June 19, 2025 • 9 mins
🎬🩺 In this episode of The Rank Podcast, John returns to his Sitcom Rankings with a look at the 2025 comedy series The Studio, starring Seth Rogen. This week, he breaks down Episode 6 – “The Pediatric Oncologist,” where the writers' room faces its most awkward challenge yet: how do you include a pediatric oncologist in a sitcom... and still make it funny?
As egos clash and moral panic sets in, the team spirals into absurdity trying to strike the right tone—leading to some of the most hilariously uncomfortable moments of the series so far. John explores how this episode walks the tightrope between comedy and discomfort, and whether it pulls it off or crashes hard.
Where does The Pediatric Oncologist land in his sitcom rankings? Tune in to find out!
E-mail your fan questions, comments, and suggestions to TheRankwithJohnandZac@protonmail.com.
Support the show by becoming a patron at Patreon.com/TheRankPodcast.
For up-to-date rankings, check out The Rank's website at TheRankwithJohnandZac.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's the movie you asked? Well, it's a zombie movie
starring Johnny Knoxville and Josh Hutcherson who are this
episode? Celebrity cameos.
Apparently the disease has spread through the zombies
projectile diarrhea. Now I don't know about you, but
that is not exactly mining comedy gold in my opinion.
I'd be curious to hear what you guys think though.
For those of you who watched this episode, was that funny to
(00:21):
you? It's kind of gross.
(00:42):
Welcome back to another episode of the rank.
I'm John and today we're going to be ranking another episode of
the studio. Now the premise of this whole
thing is to figure out what sitcom is the best of all time
by going through every episode and ranking them and then
averaging them out to figure outwhich one is the best overall.
Now, if you're enjoying these episodes or if you're just a fan
of the studio and enjoy consuming content about it,
please subscribe and or follow like the episodes and comment or
(01:04):
e-mail your questions, suggestions and all that jazz.
Please also consider becoming a Patreon on our
patreonpage@patreon.com/link podcast.
Now today we're ranking the 6th episode of the first season of
the studio titled The Pediatric Oncologist, which was written by
Alex Gregory and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.
And since this is a new series, I as I continue to say, I'm
(01:26):
going to avoid spoilers, but youknow, there might be no there
there won't. I'll keep squid.
So let's get into it, starting with the boat notables.
So the name of Matt's action franchise is MK Ultra, which is
the name of a 2022 movie and also a strain of marijuana,
because of course it is Seth Rogen.
And the clip they use for the movie is actually from the
action movie push, which, you know, if you guys want me to
(01:49):
I'll I'll make that one in the action movie series.
So Seth Rogen had an interestingtake on his character, Matt.
Well, we, we being Evan Goldbergand Seth Rogen, I think when we
made super bad, we were just like, the more you see someone
get shit on, the more terrible behavior they can get away with.
The fact that someone spits on Jonah Hill's character makes it
so he could say like 20 minutes of terrible shit and you kind of
(02:11):
sympathize with it. So the fact that nobody likes me
and no one hangs around me, I think allows my character to
push the comedy further. And my character's likability
was a real active topic of discussion as we were shooting
the show. There'd be times even the camera
guy would come up to me and be like, you're losing me a little
here. End Quote.
I have to say I get what the cameraman is saying.
There are definitely times I felt that way with Matt.
(02:33):
But interestingly, in this episode, they had to make the
doctors meaner to Matt because of this.
Well, we actually had to change that midway through to make them
be be way meaner to him. It wasn't supposed to be that
way. And they all just intrinsically
started doing it and then we rewrote things quickly to match
it. End Quote.
But that was kind of fun. All right, so that's it.
Those are the Pope notables. Let's go to the episode
overview. So this week's episode of the
(02:53):
studio is the first one that didn't necessarily feel like an
homage to something else. It's just a really relationship
episodes. So like we got a focus on Sal
and Quinn last week. This week we get a focus on
Matt. So Matt is dating a pediatric
oncologist. So from the outset, as an
audience member, if someone toldme that a studio head was dating
a pediatric oncologist, I think I would just be like, OK, that
(03:15):
makes sense. Feels like rich person, you
know, dates rich person. Or as my dad would say, doctors
marry lawyers and everybody knows the carpenters marry
waitresses. That's just how it goes.
It's quite poetic. He sang not a good Anyway, the
episode goes on to show us the differences that rich people may
have, like this rich person is super into the arts and this
(03:35):
rich person is super into golf. Just so incompatible.
So Matt new girlfriend invites him to a charity gala, which
we've all been to, right? Right, right.
He's genuinely excited to go. Of course his Co workers are
annoyed with this decision because they need him to be
around to make decisions for a trailer for their new movie.
