Real Friends Classic -103: My Best Friend's Mistake w Bill Lawrence

Donald Countison. One two, No, Donald down, donalds go down. That's not what I meant.

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.

Is like seven eight right exactly, your song count us into our song?

Donald, I really don't want to anymore.

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.

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.

All right, listen, we have Donald one of our first We have our first real guest.

Yes we do. And I'm really excited about this.

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.

He's the reason why I'm in my why I have a closet that I can stay in right now.

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.

Yeah, I pretended to not even be in the frame, even though this is not a video thing.

Hey, guys, I know I wish we were recording so people could see that.

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.

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.

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 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?

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.

He was a fuck up and a curse on.

You, curse away, Bill, go nuts, let loose.

He was.

He was a screw up. I went the other way, and.

I used to joke with him because he was such a bad student that he went back to college to go to med school a second time.

I mean to pre med a second time, so we'll get in 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.

Gonna be fine.

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

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.

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.

I'm really proud, and I said, hey, is the real JD.

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 Cox took the Kelso job late in life, and he runs the whole hospital on in those fields.

That said game you speak of is probably the roughest game I've ever played in in my life. Jaws being broke, noses broke, It's quested.

It's a bunch of dumb comedy writers too.

Man, Oh my gosh, it's violent. It's so violent. It's violent, dude, it's violent.

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.

Yeah, Bill, send me a video Will dunky. He's like, you have no idea how proud this makes me?

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.

If you if you had sent me that kid singing bring him Home from lim Is, I would have cried.

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.

I would have had it on repeat. I literally would have just been playing Will singing bring him Home.

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.

Donald Will does it?

Will does it now aggressively.

It's pretty cool.

That's awesome. Like on the Spin move on to Break.

You can do it off the dribble, and he can do it off an hour you he's has troubles, still gripping.

Why are you guys speaking Latin right now? I have no idea.

He tries, he tries.

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 how you do this, and this is what you'd be doing in this particular situation. And this was still in

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. 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 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

Put the mask with your eyes and do it with your eyes.

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.

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.

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 want the medicine to always be as accurate as possible.

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 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.

Going back and forth between serious and goofy tone.

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.

When you came up, you were coming off of Spin City for those of you who don't know.

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.

Yeah, he would, he'd love to.

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.

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?

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, this particular experience. Even before I met you guys, I was like, all right, you can't have any expectations. There's no huge movie star doing this.

You guys have probably heard me say before.

I decided to treat this whole thing like, all right, I wrote the script. No one's ever gonna make it. They're gonna let me shoot the pilot.

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. I thought that I was making something like Freaks and 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. So I was really into the art of it all.

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.

It was very weird.

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.

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,

We see him at home, we see 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 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

Yeah, that's something I wanted to talk about is we start going through the show.

Just so we're clear though, who was the president of the network? Was the president? What was Sassa? What was Sassa?

Scott Sassa was very sassified.

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.

Was I always thought at the time, I thought that Jeff Zucker was Scott Sass's assistant.

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.

And what's really interesting is if you.

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.

That don't necessarily say writer.

And when I handed in the first three scripts, you know, a showrunner always rewrites everything on any show. We had a great writing staff, but I was still doing that. A Scott Sasa called me up. 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

So crazy man.

And then he shockingly got fired and uh, Jeff Sucker replaced him right before Donald kissed his head.

Right kiss his head.

Yes. Yeah.

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.

That was Heather Graham?

Yes, wow you John. Yeah.

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?

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.

That's that's a good writer trick. You put an imaginary ticking clock on something and everybody invests in it.

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.

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 sure who he was.

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.

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

The dude is a true story 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.

You had a night I think before.

B b B B b b B.

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 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.

But it was why the life of our show was so weird.

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.

So it was it was a weird business arrangement.

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.

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.

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.

So it was.

He was very nice about it. At least he was not the one that fell asleep.

Yeah, will you tell us about casting Turk?

And Wow, you're just going to get right into it.

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.

Uh.

