comfortable around each other that
they could be like brothers and lie in the same
bed in their underwear and it not be a thing
for them, you know what I mean. I like that,
And I think that storyline definitely transferred into my real
life with Zach, you know what I mean, Like, I

(01:14:03):
feel like my comfortability about being around other men and
not being afraid to be who I am and accept
who they are is all because of Scrubs, you know
what I mean. I've played best friends in other projects,
and you know, you play the tough guy, et cetera,

(01:14:25):
et cetera. But with these guys, none of that stuff mattered.
What mattered was that they loved each other at the
end of the day. And I cherished the fact that
I can have friendships with men and I can say
to them I love you and it not be looked
at as a bad thing.

Speaker 4 (01:14:41):
It's a weird topic for me because you know, JD
was based on real JD. Donald's based on doctor. But
the truth is with these two characters. Anyways, I always
joked around that I was kind of wrestling with both
sides of myself because.

Speaker 5 (01:14:56):
I am I played sports and was the high.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
School jockey type guy that I was afraid of this stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:15:04):
And on the other side, I do Zach and I
share a love of Broadway.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
Musicals, Robin French, Gobil.

Speaker 4 (01:15:11):
Ndtude.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
All right, whatever, and uh you take the watch. That's
a digression. Well in later episodes, Okay, Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:15:24):
True, I was always wrestling as a young man with
you know which which lane I fit in, and wishing
that it would be easier just to not have to
pick a lane. And then these guys, look, the truth is,
whenever you create a relationship as a writer, it's yours
for a second. And then the actors, if they're great,

(01:15:45):
they wrestle ownership from you. And what starts out is
eighty twenty years. You know, quickly in this show became
fifty to fifty mine and theirs, and then became all
theirs in a way that I would write moments that
weren't supposed to be romance moments, you know, like whether
it was them wanting to hug each other, you know,
at the end, and then when I look in the dailies,

(01:16:07):
they're rubbing their faces and heads against.

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
Me, Like that's my favorite gift. Is my favorite gift,
and use it all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
People are always like you using gifts of yourself. I'm like, yeah,
that one I do.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
Because it really looks like we're trying to smell each other, dude,
really looks like.

Speaker 4 (01:16:29):
By the way I think one of you had lived
in that you smell like an athlete and in a
way that you're just so happy. So my point is
I was doing it as an intellectual exercise, and these
guys made it something more and it's all about their
You get lucky on a TV show when what you're
watching feels even more real because the undercurrent of it
their intense friendship Israel.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
You know. I also like that when we meet people nowadays,
they're so eager to talk about their best friend and
how much they love their best friend, you know what
I mean, and that that that makes me feel great.
You know, he's the brown bear to my vanilla bear,
or you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
I honestly think it gave us a certain community of
men who watched the show and we're open to it,
a sort of permission to to to be more true
to who they were.

Speaker 4 (01:17:18):
A mark if you want to, if you want to
indulge my version of googling my own name is all
occasionally go looking at all these wedding videos where the
best man sings guy love to the groom.

Speaker 5 (01:17:28):
They're fantastic. There's like a thousand of them out there,
and it always starts with a fake setup.

Speaker 4 (01:17:33):
He's like, you know, I was trying to think of
what to toast and what to blah blah, and I
thought it's probably better to do win song.

Speaker 5 (01:17:38):
There the facts and then the groom.

Speaker 4 (01:17:40):
The groom always stands up with a microphone too, because
they've rehearsed it twenty times. And I'm at home by myself,
just going.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
Like this, lauding. I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
All right, Mark, thank you for two awesome questions.

Speaker 5 (01:17:53):
Thanks for having me that great?

Speaker 4 (01:17:55):
All right, stay says meeting your Mark. Hey, stay safe, buddy,
he can be healthy, Bill.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Why does nurse Roberts have so many bowling shoes for sale?

Speaker 4 (01:18:07):
Look, one of the things that we embraced on Scrubs
early on was surreal jokes just for us, okay, And
we were trying to think, I remember this, and we
wanted this to be a runner, and we dropped it.
We shouldn't have dropped it, but you know, you get
too busy. When you were fantasizing about talking to Turk,
we started going down patho going What he doesn't realize

(01:18:28):
is he's in a topic with Nurse Roberts and she's
got a side hustle. And we were like, what's her
side hustle? It's selling her dead husband's bowling shoes. But
he didn't even bowl. She's just got like twenty pairs
of bowling shoes. She tries to unload to people.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
I thought that was I thought that was so funny,
and I forgot that joke, and then that when Donald
showed up wearing them, I just laughed out loud. I
thought that was so funny, and roberts and then I thought,
I gotta ask Bill just the logic behind it? What
is Nurse rob Why is Nurse Robert's side hustle selling
her husband's bull shoes?

Speaker 4 (01:19:04):
She's just always looking to get a step ahead, man.
The I just love that joke because the same way
I told you that Neil's joke meant that he and
the duck were both wearing shirts, even though that wasn't
said aloud, that joke means that while you were fantasizing.

Speaker 5 (01:19:20):
About turk apropos of nothing, Nurse.