They've got a deadline of 10:00 PM that night, so it's time
(03:55):
sensitive. What's the movie, you ask?
Well, it's a zombie movie starring Johnny Knoxville and
Josh Hutcherson, who are this episode's celebrity cameos.
Apparently the disease has spread through the zombies
projectile diarrhea. Now I don't know about you, but
that is not exactly mining comedy gold in my opinion.
I'd be curious to hear what you guys think though.
For those of you who watched this episode, was that funny to
(04:17):
you? It's kind of gross.
And I guess if you haven't watched the episode is diarrhea,
are diarrhea jokes in general like depictions of diarrhea,
like seeing diarrhea fly out of an asshole?
Is is that funny? Because for me, it's just, I
just, you know, I don't think poop is all that funny for the
most part. I mean, I don't like have an
(04:37):
aversion to it or anything. I've wiped a lot of butts.
I've got 5 kids. Well, I have 4 kids.
I've got 1 coming next this month.
But anyway, it certainly feels very on brand for Johnny
Knoxville, at the very least. So there's one scene in
particular where they highlight the dichotomy of Matt and his
girlfriend's careers. They're walking into the gala
and they're both on work calls, right?
So she's talking about a clinical trial to help save a
(04:59):
little girl's life. And Matt just as fervently is
fighting to keep the shit splosion in the trailer.
So yeah, they do different things.
Eventually. What we get is a lot of
condescension and petulance. I think this episode is designed
to make you empathize with Matt because he's been a little on
the annoying side at the least, prick at the worst in the past
few episodes. It's effective at doing that
(05:19):
though. I was definitely finding empathy
for Matt. A lot of crazy stuff ensues to
the point where you're once again going, how is this guy a
studio head? I suppose I think of people that
have gotten to that position in life as having their shit
together. But you know, maybe they don't.
If we're basing it off this, they certainly don't.
It was another effective episodeof the studio.
Also this was the last episode that I had already seen so I got
(05:40):
to this episode before I decidedto start ranking and stop and
have been re watching. So next week's episode will be
the first time I've seen the episode new while I'm also
ranking it. And I'm realizing as I'm saying
this you probably don't care about this but I thought it was
fun and so I sure there you go. But that's it.
That's the whole episode. Let's see how it ranked.
(06:03):
I'll wank. So the rank is where I rank the
episode based on five categories.
Story, acting, dialogue, episodecoherence, and character
relatability. I rank it on a scale of one to
five, one being the worst, five being the best.
And then I had a laugh counter where I tally up the amount of
times that the episode made me laugh out loud and that gets
added to the score. First category is story and I
gave that a four and a half. Relationship stories are always
(06:25):
good ones for sitcoms and this one is no different.
Excellent story. Making rich people feel
relatable is hard, but this showis doing that pretty well.
I like the way they put this together and that they find a
way to give you empathy format in the circumstance where you'd
think there'd be no way that would happen at a pediatric
oncology gala charity event. I'm not going to go any further
than that. I'm trying to avoid spoilers for
you. The next category is acting,
(06:46):
which I gave a 4.75. Acting was excellent.
Actually, the guest acting was really good too.
Whoever they had playing the doctors was great, just the
right level of nerdy, but also condescending.
Even Knoxville was fine playing himself.
Still not great though. I mean, it is Johnny Knoxville
after all. I got no problem with you,
Johnny, but you know you're not a great actor offense.
Well, yes, it is true. So we go to dialogue, which is
(07:09):
the next category, which I gave a 4.75.
Really great dialogue, really clever, maybe a little too much
diarrhea and shit stuff, but it worked.
Also, again, as I've been sayingfor the show, there aren't a lot
of laugh out loud moments, whichwould be better for a comedy.
You know, it's a comedy. So like make me laugh out loud
more. Just saying let's go to episode
coherence, which I give A5. This again is where the show
(07:31):
shines. They make compact stories where
they don't have much real estate, so they use every thing
they can. Everything serves a plot point,
everything fits together. It's it's really a very well
done show so far. So let's go to character
relatability, which I gave a pie.
I know I spent a lot of the overview sort of making fun of
the fact that this lifestyle isn't relatable, but I actually
found the motivations of everyone in this episode to be
(07:52):
super relatable, even if their lifestyles aren't.
So that leaves us with the laughcounter, which I had 10, which
is it's not bad. It's double digits at least, but
I feel like it should should be more for the caliber of the show
that I'm watching. It feels like I should have
more. But the total for this episode
is a 34.25, which puts it just below the Holy Grail.
(08:14):
Staying in the I'd watch it again to you.
So that puts a series average ata 31.875 average, which keeps it
in I'd watch it again. So thanks for listening
everybody. If you'd like to see a list of
our episode and series rankings so you can do that on our
website therankwithjohnzack.com.Remember to subscribe, review
and comment. And please consider supporting
us on our Patreon site at patreon.com/the Rank Podcast
(08:36):
where you can get access to all of our archived episodes.
