The Quad

Issue date: 10/22/07 Section: Entertainment

On October 18, The Quad participated in a conference call with the creator of the hit NBC series, "Scrubs", Bill Lawrence, as well as its star, Zach Braff. Braff and Lawrence, who have been involved with the show since its inception, spoke to The Quad about the upcoming seventh and final season of the show, as well as fascinating details about themselves and the series itself.

In talking about the inspiration behind the series itself, Lawrence told The Quad, "The original idea of Scrubs was there is a guy named Jon Doris who is a medical advisor on the show and his name is J.D. And we call him Real J.D. when he's here on the set. We call him Real and he's one of my best friends from college. And he became a doctor.

"…we were just drinking some beers and he was telling me about his internship. And, you know, he's one of the funnier guys I knew in college and it just struck me that, you know, here on American TV we like our doctors to be very serious and they yell the word stat a lot and they burst through doors a lot. And when I was talking to him, you know, he's still the same funny guy and he was just talking to me about all the weird personalities and situations and […] how they use humor to get by in the hospitals. And I just thought it would be a good TV show. And I have since, systematically stolen every funny medical story I can from all my friends that are physicians. And one of the things we take pride in on the show is that all the […] medical stuff -- even though we exaggerate it for comedy -- is real."

Both Braff and Lawrence shared with The Quad their method for using improvisation in the show. "We always do what's written and then often we'll riff on different punchlines that either Bill comes up with or one of the writers comes up with, or one of the actors comes up with," said Braff.

Lawrence added, "the one thing you miss in a single camera show is in classic sitcoms that I worked on, you get immediate audience feedback if something works. So here, it's usually let's see if we can make the crew laugh. It's something different that we say. And if they do, more often than not it ends up in the show."

When asked if the popular but nameless janitor, played by Neil Flynn, would ever get a name by the end of the series, Lawrence responded, "I always promised (Flynn) two things. That by the end of the show, he'd have a name and he'd eventually get to have a girlfriend. So I had to make good on both of those this year. He's the one character that hasn't ever had a romantic interest as well."

Continued...

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