Speaker 4 (01:19:23):
Robert said, Hey, is there any chance you ever to
be interested in buying some used bowling shoes? Is that
something that you would want? Because then you snap out
of it, You're like, I do.

Speaker 5 (01:19:33):
I would really want that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
Ye, when I come out of the when I come
out of the phantasy, she says something like, so the
check's in your locker or something.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
No, because I got them in my locker.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
Oh yeah, you want to write me check.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
You want to write me a check because I got
them in my locker.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
So I picture her locker is just stacked bullings is
every couple of days she saw someone a pair of
bowling shoes.

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
It's just a little side hustle.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
Bill touched on this at nineteen thirty seven. There's the
very first thing we did a lot with stunts on
scrubs called the Cowboy Switch. And just if you go
back and watch it, what happens is the camera never cuts,
but I'm running down the hall, and then the camera
without cutting, goes behind a cart, which switches to the stuntman,
who then goes and does a really hard fall on

(01:20:19):
the ground. The camera can't find me and comes back
and like a magic trick, I've switched back to where
I was. This is a really clever thing that we
used to do a bunch of times on the show.
In order to do a really harder fall that needed
to be a stuntman. And I wonder, Bill, is that
something Adam brought, or something a stuntman brought or you
knew about? How how did those start coming into the show.

Speaker 4 (01:20:38):
Adam pitched very hard the thing we already spoke about
is on this show the camera is a character because
it's almost an extension of JD's head. You know, he's
narrating for this camera that doesn't exist. So that was Adam.
It's why he directed it. I remember him even saying
just so you know, I think he shot one without it,
but he's like, just so you know, when we do

(01:21:01):
the cowboy switch to buy time, the cameras is going
to look around for jad and I remember going, like
what it's like, it's gonna go like that, it's gonna
try and find it's gonna try and find its owner.
It's like a dog when you disappear, you know what
I mean. And so that was Adam and that dude.
Noon was all about the cowboy switches because he and
Ernie the two stunt men always but it's our favorite

(01:21:23):
Joke's at Ernie a great stuntman, but it's like, always
be wary of a stuntman who no longer has any
of his own teeth or hair. He had a big set.
He had a big set of a great white teeth
and like, what happened to your real teeth? So yeah,
the end is they said the stunts on this show
you want this stuff to all look real and not silly.
Let's have our thespians and you guys both did some

(01:21:44):
do them as much as we can, whether it's driving
a scooter into the water or sliding under the cart
or cowboy switches, and it helped sell the reality of
that clumsiness.

Speaker 5 (01:21:53):
So I thought it was awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:21:54):
And when we get to the Wizard of Oz episode,
there's the most epic cowboy switch that we'll talk about
where the scooter goes in to the puddle, but stay
tuned for that. The friend Zone bill that is one
of the funniest articulations of the friend Zone. I noticed
this time that everything everybody's dressed in beige.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
That's my first favorite. That's my first favorite and one
of my all time favorite fantasies ever. And it just
was It's such a smart, smart way to describe the.

Speaker 4 (01:22:24):
First I would have done that fantasy in a world
of streaming where you don't have time limits for ten minutes,
I would have wanted to hear where everybody crossed paths
with her. I loved my favorite was it even Becky
being in there. My favorite was the guy we worked
together at Penguins because in my head, I'm like that guy.
That guy and Elliott barely had shifts together. They just

(01:22:45):
occasionally overlapped penguins yogurt, and he was just like your shift.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
I just love the cleverness of in Elliott's mind. None
of those people stood out so that everybody's dressed in
a shade of beige.

Speaker 4 (01:22:59):
Yeah, they're all blending in. They're all just people that
drifted through her life. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:23:05):
The last thing, I don't know if Donald, do you
have anything else? But the last thing from the show
that I wrote down that I thought was really funny. I
don't know if we ever did it again, is that
you're using Rowdy's mouth to open up the pie.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
That was That was the last thing I had to
I was gonna ask you.

Speaker 4 (01:23:18):
I thought Rowdy. I thought Rowdy should have always it
should have always been a bottle opener. But I think
that's the first time we introduced your dead dog without
I don't think we had any lines referencing it.

Speaker 5 (01:23:28):
Did we?

Speaker 4 (01:23:28):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:23:29):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:23:30):
You mean was he an episode two?

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
Yeah? He is an episode two.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
That's when we introduced him. That's when we.

Speaker 4 (01:23:35):
Introduce Yeah, yeah, okay, I loved you know, Rowdy is
that's I think something more than shockingly, more than anything
that people would go now is a is there a
dead dog that's a character in this show, a real
stuff dead dog.

Speaker 5 (01:23:49):
That would be a huge issue.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Bill. I don't know if the urban legend is true,
and I really don't want you to correct it if
it's not. But Donald and I were discussing in an
earlier episode of the podcast that when the one the
prop men was let go, he hid Rowdy in the
ceiling tiles of the prop room. That's true, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):
That is true. I told you, I told you it's true.