And I will leave you with this. Why was there so much symmetry
between Matt's life and the fakediarrhea movie they were making?
Because when he tries to leave the gala, he runs.
Oh no. I'm sorry, let's say that's the
best thing. So that so OK, burp right in the
(09:13):
middle of it. Great.
It's kind of gross.
What's the movie you asked? Well, it's a zombie movie
starring Johnny Knoxville and Josh Hutcherson who are this
episode? Celebrity cameos.
Apparently the disease has spread through the zombies
projectile diarrhea. Now I don't know about you, but
that is not exactly mining comedy gold in my opinion.
I'd be curious to hear what you guys think though.
For those of you who watched this episode, was that funny to
(00:21):
you? It's kind of gross.
(00:42):
Welcome back to another episode of the rank.
I'm John and today we're going to be ranking another episode of
the studio. Now the premise of this whole
thing is to figure out what sitcom is the best of all time
by going through every episode and ranking them and then
averaging them out to figure outwhich one is the best overall.
Now, if you're enjoying these episodes or if you're just a fan
of the studio and enjoy consuming content about it,
please subscribe and or follow like the episodes and comment or
(01:04):
e-mail your questions, suggestions and all that jazz.
Please also consider becoming a Patreon on our
patreonpage@patreon.com/link podcast.
Now today we're ranking the 6th episode of the first season of
the studio titled The Pediatric Oncologist, which was written by
Alex Gregory and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.
And since this is a new series, I as I continue to say, I'm
(01:26):
going to avoid spoilers, but youknow, there might be no there
there won't. I'll keep squid.
So let's get into it, starting with the boat notables.
So the name of Matt's action franchise is MK Ultra, which is
the name of a 2022 movie and also a strain of marijuana,
because of course it is Seth Rogen.
And the clip they use for the movie is actually from the
action movie push, which, you know, if you guys want me to
(01:49):
I'll I'll make that one in the action movie series.
So Seth Rogen had an interestingtake on his character, Matt.
Well, we, we being Evan Goldbergand Seth Rogen, I think when we
made super bad, we were just like, the more you see someone
get shit on, the more terrible behavior they can get away with.
The fact that someone spits on Jonah Hill's character makes it
so he could say like 20 minutes of terrible shit and you kind of
(02:11):
sympathize with it. So the fact that nobody likes me
and no one hangs around me, I think allows my character to
push the comedy further. And my character's likability
was a real active topic of discussion as we were shooting
the show. There'd be times even the camera
guy would come up to me and be like, you're losing me a little
here. End Quote.
I have to say I get what the cameraman is saying.
There are definitely times I felt that way with Matt.
(02:33):
But interestingly, in this episode, they had to make the
doctors meaner to Matt because of this.
Well, we actually had to change that midway through to make them
be be way meaner to him. It wasn't supposed to be that
way. And they all just intrinsically
started doing it and then we rewrote things quickly to match
it. End Quote.
But that was kind of fun. All right, so that's it.
Those are the Pope notables. Let's go to the episode
overview. So this week's episode of the
(02:53):
studio is the first one that didn't necessarily feel like an
homage to something else. It's just a really relationship
episodes. So like we got a focus on Sal
and Quinn last week. This week we get a focus on
Matt. So Matt is dating a pediatric
oncologist. So from the outset, as an
audience member, if someone toldme that a studio head was dating
a pediatric oncologist, I think I would just be like, OK, that
(03:15):
makes sense. Feels like rich person, you
know, dates rich person. Or as my dad would say, doctors
marry lawyers and everybody knows the carpenters marry
waitresses. That's just how it goes.
It's quite poetic. He sang not a good Anyway, the
episode goes on to show us the differences that rich people may
have, like this rich person is super into the arts and this
(03:35):
rich person is super into golf. Just so incompatible.
So Matt new girlfriend invites him to a charity gala, which
we've all been to, right? Right, right.
He's genuinely excited to go. Of course his Co workers are
annoyed with this decision because they need him to be
around to make decisions for a trailer for their new movie.
They've got a deadline of 10:00 PM that night, so it's time
(03:55):
sensitive. What's the movie, you ask?
Well, it's a zombie movie starring Johnny Knoxville and
Josh Hutcherson, who are this episode's celebrity cameos.
Apparently the disease has spread through the zombies
projectile diarrhea. Now I don't know about you, but
that is not exactly mining comedy gold in my opinion.
I'd be curious to hear what you guys think though.
For those of you who watched this episode, was that funny to
(04:17):
you? It's kind of gross.
