‘Scrubs’ Creator Bill Lawrence On ‘Fake Doctors, Real Friends’

Zach Braff and Donald Faison starred on Scrubs together and became best friends for life. So on their podcast Fake Doctors, Real Friends, they’re revisiting the show one episode at a time, sharing behind-the-scenes memories and interviewing some of the most beloved members of the cast and crew. On this episode, they bring on the creator of Scrubs, Bill Lawrence. “He’s the reason we’re here, the reason we’re friends...the reason I have this desk, the reason I have this water bottle,” Zach says. They talk about what gave Bill the idea for the show, what casting was like, what he was able to do on TV then that probably wouldn’t work now, and their favorite moments and memories from the third episode of the first season, “My Best Friend’s Mistake.”

Bill tells Zach and Donald that he had a best friend in college named JD, “the real JD,” who “was such a bad student...I used to joke with him that my biggest nightmare would be waking up in an emergency room and have you standing over me saying, ‘Hey, you’re gonna be fine.’ And I thought it would be a funny TV show,” he says. When he went in to pitch it to ABC, the executive had a big office chair turned around so they couldn’t see his face (“You mean like a bad guy in a movie?!” Donald laughs), and “midway through the pitch we all heard audible snoring,” Bill recalls. “I was literally like ‘I don't think this pitch is going that well, guys!’” 

He was already pretty successful, having written for Spin City, so he was able to really hold out for the type of show he wanted to do, he says; NBC originally wanted to change it from a single-camera comedy show to a more traditional sitcom with a laugh track. He also admits that he “cheated” when it came to casting: He would give his favorite actors extra jokes or bits to do in their auditions that he didn’t give to others. It almost backfired for Donald, though; Bill warned him to make sure he was high energy for his audition, and he came in “dialed up to 11,” Bill laughs. He nailed all the comedy, but the other executives didn’t go for it: “They said, ‘he very obviously can’t do the sincere, dramatic moments, because he’s an insane person.” So Bill got Donald another read and told him to play it like it was a drama, and he landed the part. “Twenty-something years later, I owe you a lot, bro,” Donald says. 

They get into the episode itself, talking about JD’s “Muppet turns,” and how weird it was for Bill to watch Zach make out with his wife, as well as the memes they get sent the most, how different the sex scenes would be handled on TV now, and much more on this episode of Fake Doctors, Real Friends.

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