Speaker 4 (01:24:09):
Yeah, we had to let someone go for different reasons,
and he knew that that was a prop that he
had that was a character on the show, so he
tried to get us back by hiding it in the
above the tiles. He locked himself in there and hid
that poor dead dog above the tiles. And by the way,
we found it right away. So when we got an
extra one, we were only getting an extra one in

(01:24:31):
case something ever happened to the real one. But part
of the lore became that we got an extra dead
dog to you know, replace the one that was lost.
But it's not it's just to generate. It's just in
a weird way. That's what generated that story of what
would we do?

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
And then Bill that gave birth to a beautiful, very
moving storyline of introducing Stephen the other I was already
laughing with on a the end.

Speaker 2 (01:24:58):
Did you get Rowdy or did you get Stephen?

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
I got nothing neither. They're all I told you this story.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
I mean, when we break so we don't live together anymore.
At one point, who gets who gets who?

Speaker 4 (01:25:08):
Oh? I forgot who got rowdy and who got Steven?

Speaker 1 (01:25:10):
I don't remember. But Bill, I was laughing with Donald
about how someone can't tell the difference. And I feel
where their old taxidermy balls are, and I go, no,
that's Steven.

Speaker 5 (01:25:22):
You knew one of them was fixed, so Rowdy hit that.

Speaker 4 (01:25:28):
I think that's Donald's line to open.

Speaker 1 (01:25:34):
I don't see. I don't know if today you could
do taxidermy dead dogs humping someone's leg.

Speaker 4 (01:25:39):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
It's a whole.

Speaker 4 (01:25:43):
Everybody not to make this an end line. But this
was such a fun exercise for me because everybody always
asks me what my favorite episode of Scrubs is, and
I don't know how you guys feel. I always say
the pilot because remember reminds me of first meeting you all,
and of the experience and the people so much more

(01:26:06):
than any specific episodes. When I watch these, like the
first one, two or three episodes, that's what I remember
is seeing you two idiots become friends and having to
deal with the pluses and minuses of that when you
came in crazy hungover to work, but also when I
would see your friendship on screen, you know, and seeing
how people were afraid of Johnny C and how that translated,

(01:26:27):
and seeing Donald's chemistry with Judy and Zach and Sarah's
puppy dog love for each I mean, it's fantastic.

Speaker 5 (01:26:34):
So that's what this stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:26:35):
Takes me back to, you know, is how cool it
is that not only that you two are still friends,
but that we all still spend time together and talk.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
You Know, I say, I love a lot I've noticed,
but I truly do love that about what we've done together.
You know, we didn't just build a television show together.
You know. It wasn't just you know, you created a show,
we acted and it'd see you later. It's we become
like a family, and when we see each other it's
so amazing. And you know, I don't see everybody as

(01:27:05):
much as I see the two of you, but it's
always it's always dope, you know what I mean. I enjoy.
I know I'm gonna laugh. I know i'm gonna you
know what I mean, I know I'm gonna feel good.
It's always great to be around y'all.

Speaker 4 (01:27:18):
So happy.

Speaker 1 (01:27:18):
Thank you so much, Bill for coming on. And I
hope that you'll do this. I mean, it makes sense
of all people for you to come on a bunch
to this because I hope, I hope you will, because
you know, people seem to be really liking it and
which makes a smile, and it makes so much sense
to have you on whenever you're willing to come on.

Speaker 5 (01:27:35):
You know what I thought you could do that.

Speaker 4 (01:27:37):
You can either use this cut it or take this
pitch and do it from now on on any podcast
that I'm not on. If you guys run into a
question with the guests or with each other, why did
this happen?

Speaker 5 (01:27:49):
Or is this true? You can fire it off to me.

Speaker 4 (01:27:53):
I will voice mema record a one line response that
you can edit in that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:57):
That's great, that's very smart'd be like all right, Joelle,
we need a bill voice note answer on this question
and then we'll just cut it in when we do
the podcast editing.

Speaker 4 (01:28:07):
I love yeah, you know, as if I'm hovering there
all the time, which I will not be. This is
great what you guys are doing. I love you both,
I miss you both.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
Thank you and and we love you and thank you.
And you know, we ended the last episode by giving
a shout out to the medical community, and I think
it's right to do it since we were a show
about a hospital. Just to give all our love to
anybody who's listening to this, who has anyone fighting on
the front lines of this insanity. Thank you so much
for your courage and uh and and for being there

(01:28:38):
for for all of us.

Speaker 4 (01:28:39):
And yeah, there's a thousand things you can do to
be of service. You can write a check, or you
can call your friend that's working at a hospital and
talk to him or her every night just to see
how they're doing.

Speaker 5 (01:28:48):
But spend a few minutes and do it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
Thank you so much. And on that note, Donald, will
you lead us in song?

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
Yeah? Five five six story.

Speaker 3 (01:29:00):
Show we made about a bunch of talks and nurses
in Canada whom I.

Speaker 5 (01:29:06):
Said, here's the story.

Speaker 3 (01:29:09):
NEPWLL should know, so gather around you here up, gather
around you here, up.

Speaker 1 (01:29:16):
Scruts me.

Speaker 5 (01:29:17):
My show is a