And I guess if you haven't watched the episode is diarrhea,
are diarrhea jokes in general like depictions of diarrhea,
like seeing diarrhea fly out of an asshole?
Is is that funny? Because for me, it's just, I
just, you know, I don't think poop is all that funny for the
most part. I mean, I don't like have an
(04:37):
aversion to it or anything. I've wiped a lot of butts.
I've got 5 kids. Well, I have 4 kids.
I've got 1 coming next this month.
But anyway, it certainly feels very on brand for Johnny
Knoxville, at the very least. So there's one scene in
particular where they highlight the dichotomy of Matt and his
girlfriend's careers. They're walking into the gala
and they're both on work calls, right?
So she's talking about a clinical trial to help save a
(04:59):
little girl's life. And Matt just as fervently is
fighting to keep the shit splosion in the trailer.
So yeah, they do different things.
Eventually. What we get is a lot of
condescension and petulance. I think this episode is designed
to make you empathize with Matt because he's been a little on
the annoying side at the least, prick at the worst in the past
few episodes. It's effective at doing that
(05:19):
though. I was definitely finding empathy
for Matt. A lot of crazy stuff ensues to
the point where you're once again going, how is this guy a
studio head? I suppose I think of people that
have gotten to that position in life as having their shit
together. But you know, maybe they don't.
If we're basing it off this, they certainly don't.
It was another effective episodeof the studio.
Also this was the last episode that I had already seen so I got
(05:40):
to this episode before I decidedto start ranking and stop and
have been re watching. So next week's episode will be
the first time I've seen the episode new while I'm also
ranking it. And I'm realizing as I'm saying
this you probably don't care about this but I thought it was
fun and so I sure there you go. But that's it.
That's the whole episode. Let's see how it ranked.
(06:03):
I'll wank. So the rank is where I rank the
episode based on five categories.
Story, acting, dialogue, episodecoherence, and character
relatability. I rank it on a scale of one to
five, one being the worst, five being the best.
And then I had a laugh counter where I tally up the amount of
times that the episode made me laugh out loud and that gets
added to the score. First category is story and I
gave that a four and a half. Relationship stories are always
(06:25):
good ones for sitcoms and this one is no different.
Excellent story. Making rich people feel
relatable is hard, but this showis doing that pretty well.
I like the way they put this together and that they find a
way to give you empathy format in the circumstance where you'd
think there'd be no way that would happen at a pediatric
oncology gala charity event. I'm not going to go any further
than that. I'm trying to avoid spoilers for
you. The next category is acting,
(06:46):
which I gave a 4.75. Acting was excellent.
Actually, the guest acting was really good too.
Whoever they had playing the doctors was great, just the
right level of nerdy, but also condescending.
Even Knoxville was fine playing himself.
Still not great though. I mean, it is Johnny Knoxville
after all. I got no problem with you,
Johnny, but you know you're not a great actor offense.
Well, yes, it is true. So we go to dialogue, which is
(07:09):
the next category, which I gave a 4.75.
Really great dialogue, really clever, maybe a little too much
diarrhea and shit stuff, but it worked.
Also, again, as I've been sayingfor the show, there aren't a lot
of laugh out loud moments, whichwould be better for a comedy.
You know, it's a comedy. So like make me laugh out loud
more. Just saying let's go to episode
coherence, which I give A5. This again is where the show
(07:31):
shines. They make compact stories where
they don't have much real estate, so they use every thing
they can. Everything serves a plot point,
everything fits together. It's it's really a very well
done show so far. So let's go to character
relatability, which I gave a pie.
I know I spent a lot of the overview sort of making fun of
the fact that this lifestyle isn't relatable, but I actually
found the motivations of everyone in this episode to be
(07:52):
super relatable, even if their lifestyles aren't.
So that leaves us with the laughcounter, which I had 10, which
is it's not bad. It's double digits at least, but
I feel like it should should be more for the caliber of the show
that I'm watching. It feels like I should have
more. But the total for this episode
is a 34.25, which puts it just below the Holy Grail.
(08:14):
Staying in the I'd watch it again to you.
So that puts a series average ata 31.875 average, which keeps it
in I'd watch it again. So thanks for listening
everybody. If you'd like to see a list of
our episode and series rankings so you can do that on our
website therankwithjohnzack.com.Remember to subscribe, review
and comment. And please consider supporting
us on our Patreon site at patreon.com/the Rank Podcast
(08:36):
where you can get access to all of our archived episodes.
And I will leave you with this. Why was there so much symmetry
between Matt's life and the fakediarrhea movie they were making?
Because when he tries to leave the gala, he runs.
Oh no. I'm sorry, let's say that's the
best thing. So that so OK, burp right in the
(09:13):
middle of it. Great.
It's kind of gross.
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