I was a Donald fan already.

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, which is, you know, the one thing I tell people

Laugh.

So I used to tell everybody.

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 don't you make sure you dial that energy up to eleven?

Everybody, Donald, I mean Donald's like, hello Los Angeles, and he came in and he.

Did he did his audition 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.

That's me.

And they never do this.

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.

It's a single camera show, you know.

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.

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.

For them. For them, that was too much. 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.

Donald came back in, and this is.

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.

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.

I don't have the best bedside manner.

You guys know that.

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.

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.

What was this for?

This was for scrubs?

Really 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.

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 and actresses have stuff that they've brought on their own

Well, I didn't.

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.

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

And uh. And so we had this giant level.

Me and the casting directors, you know, bretton Debbie 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 just so Johnny C.

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?

How you doing better now?

Better now?

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.

Some ammo I love that, dude. Man, that's funny.

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.

Braff They want Zach braff Ish.

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 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?

And so he didn't.

Yes, you guy, you mean off the space. But that's a different guy. No, it's the same guy.

No, that's not the same guy.

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.

And then we were we were afraid of Bill in the beginning, but then when we got like more friends.

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 as a joke, I went into his office. I was like, dude,

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.

There's only two things I remember like that. 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.

I'm like, dude, I don't have time for you to Sarah one Morsey.

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?

One more?

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?

Thought I was speaking like kling On.

It is gibberish.

That song had like a nice hook to it. She wants one more when she's had five.

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 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?

Donald? Was that Chris Rock inspired?

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. I remember we laughed for days about that.

You're really funny in this episode.

I wanted to say, yes, you are.

Now that we're talking about the episode, I.

Was going to say that we can segue to these This is.

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.

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?

I'm almost positive, but I gotta go look.

The pilot and the next one or two were directed by Adam Bernstein.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

And it's the first time we did a cowboy switch.

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.

And then Zach puts up like this, Yeah.

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.

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.

I wish I could get back into that shape.

You can do so they eat too much shit.

Well, twenty six years old body compared to a forty six year old body is a big, big, big, big difference. Man.

Well, I I really I took notice that you looked fire.

Well.

I accept and receive that, and so did Rob.

Mashioh Rob Roy any of black hair? U? I got to tell you, man.

So this is one of the things I get mocked for.

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.

Yes, Donald getting a nugge to Jef Zucker.

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?

And uh uh you were in a fraternity?

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

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.

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 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 would you even say good splot that's not even a work.

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 walk out. Yeah, so I h when I when I leave the viewing room here, I sort of do a

You used also ever got yeah became.

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.

Yeah, I didn't.

I didn't paint it out.

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?

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.

Right. But this one was this This was not because it says women's something at the top.

Yeah, No, it was particularly bad. There's a lot of bad stuff in here, guys. You know.

I always get shipped.

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. Deer Scrubs used to be a huge fan.

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.

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.

Yeah.

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.

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.

And when he finally got back to camera, I was.

Go, Showsaver, sure.

You know we were in real.

Trouble and you fixed it with that light that's one hundred yards.

In the background.

Yeah. Well, the man was passionate. He wanted to get it just perfect, Zach.

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.

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.

Not that cause it was pretty uh suggestive and graphic risque.

Sure, that was so awesome, by the way, like holy count.

My job right right.

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.

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.

You remember that.

I remember something being like I was like, I know, I think I was like keep rolling.

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.

I don't know if you remember.

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 he's to be laughed at and not with. But unfortunately I think he was laughed with a lot. Uh So

Well, I noticed that. I noticed that There are a lot of things and this is just how how time

Oh, they'd be so careful.

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, if in a primetime network comedy, if you could do a sweaty sex threesome joke.

No.

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 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 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

You know that 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.

I'm like, right, it's real.

He's the bad guy on the show.

And there's a nursing shortage, so like, don't discourage people.

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.

When I said the show has to.

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

You did, you did?

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.

I still have that on a loop at my house. It's awesome hard soon No, Yeah, I mean he's super sexy.

