Childrens Hospital

Not to be confused with children's hospital or Children's Hospital.

Childrens Hospital
Title card
Created by	Rob Corddry
Developed by	Rob Corddry Jonathan Stern David Wain
Starring	Malin Åkerman Lake Bell Rob Corddry Erinn Hayes Rob Huebel Ken Marino Megan Mullally Henry Winkler
Theme music composer	Matt Novack
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	19 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Rob Corddry Jonathan Stern David Wain co-executive producer: Rich Rosenthal
Production companies	The Corddry Company Abominable Pictures WB Studio 2. 0. Warner Bros. Television Williams Street
Original release
Network	TheWB.com (2008) Adult Swim (2010-present)
Release	December 8, 2008; July 11, 2010 – present
Related
National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle

Childrens Hospital is a satirical comedy television series and a web series that lampoons the medical show genre, created by and starring actor/comedian Rob Corddry. The series began on the web on TheWB.com with ten episodes, roughly five minutes in length, all of which premiered on December 8, 2008. Adult Swim picked up the rights to the show in 2009 and began airing episodes in 2010.

The storyline centers on the staff of Childrens Hospital, a hospital for children named after a Dr. Childrens. The hospital sporadically (and usually without reason) is mentioned as being located within Brazil, despite making virtually no effort to conceal that the series is shot in Los Angeles, California. Corddry is part of an ensemble cast portraying the hospital's doctors, which also includes Lake Bell, Erinn Hayes, Rob Huebel, Ken Marino and Megan Mullally. Malin Åkerman and Henry Winkler joined the cast for season two.

Synopsis

Main article: List of Childrens Hospital episodes

Childrens Hospital (with no apostrophe because the hospital is named after Dr. Arthur Childrens) is a product of TheWB.com. Its webisodes are about 4–5 minutes long, each narrated by mainly Dr. Cat Black in Season 1, and by Dr Valerie Flame in Season 2. The show mocks such hospital dramas as St. Elsewhere, House, Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy, General Hospital, Private Practice, Chicago Hope, and ER with such scenes as doctors making out in front of underage patients and a crippled female doctor forced to walk around on two crutches.

Broadcasting

Though Comedy Central made a competing offer, the show was picked up by Cartoon Network's Williams Street-produced Adult Swim programming block after Corddry decided the comedy style was not suited for the half-hour format Comedy Central wanted. Adult Swim offered half-hour or fifteen minute time slots, and Corddry chose the latter. The original season one webisodes began airing on Adult Swim on July 11, 2010, in groups of two with a new faux-commercial in between the groupings of two webisodes. The channel then debuted the newly produced season two episodes which began airing on August 22, 2010.

On September 1, 2010 Childrens Hospital began airing on the Canadian television channel G4.

Childrens Hospital premiered on Australia's Comedy Channel on the 26th of January 2011.

Characters

The series revolves around the medical staff of Childrens Hospital, featuring an ensemble cast. These actors receive top billing in the credits:

• Dr. Blake Downs (Rob Corddry) – he does his job while wearing clown makeup and bloodied surgical scrubs. He believes in "the healing power of laughter," instead of medicine. The character's outlook on medicine seems to parody Robin Williams's character's in the film Patch Adams. His frightening clown makeup often scares the child patients, and ironically wears a very similar style of face paint to serial killer John Wayne Gacy as "Pogo the Clown".
• Dr. Cat Black (Lake Bell) – ex-girlfriend of Glenn Richie who has a thing for her roommate Lola Spratt. Things became awkward between her and Lola after Cat accidentally sneezed on Lola when making a sexual advance on her. She narrates the show, wandering through the hospital, thinking faux-deep thoughts like the characters on Scrubs and Grey's Anatomy. She used to date actor Josh Brolin. Cat begins dating Little Nicky, a six year old boy with advanced aging disease and she dies giving birth to his child. In "The Sultan's Finger", however, it is revealed she didn't die, but somehow lost all her previous medical knowledge.
• Dr. Glenn Richie (Ken Marino) – an Orthodox Jewish doctor and ex-boyfriend of Cat Black. Frequently wears a yarmulke. Dr. Richie first appeared in The Ten, which also starred Corddry and was directed by producer David Wain.
• Dr. Owen Maestro (Rob Huebel) – a dim-witted doctor and Lola Spratt's ex-boyfriend. He's a former New York cop who left the force after 9/11. His former police partner Briggs is constantly trying to convince him to come back to the force.
• The Chief (Megan Mullally) – the crippled head of the hospital's staff who uses a walker. The male staff members at the hospital often make remarks about their sexual attraction to her. A parody of Dr. Kerry Weaver of ER and Dr. Gregory House from House. She has a crush on Sy Mittleman but she publicly acts like she hates him so that the staff thinks she's on their side in the struggle against him. In a Season 2 episode, Lizzy Caplan plays The Chief's daughter, who owns her own real estate business.
• Dr. Lola Spratt (Erinn Hayes) – Cat's roommate and Owen Maestro's ex-girlfriend. Cat is obsessed with her. Lola broke up with Owen by pretending she had a tumor, but he began to believe she was serious. Lola faked her death at the end of season 1 because she broke down after getting too many e-mails. She reappears at the hospital in season 2, but no one understands when she explains she faked her death and they all think she is a ghost. When she finally proves she's not a ghost, she reveals she's a gifted ventriloquist, having pretended to die on the operating table by using a long hum simulating a flat-line sound.
• Dr. Valerie Flame (Malin Åkerman) – (Season 2-3), replaces Cat after her death in the second episode of season 2, taking over the duties of narrating the show.
• Sy Mittleman (Henry Winkler) – (Season 2-3), is the administrator. He runs the insurance company that owns the hospital. He collects butterflies and seems to have a sexual obsession with them. He is the object of much scorn from the staff. Mittleman frequently has to resist The Chief's come-ons. He is happily married with children and has no desire to begin a sexual relationship with her, but he eventually gives in to her advances in the episode, "Hot Enough for You?"