I'm really grateful.

Oh my gosh, it is did you did?

You guys think you were doing fairly racy sex scenes.

The time.

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.

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, and because of that, I uh you know when I watched her stuff. That's that's what everybody hopes for when

And much I liked you guys.

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 we're gonna do will there won't they with the other characters and how cool is it to see a couple

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.

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?

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.

Yeah, I get it. By the way, post pictures of me hugging anyone because they're like, why aren't you hugging turk?

Right?

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?

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.

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.

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 and you say, okay, so Peter's married to and this is his family and this is and you accept that

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 subtle we had. It's one of those discussions you have

And we don't want.

Turk to just you know, be like I'll drop JD in an instant. 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

It back to you, but you had.

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.

Hang out in my room? We look to you and when we.

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?

And you already did you always this early have the sort of white flash to a fantasy always, I forget.

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.

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 Donald packs me into the bag, it was literally it

I had a fake foot by your head and then so when he scratched your nose, your foot went h.

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.

That all right.

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 the parking lot was closed. I better gone uh oh the corner and there was like a final tap, there

For most of the episode. He kept yelling at people.

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.

Yeah, they're a mistake.

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.

For fucking.

When you and Jad eventually.

Do Yeah, I mean this episode is this This might have been your peak sound effects moment as you're figuring out.

Oh no, there's another one coming. I know there's another one coming.

But this one has this one has the ear flick noise and also pretty much like anytime Johnny c moved.

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.

Is this funny? And I thought it was funny. I hated those sound effects so much.

Did you guys do the trivia question of the one sound effect that stayed all nine years?

It's got to be the wish to go away into fantasy?

Yeah, no wish to fantasies? Though, is not a sign effect with an actor. There's an actor.

Oh oh, Todd high five?

Whoops, there you go, Todd's high five being amplified times nine thousand.

I think it's I think that's the.

Sound of like a rubber matt being slapped on the ground, you know, And we kept that one forever.

That's funny. They really hurt, by the way. I mean, John, I'm not being a whimp. They genuinely hurt.

No one's calling you a wimp. But come on, he.

Still passes out five's, you know on the line to people.

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.

I'll accept and receive it, thank you very much.

Three twenty six, The janitor says one of my favorite lines of the first season. You see him unhappy. I like that.

I had forgotten that he locked you outside.

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 he was just so friggin funny.

I have a question, did he have to audition? Also, that's the other question. He did not happen.

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

Well I get to wear one of those cool lab jumpsuit. Gray jumpsuit.

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.

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.

He was drunk most of the time.

That was one of my favorite lines ever's have you been drinking?

I'm not drunk? Na, So look JD, the real JD told.

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

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?

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.

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 know if you remember when he had a sock puppet.

I don't know.

But next thing you know, we're pulled over on the side of the road, shirts off, which meant.

The duck was wearing your shirt.

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.

Man.

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.

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.

Yeah, Neil, please say something funny. It's late one script.

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.

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.

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, 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.

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 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

You know, I love it.

Bill. We take a caller here on our show, and it looks like, by the.

Way, I just thought it was a super villain because it is us a as a gentleman. That is.

For you guys listening at home. His picture came up on zoom and he's petting a cat, like like the evil genius.

You all are enjoying talking about your show. Well, I have bad news.

That's all right, Well, go ahead and introduce him.

Yes, Hi, Mike, thanks so much for joining us.

Hi everyone, how are you?

Can you hear me? Yes?

We can you just fine, Martin.

It's my first ever zoom meeting. I've never done this. I'm glad it's working.

I'm glad you're here.

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.

Oh well, hello Bill Lawrence, and hello all of you.

That's awesome. I'm so glad.

To be Where do you live, by the way, I live in Chicago.

I'm on the northwest side Chicago, up in Avondale, Old Irving Park area.

Shotaw, stand up, we.

Were just talking about Neil Flynn.

That's where that's the area of the world that he is from.

My friend really Oh, but not your specific area. But he's from Chicago. No, but he was like downstairs right now, right now?

No no, no, no, I mean he could be all right, go ahead, Mark, all right.

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

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 of service, you know, and his viewpoint right now.

You know, not to make this two poignant.

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 could steal all of his stories, but we could never

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 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

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

Don't have it and or any insurance at all.

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 this guy a bed, and I thought that was just amazing.

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.

I remember the song.

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.

And we made this joke about.

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.

And at the end of that episode, even he because he.

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.

Awesome.

Thank you guys for giving such detailed, great responses.

Sure, I think it just speaks to how much you.

Guys feel for the show and put into the show.

It really comes across, and I think that's why I've been such a big fan for so long.

So thank you, Thank you, Mark, Thanks so much for asking your question.

Do you want to ask another question? Oh? Sure, all right, you get one more?

All right?

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.

Your guys's Turk and JD and JD and doctor.

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.

And how that might have affected your real life.

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.

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 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

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.

I am I played sports and was the high.

School jockey type guy that I was afraid of this stuff.

And on the other side, I do Zach and I share a love of Broadway.

Musicals, Robin French, Gobil.

Ndtude.

All right, whatever, and uh you take the watch. That's a digression. Well in later episodes, Okay, Uh.

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, they wrestle ownership from you. And what starts out is

Me, Like that's my favorite gift. Is my favorite gift, and use it all the time.

Whatever.

People are always like you using gifts of yourself. I'm like, yeah, that one I do.

Because it really looks like we're trying to smell each other, dude, really looks like.

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.

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.

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.

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.

They're fantastic. There's like a thousand of them out there, and it always starts with a fake setup.

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.

There the facts and then the groom.

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.

Like this, lauding. I love it.

All right, Mark, thank you for two awesome questions.

Thanks for having me that great? All right, stay says meeting your Mark.

Hey, stay safe, buddy, he can be healthy, Bill.

Why does nurse Roberts have so many bowling shoes for sale?

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 is he's in a topic with Nurse Roberts and she's got a side hustle. And we were like, what's her

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?

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.

About turk apropos of nothing, Nurse.

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.

I would really want that.

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.

No, because I got them in my locker.

Oh yeah, you want to write me check.

You want to write me a check because I got them in my locker.

So I picture her locker is just stacked bullings is every couple of days she saw someone a pair of bowling shoes.

It's just a little side hustle.

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 the ground. The camera can't find me and comes back and like a magic trick, I've switched back to where

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.

So I thought it was awesome.

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.

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.

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 occasionally overlapped penguins yogurt, and he was just like your shift.

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.

Yeah, they're all blending in. They're all just people that drifted through her life. You know.

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.

That was That was the last thing I had to I was gonna ask you.

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.

Did we?

No?

No?

No?

Oh?

You mean was he an episode two?

Yeah? He is an episode two.

That's when we introduced him. That's when we.

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.

That would be a huge issue.

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.

That is true. I told you, I told you it's true.

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

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.

Did you get Rowdy or did you get Stephen?

I got nothing neither. They're all I told you this story.

I mean, when we break so we don't live together anymore. At one point, who gets who gets who?

Oh? I forgot who got rowdy and who got Steven?

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.

You knew one of them was fixed, so.

Rowdy hit that. I think that's Donald's line to open.

I don't see. I don't know if today you could do taxidermy dead dogs humping someone's leg.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's a whole.

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

So that's what this stuff.

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.

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 much as I see the two of you, but it's always it's always dope, you know what I mean. I enjoy.

So happy.

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.

You know what I thought you could do that.

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?

Or is this true? You can fire it off to me.

I will voice mema record a one line response that you can edit in that.

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.

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.

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 for for all of us.

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.

But spend a few minutes and do it.

Thank you so much. And on that note, Donald, will you lead us in song?

Yeah? Five five six story.

Show we made about a bunch of talks and nurses in Canada whom I.

Said, here's the story.

NEPWLL should know, so gather around you here up, gather around you here, up.

Scruts me.

My show is a