Recurring

• Sal Viscuso (Michael Cera) – (voice only), the never-shown hospital staffer who speaks over the intercom. He typically speaks one line per episode, usually a non sequitur. The character name is an homage to one of the actors (real-life name Sal Viscuso) who voiced the unseen P.A. announcer in the TV series M*A*S*H.
• Nurse Dori (Zandy Hartig) – Little Nicky's mother who does not approve of Cat's relationship with her son. When Nicky dies in season two, Dori begins working at the hospital. She also works serving food in the hospital cafeteria.
• Chet (Brian Huskey) – (Seasons 2-3), the creepy EMT guy who has a crush on The Chief.
• Officer Chance Briggs (Nick Offerman) – (Seasons 1-2), Owen Maestro's former partner, a mustachioed New York city cop.
• Little Nicky (Nick Kroll) – (Seasons 1-2), a little boy with a rare aging disease, and later the father of Dr. Black's unborn child. Little Nicky takes on the tendencies of an old man once his disease reaches advanced stages. The disease takes his life in season two. Kroll also portrays Dr. Black's son, who is also suffering from the aging disease.
• Dr. Jason Mantzoukas (Nathan Corddry) and Dr. Ed Helms (Ed Helms) – (Season 1), two doctors who usually appear together and make sexual remarks about The Chief.
• Dr. Max Von Sydow (John Ross Bowie) – (Season 1) a doctor who tries to cure The Chief's condition.
• Dr. Nate Schacter (Seth Morris) - (Season 1), another clown doctor with whom Dr. Blake Downs develops a rivalry.
• Ben Hayflick (Kurtwood Smith) – (Season 2), head of the National Division of Health who is trying to suppress Dr. Richie's cancer cure so that his organization doesn't lose all the money it gets for cancer research.
• Derrick Childrens (Jon Hamm) - (Seasons 2-3), the son of the founder of Childrens Hospital and secret identity of Valerie Flame.
• Dr. Brian (Jordan Peele) - (Seasons 2-3),

Production

Portions of the show are filmed in North Hollywood Medical Center, the same former hospital used for filming Scrubs and several other movies and television programs.

As a parody of the live episode of ER, the season two finale (aired November 7, 2010) was promoted as a live broadcast.

On October 1, Adult Swim announced that the show was renewed for a third season consisting of 14 new episodes, set to air on June 2, 2011.

Spin-off

Main article: National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle

Recently, Adult Swim announced that the mock trailers for National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle (NTSF:SD:SUV for short) shown in Childrens Hospital will be turned into a separate series, starting with an order of 12 episodes.

Ratings

According to a commercial bump shown on Adult Swim during the week of September 12–18, 2010, Childrens Hospital has received its highest ratings to date on its new Midnight (Eastern Time) slot. On Friday, it has pulled in 525,000 viewers while Sunday pulled 551,000 (in the 18–34 demographic). Since then, it has once hit the 900k mark.

External links

• Childrens Hospital at Adultswim.com
• Childrens Hospital at TheWB.com
• Childrens Hospital at IMDb
• Template:TV.com